The Cape Flats is caught in a relentless cycle of low-intensity warfare that has stretched across decades. Entire communities are under siege, with lives—many of them young—routinely cut short by violence. Each surge in killings sparks fleeting outrage, but the urgency quickly fades, swallowed by a chilling return to indifference. What should be a national emergency has instead become a deadly new normal.

In recent weeks, residents have lived through yet another such wave of killings: four people gunned down by unknown assailants in Bishop Lavis; two young men shot and killed in Nyanga; seven lives lost in a mass shooting in Gugulethu; three people killed in Philippi; and three people executed in Samora Machel. These killings have become so routine, so normalised, that human beings have been reduced to numbers. It rarely even makes newspaper headlines any longer.

This crisis of crime is driven by a complex combination of social, economic, political, and cultural factors that reinforce each other. Ultimately, crime on the Cape Flats is not a series of isolated incidents, but a deeply systemic problem rooted in a painful history. Addressing this crisis requires urgent and coordinated action across sectors, to tackle both the immediate threats (keeping communities safe) while simultaneously working on the underlying systemic drivers of crime.

In the context of deepening unemployment and widespread poverty, crime is driven by a parallel criminal economy that exploits the vulnerabilities of impoverished communities. Deep and persistent poverty, combined with widespread unemployment, leaves many with limited options inside the formal legal economy.

This renders young people particularly vulnerable to being recruited into crime. This is exacerbated by growing levels of drug addiction, weakened family structures, and the absence of strong community support systems. The erosion of moral leadership and the breakdown of social cohesion have created a vacuum in which criminality thrives.

Building on the proud historical interfaith traditions of the Cape, religious leaders across faith communities have recently embarked on an interfaith response to this crisis of crime. Religion has had a long tradition of leading responses to social problems. There is the remembered role played by religion in sustaining enslaved ancestors during colonialism, as well as the role played in the struggle against apartheid. It is thus not new to find faith leaders getting their hands dirty in the messiness of social struggles.

What has stood out most thus far has been the refusal to reach for lazy or populist punitive-focussed responses. It is easy and tempting to push the “lock them all away and throw away the keys” approach. Recognising that this moment presents a profound opportunity to address the brokenness and dysfunction in communities, the collective instead embarked on a sober reflection of what is working, what is broken, and where the real levers of change are located.

Recognising the limitations and failures of the state, the imams and priests agreed on the importance of holding it accountable to its mandate while simultaneously finding tangible ways for religion to meaningfully support communities in crisis. It was agreed that religious leaders supporting community agency is what will be key to any sustainable solution.

Religious leaders identified several key structural drivers of crime. First, the role of religion in shaping prevailing social values was acknowledged. This is significant in a country where close to 90% of people belong to some form of organised religion and hold deep moral and spiritual beliefs. Yet the gap between these beautiful faith-values (peace, justice, equality, ubuntu) and the realities on the ground remains significant. Religion has a key role to play in making these values real in society.

They also understood that while it may be tempting to place the entire burden on SAPS to solve the crisis of crime, it would be mistaken to believe that a functional SAPS will solve the entirety of the complex problem of crime. There is a desire to see greater urgency in dealing with corruption and dysfunction within SAPS, but placing the full burden of societal repair on SAPS alone is simply not realistic.

Another major theme that emerged was that of intergenerational trauma. This refers to the transmission of psychological, emotional, and even biological effects of trauma from one generation to the next. This can be seen in patterns of parenting, coping mechanisms, and stress responses. Communities still carry the wounds of their enslaved great-great-grandmothers’ violence in their bodies today. This means that the unprocessed pain of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid lives on in the present. Is it any wonder that in these communities, violence has become a normalised response to conflict?

The role of prisons was also brought sharply into focus. South Africa has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and an alarmingly high rate of repeat offending (recidivism). Prisons are massively overcrowded. But prisons are not simply failing due to overcrowding. The prison system lacks the approach and resources needed to rehabilitate. Prisons, in their current form, are not part of the solution but are very much located at the heart of the problem.

Predictably, the economic crisis was raised as a major driver of crime. If there is to be seriousness about addressing crime and violence, the economic conditions that create fertile ground for them to thrive must be confronted. For 30 years, South Africa has pursued a neoliberal economic path that has entrenched inequality, deepened poverty, and abandoned poor communities. This economic model has failed the majority—not only in South Africa, but globally—and its consequences are written into the daily realities of hunger, unemployment, and desperation. To break the cycle of violence, there is an urgent need for a bold and transformative economic strategy, one that puts people before profit and nature and instead centres justice, dignity, and inclusion.

One of the more complex challenges raised was the growing alienation of young people from religion. By and large, the youth are increasingly disconnected from churches and mosques. Religious leaders were challenged to consider what it would mean to make religion relevant and compelling to a generation who feels increasingly alienated from traditional religious practice, even as they hunger for meaning and community.

If religious institutions intend to play a leading role in social transformation, they will have to find new ways to reach and provide meaning in the lives of young people.Another particularly vulnerable demographic are girls and women.  While often less visible, gender-based violence is a critical dimension of the crisis. The Western Cape has among the highest GBV rates in a country already facing one of the worst GBV epidemics globally. Cape Flats communities like Delft, Nyanga, Gugulethu, and Mitchells Plain are nationally recognised GBV hotspots, where women and girls face daily threats in homes, streets, and public spaces.

As religious leaders grapple with the complex nature of the crime crisis, there is a constant reminder that while the urgency is real, the solution has to be long term and sustainable. This will be a long and challenging journey. It demands a confrontation with the brutalities of the present while laying the foundations for a different future—one rooted in healing, justice, and restoration.

There is broad consensus on the need to focus on healing, given how much trauma communities have endured. This is not only about individual spiritual healing, but also about collective healing from trauma and brokenness. Many, if not most, live with deep emotional wounds that remain unacknowledged and unhealed. Religious institutions are uniquely positioned to create spaces for storytelling, mourning, and healing. These processes are essential to breaking the cycles of hurt that show up in the forms of addiction, violence, or despair.

This healing has to include religious institutions confronting their internal values contradictions: the gap between the values they proclaim and their own institutional practices.

While government has a critical role to play, the state cannot solve this crisis alone. The moral voice and social infrastructure of religious communities must be reimagined as the centre of the response. Religious leaders need to be equipped not only theologically, but also politically and psychologically, so they can guide their communities through the complexity of this moment.

This growing call for religion to take on a greater role in helping communities emerge from this crisis is not a sentimental yearning for lost piety. It is a call to moral responsibility, to bold vision, and to collective healing. In a place suspended between despair and possibility, faith-based institutions can and must become bridges rather than walls. 

* Fatima Shabodien is a feminist social justice activist who grew up in Belhar on the Cape Flats. She had the privilege of facilitating a series of interfaith strategy sessions convened by the Cape Crime Crisis Coalition (CCCC), in partnership with the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) and the Western Province Council of Churches (WPCC)—both preeminent umbrella bodies representing Muslim and Christian communities. This op-ed is based on reflections drawn from those sessions but represents the views of the author. 

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

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