The Piper System Blog

This blog deals with the misconceptions (of anyone who hasn’t been to Cape Town) about the area we hail from & which brought about the birth of Piper…Ok, here goes….

Lloyd, Jason & myself live in the various suburbs around the city of Cape Town. We are of mixed-race descent. The coloured population here comprises Malay, Dutch, Filipino, Khoi-San, Sotho, British, Xhosa, Indian & part Rottweiler (there’s some people that I’m not sure of, LOL!). Anyway, during the Apartheid era we were classified as ‘coloured’, a reference we still make of ourselves today. Apartheid created what was known as ‘The Group Areas Act’, which meant that white people were allowed the best & safest neighbourhoods, while coloureds & blacks (mainly Xhosa & Sotho) were herded into ghettos (’townships’ in what is known as the Cape Flats). This is just a very brief glimpse in our darkest hour as South Africans. Now at that time the most notorious coloured townships were Manenberg, Elsies River, Mitchell’s Plain, Lotus River, Heideveld, Bonteheuwel, Bishop Lavis, Grassy Park, Athlone, Crawford, Landsdowne and the black townships of Langa, Nyanga, Gugulethu, Khayelitsha & Crossroads rounding off the whole Cape Flats region.

(Editor’s Note: Lloyd has a Dutch surname, has Malay blood from his father’s side, and it’s the Malays who introduced knives and coincidentally, (Ber)Silat, into the country. Nigel grew up in Elsies River, Lloyd in Athlone and Mitchell’s Plain, Jason still lives in Mitchell’s Plain)

All these areas had one thing in common..GANGSTERISM!! Which meant lots and lots of knife-related incidents, gang fights & other fun ghetto activities. Now, keep in mind that the white neighbourhoods were specifically designed to be far away from these areas, with a higher police presence to ensure their safety. My reason for mentioning this is to establish an all-important timeline. One that will prove historically, geographically & demographically, who were most likely to have experienced a knife assault in some way, shape or form. So 1994 arrives, Nelson Mandela becomes the 1st black president, ushering in a relatively peaceful transition towards our hard-fought democracy. The Group Areas Act has been scrapped, racial segregation outlawed. This meant that former ‘white’ areas were now open to all races, however the real estate prices in these areas literally quadrupled making it impossible for the previously disadvantaged to live there. So quite naturally the ghettos remained, but were made to house a lot more people than what was originally planned.

This overcrowding, combined with the ‘promises’ the 1st A.N.C. government made as part of their pre-election drives, pushed the tolerance levels towards breaking point. Crime increased dramatically, which meant that crime syndicates from all over the world settled here because of our relaxed laws on crime (this was because of a new human-rights group who fought for criminal rights, lol). The prisons became overcrowded which meant more prison gang recruitment, the streets became more dangerous as illegal African immigrants started to flood the borders looking for a better life here. This put the economy under tremendous strain, high rates of unemployment soon followed, & a new strain of intolerance soon surfaced: Xenophobia & Classism.

Now black people from S.A. were waging little wars against blacks from the rest of Africa, blaming them for the sudden job losses. With classism we saw pure economics at work with people segregating themselves from one another based on financial status & level of education. Now the motivation for crime was at an all time high, the quest for survival bred a predatory intent. Racial inequalities of the past, unemployment, high rates of drug & alcohol abuse, the less fortunate now were seeking some form of retribution. This all took place in the ghettos we came from as these places seem to be oblivious to the basic human rights requirement of the right to live. At that time until present, the now former (and largely still) white neighbourhoods in Cape Town have never been affected by ‘GANG VIOLENCE’ at any stage in this nation’s history.

Folks, it was gang violence in our hoods that prompted our research towards what is now known as Piper. These safe neighbourhoods experience some B&E’s and the occasional homicide or family murder, & then lives come to a complete standstill. Whilst we often cry police insensitivity, the middle & upper class receive protection 24/7. This is not me griping, but just stating the obvious, if you’re not from the hood don’t make statements about how dangerous it is there or how many ‘gangster’ buddies you know. Since Lloyd De Jongh made Piper a world-wide phenomenon, every middle-class dude suddenly did research in gang-lore. These are now your experts, people!

Those reading this this please be aware. GANGSTERISM is a great social evil which is slowly eroding life on the Cape Flats. Which is why neither Jason, Lloyd nor myself have never been affiliated to or have had ties to a gang….

Regards

Nigel February