When I read the Cape Times headline Monday 17th October, I thought it was a joke. After reading the article I considered if the author of the proposal was a drunkard or demented person seeking to create conflict in a society that is reeling from centuries of human rights abuse and sheer brutality.
The desire to make alcohol more freely available in a society which has the highest global records for fetal alcohol syndrome is incredibly ignorant. We have one of the highest levels of vehicle accident rates in the world and more people are killed on our roads than in most nations because of alcohol.
Our society has proven to be a milieu where alcohol abuse is the norm and the negative results is endless. The Road Accident Fund spends billions annually to ensure that victims of road accidents are cared for. This is an unbearable task as the quantity of folks injured and maimed are increasing hugely because of persistent alcohol use. Any person who has visited a paraplegic or quadriplegic because of an accident can attest to the danger of alcohol use. Most often it is the innocent child or parent that ends up severely injured and the drunkard often gets off from any serious consequence. How many drunk drivers that have caused permanent injury to others, actually go to jail?
Schools require funding because monies are wasted on corruption and buying submarines to fight non-existent wars while our army sleeps in their barracks. Schools require funding because some parents have kids and then cannot care for the children. Kids are like accessories to some and when the boyfriend disappears so does the desire to care for the child.
So schools must now become sites of drunken depravity? One can only wonder what shebeen owners must be thinking. Why own a shebeen when you can sell directly to the kids at school?
If schools can sell alcohol, why then must a shebeen be a distant from schools? What is the point of this current legislation? We cannot enforce existing laws like general drunkenness, lewdness or regulate illegal shebeens, who is now going to regulate the school selling of alcohol?
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress