On the June 24, 2025, I became aware that an international fixture game between my alma mater high school Atlantis Secondary (RSA) and Loughborough Grammar School (UK) on July 4, 2025 (in Atlantis) has been cancelled. The school’s official communication cited two reasons for the game’s cancellation.

Firstly, they attribute it to British parents being concerned about their children’s safety following comments made about Cape Town in the Oval Office, Washington DC. Secondly, they cite high crime statistics in Atlantis. The principal of Atlantis Secondary, an intellectually astute educator and former English teacher of mine, reiterated that there has been no gangster-related activity on school premises.

Additionally, she noted the disappointment that the youth rugby team, who are undoubtedly talented, had this opportunity to play an international fixture taken away from them. Sentiments that I echo and share, especially given that Atlantis Secondary was so foundational in my education and I am linked to the United Kingdom through my postgraduate studies and doctoral work. 

A day later, on June 25, 2025, after the announcement by the school, the Democratic Alliance NCOP member on Security and Justice Nicholas Gotsell released a statement that necessitated my response in this letter. The DA representative echoes disappointment at the cancellation of the match, especially given that our rugby team has been excitedly and diligently preparing for this match.

According to the DA, this match cancellation is an indictment on the Western Cape Provincial Police commissioner Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile for absconding on his constitutional mandate to ensure effective policing in the province. Gotsell accuses Patekile of, and I quote, “turning a blind eye and presides over a SAPS that continuously misdirects its resources to the detriment of communities ravished by drug and gang wars and abuses his delegated authority as Police Commissioner to overturn the dismissal of criminals within the force.”

He further states that he agrees Atlantis Secondary is not the problem (I too agree) and bemoans the fact that the young rugby team is collateral damage in “a war they never chose to fight in”.  The DA NCOP member concludes by saying he will submit parliamentary questions regarding concrete steps to address crime in Atlantis and gestures that the people of Atlantis deserve answers, safety and opportunity. 

I echo his conclusion, particularly given that I was raised in Atlantis and have been living here for the past two years as I have been writing up my doctoral dissertation (which coincidentally studies trans* and gender non-conforming people in Atlantis).

All the days and nights that I have spent reading and writing have been laced with intermittent gunshots, multiple funerals and a general death-fear ambience that contours the streets of this town.

Yet, I am not so easily fooled.

For the past 10 years, I have devoted myself to understanding the inequality and violence that structure the lives of Black and Coloured people in the townships particularly. I am classically trained in sociology (UCT) and have completed an MSc in Africa and International Development at the University of Edinburgh. I thus write from a place of informed opinion, expert testimony if you will. 

My gripe with the entire fiasco stems from Gotsell’s response in his press statement and in the spirit of speaking academic truth to lived experience facts I will detail my analysis and critique as summarily as possible. Firstly, I would like to call out the hypocrisy of the Democratic Alliance, a hypocrisy that is multifaceted. When South Africa made international news about the supposed “white genocide” (which is categorically untrue), the Democratic Alliance was not exempt from criticism levelled against AfriForum and the likes where drumming up characterisations of South Africa internationally is concerned.

While no evidence suggests that the DA made these claims, to my knowledge, their previous US visit, followed up by AfriForum and Solidariteit raises a sceptical eyebrow at minimum. The representation of Cape Town or South Africa as violent is a characterisation they have fuelled themselves with their dubious and subversive international relations with the United States (which undoubtedly is qualitatively comprised of enmeshed relations oscillating between “white genocide” and expropriation legislation).

At times, as other political commentators have noted, their party members worked against the diplomacy and international relations of the national government. So, if there is any characterisation of South Africa as an unredeemable violent state then they have had a hand in moulding such representation.

Now of course, when Rupert commented that gang violence in the Western Cape, especially in the Cape Flats, he did not lie. We, those who live in the Cape Flats and townships of the much celebrated and highly unequal Cape Town, know of this violence.

We witness it every day. It is our bodies, young and old, who lay dead in bushes or streets. Our lives are intimately destroyed by family members and friends with drug and substance abuse problems. No amount of words can qualitatively describe the experience of living here in such violence and seeing your governing party continuously developing the city centre and adjacent according to neoliberal (private) development. 

Which brings me to my second point. Much social science research, especially in sociology and criminology, has pointed out how police response to high crime especially gang-related violence, is an inadequate response and strategy.

There are not enough SAPS guns, training or presence alone that will “end” gang-related violence or high crime. Our people need jobs, jobs with fair wages that can sustain them. Our residential areas need more leisure and recreation space, we need housing, and the townships created under the Group Areas Act need spatial reformation: better transport and economies.

Our people need the Public Day hospital better much better resourced, hospital staff need to be adequately compensated and more healthcare infrastructure is needed. Drug addiction, substance-related care and support are needed to address the social and psychological dimensions of drug/substance addiction.

Anyone who has studied how societies/development/governance functions (and who lives in these spaces which need reforming/support could give you these broad-stroke interventions. And while I know the convenient answer is to say “That’s provincial/national’s duty” we have been blessed with a GNU (sarcasm) and the DA has been official opposition for years! 

The answer to high crime or even gang-related crime is never to have more police action, the systemic (political/economic) and cultural processes that underline gang formation and related violence need addressing and this is not done solely by SAPS. 

Given this, it is important then, Gotsell, that we understand what is happening on the Cape Flats about how the City of Cape Town itself prioritises “neoliberal development” and resources. Our city is one of the most unequal in the world and that inequality manifests and spatialises itself upon the metrics of apartheid spatial planning.

I know you and your like disassociate the moment apartheid is mentioned (because apparently, we need to get over it now), and yet the factual evidence is irrefutable. The quality of life in the Mother city greatly differs across racial, gendered and class lines.

The DA’s continued denial of the structuring power of race in post-apartheid South Africa makes them particularly inept to govern over city and even countries that see worsening levels of inequality especially in relation to the metrics such as race.

To add fuel to the fire, it is not only their denial of the structural power of race but their efforts to oppose measures which are geared towards creating a more equal society in South Africa. This is clear in, for example, their efforts to oppose new equality legislation. 

Let us be clear: the high crime, the violent nature of said crimes, and gang-related crimes in Atlantis and the Cape Flats and other townships surrounding the prosperous Mother city cannot be addressed with more police presence or better training.

What social scientists have been saying for years is that the underlying socioeconomic and cultural factors such as unemployment, spatial injustice, lack of adequate housing, substance abuse etc., have to be addressed. This requires political will, knowledge and resources to transform societies seriously. Through your denial of post-apartheid racialised realities, continued pandering to (neo)liberal logic of development and preoccupation with legislatively fighting equality measures in court, you already lack the political will and knowledge.

Yes, Atlantis wants answers and deserves safety and opportunities. So too do the rest of the cape flats and townships where many of us are relegated to a dismal quality of life while our city is continue lauded as the best city in the world. 

I look, hope, dream and work towards a future where people like me do not have opportunities like this taken away from them. Especially as a result of failed governance and structural poverty and inequality. Our communities need urgent and structural change, not political gimmicks such as that press release.

To Atlantis Secondary and the rugby team who have had their match cancelled, I would say to continue doing the vital work you have been doing. I have certainly enjoyed immense growth supported by my high school and the tireless work those educators have done to holistically support me.

The real injustice is the denial of a dignified quality of life and the opportunity of growth for those of us located at the periphery of Cape Town’s wealth and in the aftertaste of Verwoerd’s spatial apartheid.

Brindley Fortuin

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.

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