Don’t underestimate the ‘gangsta’ factor

IT would be wise not to view last week’s ‘gang war’ incident at a Pongola school in isolation.

One pupil was killed and another seriously injured in what appears to have been a turf war between rival gangs turning violent on the school grounds.

No doubt the police and education authorities will move in swiftly to ascertain the root causes of the uncontrolled mayhem, arrest the attackers and bring order to a volatile situation.

What should not be underestimated though is the likely ripple effect this skirmish will have on the wider community, leading to further bloodletting in the streets.

The cooling of conflict temperatures will only be temporary while the investigators are in the vicinity.

Below the surface retribution and ongoing rivalry tension will continue to simmer, only to erupt at another time at another place.

It is therefore important that this one incident should be regarded as a warning signal and while dealt with according to the proper protocol, Zululand society and key stakeholders such as education and law and order authorities, should place gang activity and warfare firmly in the spotlight on a wider and more permanent scale.

Gang culture is as old as humankind, but over the past few decades it has shifted significantly from a more ‘adult-based’ Mafia type crime platform to the disenfranchised youth whose increasing frustrations of hopelessness and desire for belonging find fertile ground in gang activities.

Nowhere is it more evident than the Cape Flats, a miserable place where fear rules a powerless community and innocent children are killed by the dozen as law and order have all but lost the fight against young gang lords.

In Zululand it is not only at Pongola where ‘gangsta’ tribes are at work. They are everywhere.

We should afford it the attention it deserves without delay before we reach a Cape Flats scenario.