If ever there was proof of how gangsterism is entrenched in Cape Town, it was the way notorious druglord Colin Stanfield was lionised at his funeral on Saturday.
Thousands came to pay their last respects to Stanfield, who died of cancer last Sunday, and hailed him, not as a gangster who lived off the proceeds of crime, but as a messianic figure who helped the poor.
Stanfield was jailed in 2002 for tax evasion Al Capone-style and labelled a gangster boss. He was released after contracting lung cancer and being given only months to live.
But the thousands who attended his funeral in Valhalla Park came to bury a man they regarded in a very different light. They honoured Stanfield, 50, as a community leader who fed the poor and paid their water and electricity bills.
One speaker went as far as to describe him as "a gift from God".
However, the government yesterday warned against glorifying gangsters as Robin Hood figures.
Makhaya Mani, a spokesperson for the Western Cape Department of Community Safety, told Sunday Argus: "We are aware that Colin Stanfield helped his community and put food on the table. But he benefitted from the proceeds of crime and we cannot glorify him."
Mani said provincial minister Leonard Ramatlakane had stressed that gangsterism was an evil scourge in the community, even when gangsters tried to emulate Robin Hood.
Speaker after speaker at the funeral, including pastors Albern Martins, Theo Noble and Brian Forbes, painted Stanfield as a messianic figure who identified with the poor. The lyrics to one of their songs went: "It's Colin and Jesus. It's Colin and Jesus."
The funeral service took place in the Sharon Apostolic Church, whose surroundings, home to an impoverished community, were in stark contrast to the glistening white hearse and three white Mercedes-Benz stretch limousines that were part of the funeral procession.
The church, which seats about 500, was packed and thousands more supporters lined the streets or waited at the nearby Valhalla Park sports ground where three 40m-long marquee tents had been set up.
Many supporters were dressed in pale blue or yellow T-shirts on which were printed the words: "We salute you Colin Stanfield."
A large white banner of support lining a street referred to Stanfield's imprisonment for tax evasion in 2002. It read: "The court rules, the community overrules."
The memorial service got under way at the sports ground once the coffin arrived in the main tent. A band thumped out gospel and blues as the revivalist pastors took turns to sing Stanfield's praises and the crowd sang, clapped and stomped their feet.
The main tent overflowed and hundreds of supporters were directed to the other tents where they could follow the proceedings on a big screen television.
The stage was draped with cloth in a giraffe and antelope print and framed by 2m-long fake ivory tusks on either side. Speaker Ben Fletcher explained the significance of the African theme: "These horns signify the son of a king has been laid to rest."
Fletcher said those who had vilified Stanfield ignored that he was a community builder. "Those who vilified him, including the intelligence services and the police, stand here ashamed."
In his speech, Miles Bhudu, leader of the SA Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights, said it was just as well that Stanfield had died of natural causes.
"If his enemies had taken him out, there would have been a civil war on the Cape Flats."
Responding to reports that Stanfield was a gangster, Bhudu said: "I knew him a long time and when you looked in his eyes you saw a good man. His heart sat in the right place. He listened to the life stories of the poor and brought about life changing results. He was our king, our everything. He never showed his power, but I can tell you he had f**king power."
Noble called on the authorities to rename a road in Valhalla Park Colin Stanfield Street.
"We need to honour this man. We must not allow them to erase his name, and they can't tell us who our leaders are."
A woman, who introduced herself as a community worker named Aunty Gerty, said she had experienced a piece of God in Stanfield. Another speaker took up the refrain and said: "The way we are speaking here today, people will think that Colin Stanfield was God. He was not God, but he was a gift from God."
Stanfield's brother Simon called for an end to violence in the Western Cape.
"We don't want to count by the dead, we want to count by how many families have improved their lives. I know we are oppressed but we must not let our circumstances run into violence."
When the service was over, people filed out of the tents and lined the route as the hearse made its way to the Maitland cemetery accompanied by a brass band playing "What a friend we have in Jesus."