Politicians score points as tik lays waste to coloured youth

I WAS appalled last Sunday at the unholy spat that erupted between Abie Isaacs, a member of the Mitchells Plain Community Policing Forum (CPF), and Imam Fasiegh Adams on SABC’s Interface programme, badly chaired as usual by Udi ya-Nakamhela.

Instead of focusing on the scourge of drug abuse, especially tik, in Mitchells Plain and its deadly effects on our youth, Ya-Nakamhela allowed the debate to degenerate into a political bun fight simply because the executive mayor of Cape Town, Helen Zille, has come out in support of the People’s Anti-drug and Liquor Action Committee in its fight against drug lords and drug dealers. 

Isaacs came across as one of those typical Stalinist hacks, who believe the CPF has a monopoly on dealing with issues that affect the community. He had the audacity to brag that they had been working in the area for the past decade, questioning the bona fides of the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) and other parties’ support for this initiative. Now that other agencies are coming in to join hands in the fight against crime, the CPF labels them as supporters of vigilantes in order to discredit them.

While they accuse Zille of politicising the issue, they forget they have behaved like the handmaidens of African National Congress (ANC) politicians for years, so that very little has been achieved in the fight against drugs in Manenberg, Bonteheuwel, Mitchells Plain, and elsewhere. If Western Cape community safety MEC Leonard Ramatlakane knows about the drug houses and who the drug lords are, as he claims, why has he done nothing about them for so long?

Tik has become a political football precisely because the politicians have done so little about it, ignoring the havoc it has wreaked on our children’s lives, and now that Zille has joined the fray all hell breaks loose. And can one blame the parents for asking: is it because tik affects mostly coloured youth that the ANC government does not give a damn? The Medical Research Council reports the most tik users are below the age of 20, 88% coloured, 72% male and come from most coloured townships.

In 1999, the US government recognised that obesity was becoming a life-threatening problem. The office of the US surgeon-general set up state-based programmes to tackle the disease. The surgeon-general’s office acknowledges the seriousness of the problem by publishing the number of deaths per year attributable to obesity — 300000 — claiming that obese people are more likely to die from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, breathing problems, arthritis, reproductive complications, and limited mobility than people of normal weight. State-based programmes range from school-based “healthy choices” programmes to rural schools nutrition programmes to community garden and environmental education programmes. These programmes are monitored and evaluated and, more important , are seriously funded by the government.

Something similar needs to happen in SA if the government wants to get serious about eradicating the tik problem. Tik is not just a crime problem. It is a serious social problem, hence substantial resources such as clinics, rehabilitation centres, funding, national programmes and staff need to be invested in responding to it. More important , political parties need to join hands, as with the fight against HIV/AIDS, to find joint remedies, resources and solutions to the problem.

The only way to gain citizens’ trust is to be responsive to the problems that assail communities , instead of political point-scoring. The big lesson that the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) learnt was that trying to solve the HIV/AIDS problem within the ANC was as helpful as keeping incest in the family. Recently, the TAC has joined hands again with civil society, willing political actors and faith communities to counter the cynicism that comes from the government.

That the Mitchells Plain CPF wants to stifle awareness-raising campaigns initiated by community leaders such as Adams, labelling them vigilantes instead of giving them support and demanding resources from the government, shows how much contempt they have for community leaders — regarding them solely as voting fodder. As with HIV/AIDS, tik affects our economically active population, and we neglect the youth at our peril. Many families are affected by drug abuse and many parents are clueless as to how to address the problem, as few institutions exist to assist with the problem. Drug rehabilitation centres are expensive and out of reach of those who need them most.

Communities have become tired of being used as political footballs and the gatvol factor is leading to violent uprisings. The TAC has realised through many a court order that it cannot operate and make demands within the party.

Political maturity across political parties, in collaboration with civil society, is required if we collectively want to wipe out drug trafficking and drug abuse in the townships, where unemployment is rife, where recreational facilities are lacking, where job opportunities are few and where education is a low priority.

Rhoda Kadalie is a human rights activist based in Cape Town.