The DA loves to point out the flaws of others while they hide their own.
An article in the community papers confirms that “Pinelands will stay dry”. The article suggests that alcohol outlets generate vagrancy and crime. The DA Chairperson of the Sub-Council was consulted who confirmed that Pinelands will “stay dry”.
As a Muslim I obviously support the idea of “dry suburbs across the metro and thus support the notion that Pinelands “stay dry”. Ironically it is the same Sub-Council who approves liquor outlets across the rest of the Sub-Council which includes Maitland, Langa and Kensington etc.
DA Councillors in Mitchells Plain also approve liquor outlets because somewhere high up in the DA someone told them that selling liquor creates jobs.
Questions that remain are: why is it ok for liquor outlets amid the working class and historic coloured people but not in a wealthy historic white suburb. Is it ok for vagrants and criminals to harass working coloured folk when compared to wealthier white folk?
Why is crime used as a reason in one suburb but job creation used in another? The duplicity with regards to the support of liquor outlets must be exposed.
For centuries farm owners used alcohol as a method with which to control rural coloured life. This is explained “In our own skins” A political history of the Coloured people” by Prof Richard Van Der Ross.
Questions that remain are: is the rapid introduction of liquor outlets in some areas designed to return some folk to a sort of stupor as in rural areas. Since 80% of car crashes and most crimes involve intoxicants, why allow more access to alcohol in communities where crime is on the increase?
While taxpayers are spending billions to feed, house and educate kids who suffer from foetal alcohol syndrome and others who are victims of intoxicant abuse, why more liquor outlets?
When a HIV positive person sleeps around and spreads AIDS there is uproar, when a pregnant women consumes alcohol and produces a foetal alcohol baby, society does nothing?
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress