Cape Town – We have too much political theatre. #CliftonBeach was typical of this. Professional Protection Alternatives (PPA) security, working for Clifton's ratepayers, illegally demanded that ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs and other black people (and perhaps some white people) leave Clifton beach by 8pm.
The ANC erupted into outrage, the DA wrung its hands and the EFF did their “protecting their people” routine. Everyone took a turn, acting their signature moves for their core constituencies.
All showed “they cared” while not attempting to achieve any meaningful change or, more accurately, actively seeking to not achieve any change except increased popularity.
Everyone knows that, as a point of law, beaches are open to everyone, black or white, day or night. Everyone also knows who lives at Clifton beach, how they live there and how the rest of the country lives.
The slaughter of a sheep on the beach by Black People's National Crisis Committee member and activist Chumani Maxwele was not political theatre - it was political action.
For the moment, only a sheep was slaughtered, but - like Maxwele’s previous association of excrement with Cecil John Rhodes - an obvious fact was made concrete.
Rhodes was an evil colonialist worthy of no more celebration than the contents of our toilets. If most of the country is not being served by how it operates, there will be blood.
None of these things is stuff for debate.
The disparity in South Africa is not sustainable or forgiveable. This disparity manifests itself mostly through race and the enduring legacy of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid.
It sustains itself through the power of money and the seeming willingness of politicians not to bite the hands that feed them, nor to serve the people who elect them. Perhaps our political leaders are incapable of bringing the change that our country needs; their #CliftonBeach shadow-plays wouldimply this.
But if this is so, the country will fall apart, because change will come. If the politicians aren’t capable of bringing about this change, it will occur outside the political system and it will almost certainly be bloody.
The story of Clifton beach is a small thing and so was the storming of the Bastille, but to miss its symbolic status, one must be wilfully not be paying attention.
This is why the bleating about the fact that white people were also removed from Clifton may be factually correct, but doesn’t matter. The point is that black people on Clifton were treated like they are always treated and have always been treated.
So, forget the white people, forget the sheep. They’re not what this is about. This is about an opposition that exists between the sheltered enclaves of the super-rich and the way most of the people in this country are forced to live their lives in order that the super-rich can live in these enclaves.
Maxwele’s people tried to build a South African nation, together with the occupants of Clifton Fourth Beach and their ilk.
The occupants don’t want to share their beach or their country.
This position is not just carelessness, as it enables the circumstances in which most of the country suffers.
This wilful blindness is not just naivety; it is offensive and corrosive of any attempts to make us into one country.
There will be one country at the end of this and the only question is whether the people of Clifton will be part of it.
Maxwele says the next step is for those stuck in shacks on the outskirts of the city to bring their shacks to the beach. They should.
The Clifton incident expresses something real, a justified anger that cannot be ignored, either morally or practically. We have passed the point where wilful ignorance of how our people live is forgiveable, just as we have the point where politicians' empty rhetoric is forgiveable.
Political parties need to listen to Maxwele and find a real remedy before it is too late.
Donen is an advocate at the Cape Bar and a listed counsel of the International Criminal Court