Globally we have diverse realities, some are based on race, culture, religion and money, etc.
Our realities are also divided along social and class lines, etc. Thus, few white, brown and black people share a lived reality.
Although we may share a work site or some facilities, mostly we are divided and this makes it easy for a few elite to dominate.
Those who are invested in our structural and conceptual divisions, purposely divide us. What am I talking about? A worker travels to the city to work and returns home to a far-away township. The worker rarely visits the V&A Waterfront or Camps Bay as the worker shops where they live.
Conveying groceries from the Waterfront to Philippi, etc is an effort.
The worker will see Table Mountain but does not consider taking a cable car. Attending events in the city after dark is crazy as public transport is unsafe as criminals are everywhere.
Apartheid planning played a major role in society, but our varied reality does also exist in other global societies.
Dividing people is often beneficial for politics, business and profits for the dominant few. The point is that when the political and business elite conspires and increases the cost of bread and milk or taxes and rates etc, regular people are so divided that we cannot fight back or frankly do anything.
It seems like the unemployed are there to frighten the working class, and the working class suffering frightens the middle class.
The wealthy know this reality and uses this against us as a collective.
For example, when 50 million locals are powerless and cannot influence the increasing cost of bread and milk, it is a clear sign of the power of the political and business elite.
To frighten the working class, the business and political elite has tacitly allowed 15 million illegal foreigners to operate in South Africa.
As regular folk, we must identify those who are liable for creating this climate of insecurity and fear.
We must identify them by name as these are also “enemies” within our midst. These so-called “rights activists” created an opening for foreign drug dealers to corrupt our vulnerable youth and must be held liable. Who are they?
We must start somewhere.
* Cllr Yagyah Adams, Cape Muslim Congress.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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