The Muizenburg Stasi
The chief complaint in the Muizenburg Resident’s Association petition against the creation of a Muizenburg Safe Space seems to be that bringing sixty five homeless people into the area will overwhelm their private gestapo.
What kind of shitty fascists can’t afford a proper private army?
The Muizenburg Residents Association isn’t worried about crime or property prices dropping (that’s just them pandering to the JP Smith types who live under the rock of the Geordin Hill-Lewis branch of Pam Golding) what they’re really worried about is competition.
Because the amorphous mass of “the homeless” could actually get their shit together at the new safe space and seek meaningful employment in the area, might create arts and crafts on the beachfront, or alternative area tours that could appeal to tourists, or become contributors to the local economy and /or any number of other nefarious acts which would drain tourist dollars from the Muizenburg Resident’s coffers, which are badly in need of swelling in order to be able to afford to bolster the ranks of the MRA security forces..
Here’s a quick fix: Fire your current overpriced security firm and hire the unhoused to police themselves.
The unhoused of Muizenburg may not have residential addresses, but they are still residents of Muizenburg. Technically they should be part of the Muizenburg Residents Association, but I think it might be below their dignity to join those morally bankrupt expletives.
The MRA is trying to deny fellow citizens the right to housing. The Muizenburg Safe Space will be their actual residence. To attempt to deny a fellow South African the right to housing, to say that they can’t live in one area because of your perception of them is, well, familiar.
This isn’t about property values, it’s about fear and guilt, rooted in the past. History is below the soil, still living. There is a story to the property whose value they are trying to protect – over the well-being of actual humans.
The deeper past is not being spoken about. The land that bulk of the Muizenburg’s residences sit on is old land, ancient land. It might contain burial sites of people who were here before those who took that land, turned it into property, even got here. That land could be heritage land. Contested land.
Someone could start a petition.