JP Smith (mayoral committee member for safety and security) is on record as saying that a shutdown is counter-productive and does not work and communities should rather engage with the City.
Well JP, I have news for you, this "world-class city" called Cape Town is only a world-class city if you stay in Camps Bay or if you are a tourist coming to the Waterfront with euros, pounds and dollars.
Come to Bonteheuwel and you will see thousands of people living in overcrowded homes and in backyards. Cross the street and you get Langa – also overcrowded. This City and the DA have done nothing to change apartheid era spatial planning and that's a fact.
Who else doesn't support a shutdown? The middle class don't like to have their routines disrupted. After all, they are the managers of this economy, they have posts in government, in the private sector and in academia. A lack of adequate housing doesn't affect the middle class.
Who else? Sections of the working class who moan that they will lose a day's wages. How many workers who are lucky to have a job gets to work late because of a f****d up public transportation system?
How many workers get robbed on their way to work and on their way home? How many people get robbed and killed on the trains, busses and taxis?
Over 2 400 people have been murdered across the Cape Flats in the last six months and you worry about your own individual place in the system. You feel nothing for the thousands of people murdered in gangs warfare in the last 10 years. You feel nothing for the thousands of homeless people, the thousands in overcrowded housing and the thousands living in shacks.
You did nothing when the ANC raised VAT but you complain about the ANC. You did nothing when the DA imposed water management devices and electricity tarrifs.
A perfect storm is brewing…
Abdul Karriem Matthews is a member of the Bishop Lavis Action Community and a leader in the original Total Shutdown formation.