Ryan Swano
For many in South Africa, and indeed for many living in Britain and in former British colonies across the world, Guy Fawkes is just a fun day to shoot fireworks or make bonfires.
In certain parts of the Cape Flats, 5 November is a day of mayhem and chaos, and the fear of being injured or humiliated is very real for many.
Some people here on the Cape Flats say that Guy Fawkes Day is “part of our culture” but can the horrific things that play out on this day really be claimed as “our culture”?
Education Interrupted
Today 5 November 2024, while many of our Matric learners in our communities are writing exams, a rage of hooliganism was started this morning by youths, mostly kids who should be in school. These children attack anyone who they choose to be a target by splashing them with paint or smearing them with paint or shoe polish. Aside from the mess it causes and the damage to the victim’s clothing, the chemicals in the substances they use in their attacks can also be toxic and can affect the person’s skin, their eyes and their respiration.
Paint and even stones are also in a few isolated cases hurled at passing cars. That of course also causes damage and could also lead to injuries.
This is not only Elsies River where I live, but it is the same in many Cape Flats communities.
Those matriculants who have to walk to and from the schools where they are writing their exams which already places them under huge pressure also now have the added stress of fearing for their safety. I at first thought that it might have been wiser for the National Department of Education to not schedule any Matric Exams for this date, but that also does not make sense, since there are thousands of communities across South Africa where this date is a non-event and these horrors do not exist.
On Their Way to a Difficut Adulthood
It is quite sad when one realises that many of the kids who participate in creating this mayhem will drop out of school and never reach matric.
Them being from mostly impoverished households, they will have very few future prospects of securing a steady legal income when they become adults.
No, having matric is not the be-all and end-all on the way to securing your future financial independence. However, for most who do not have any skills acquired in another way, matric is an important stepping stone in their journey to further education or to simply securing gainful employment.
The average school dropout does not even qualify for an entry-level job and many of them might not even get jobs as unskilled labour.
We cannot deny that those who are committing these acts of mayhem mostly will fall within that category.
WATCH: Guy Fawkes Mayhem in Elsies River on 5 Nvember 2024
Guy Fawkes – A British Colonial Remnant
Though this horrific phenomenon has its roots in British colonialist imperialism, we cannot simply just leave the blame there, but we still need to know and understand where it comes from.
This remnant of the colonialism which was one of the tools that made our people forget our own history as victims of that colonialism, is highly problematic.
That our people are celebrating a British tradition with such fervour while yet, they don’t know much of anything about Our Own Indigenous Heritage is what perpetuates these false notions that we who are classified as Coloured are not truly African.
Most of our people don’t even realise that they are celebrating a “victory” of one religious doctrine over another, what was a festering threat of a political and religious war between British Roman Catholics loyal to the pope and the then still fairly new official Church of England under the British crown.
This is not by any means me attacking either of those doctrines or churches, but one has to view it in the context of the fact that the capture and execution of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators, thus preventing a potential civil war in Britain, has no cultural bearing on our communities, and definitely cannot be an excuse for the hooliganism we see happening.
This in Not Our Culture
Do our people even understand that the British colonial slave masters gave us something essentially un-African to celebrate in such an elaborate manner in order to pacify us After Forcibly Taking Away Our Indigenous Khoikhoi Traditions which they claimed to be uncivilized and ungodly?
The way our children now run amok with paint and hand-made weapons causing mayhem humiliating, assaulting and injuring anyone they see as a soft target from small children to the elderly, is extremely problematic.
It is not from the cultures of our enslaved ancestors from Asia and from other parts of world.
It is definitely not of nor from our Indigenous Ancestors, It is not African.
Is this Guy Fawkes tradition from those who called our ancestors uncivilized and ungodly, now with all of its mayhem and chaos not the epitome of that which is uncivilized and ungodly?
Guy Fawkes Day Adds to Our Economic Woes
Aside from the short and long=term economic impact that this hooliganism of Guy Fawkes Day has on our communities, there is of course also the issue of fireworks which technically are also illegal.
Fireworks is also something which many pet owners, including myself, are definitely not happy with but many of us have learned to live with the fact that we will just have to take extra care of our pets.
Many pet owners have also learned to live with the fact that some religious and cutural celebrations other than Guy Fawkes have a tradition of people setting off fireworks.
However, aside from our personal gripes as pet owners, there are also other more disturbing consequences of fireworks being used in our communities particularly on Guy Fawkes Day and which are not confined to regulated and properly permitted fireworks displays.
One just needs to visit the Trauma Unit of the local Day Hospital aka Community Healthcare Centre in some parts of the Cape Flats in the very early morning of 6 November every year to see all the Guy Fawkes Patients; Mostly children who were injured by fireworks or are burn victims from house fires caused by fireworks.
November is also a windy seaso on the Cape Flats and almost every year on 5 November there are people who lose their homes in house fires caused by fireworks.
Also in some of our areas where we have people who are traumatised from regularly hearing gunshots because of criminal activities, the sound of loud banging klappertjies are triggers for those suffering from PTSD caused by violent gun crimes.
Fireworks also have a huge economic impact in our communities. Illegal fireworks dealers, often foreign-owned spaza shops, have no interest in the economic upliftment of our communities and that huge amounts of money spent with them does not get circulated in our own communities.
It is problematic that so much money is being spent on a foreign British tradition while sometimes even in those very same households, there is hardship and a rampant lack of food security.
The Purge, Guy Fawkes Edition – A Scourge That Needs to be Purged
This is figuratively The Purge, Guy Fawkes Edition. It is as if now laws exist on this day.
Unfortunately, we have seen in the past that even with extra SAPS and City Law Enforcement deployed, the running mobs of kids sporadically popping up in unexpected places means that there cannot be a real crackdown. They simply scatter when police show up after the damages have been done, and like urban guerrilla warfare, they show up somewhere else again.
That things have gotten so out of hand with hooliganism prevailing among so many of our children sorely needs to be addressed.
How do we go about shifting mind-sets to either reach a point where this day becomes a non-event or at the very least that it is “celebrated” without the mayhem and violence?
How do we reach a point that there are no longer have hordes of children running around causing chaos in our communities when should be in school?
How do we instil in these kids that education is important even if employment is not always guaranteed?
How do we instil respect in them respect for the elderly and compassion for the weak and vulnerable?
We cannot only blame colonialism. We cannot simply blame the governmnet, nor can we blame the police.
This is on Us!!!
Oh, and I won’t pretend to have the answers, but I do know that We Need Change.
We Need to Purge Our Communities of This Scourge.
