As pacifist, I discourage violence unless retaliation is necessary.
Resolution, negotiations and reparation via material compensation is better, unless the opposing party’s behaviour is beyond reason and necessary action is required to save and secure life.
For example, the City published an online article saying that “72 MyCiTi buses have been stoned over the past three months, the majority of these attacks along the N2 Express routes between the Civic Centre station and Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha.
“The staggering number has a significant impact on the City of Cape Town’s ability to meet passenger demand on these routes as every bus with damaged windows needs to be withdrawn from the service for repairs that can take up to two days.”
While parents in the area take a bus to work, kids from the same community stone buses. The paradox sounds ironic and even comical but to experience such violence is scary and unnecessary.
Though the city is asking for info and offering rewards, I suggest the use of non-lethal force such as rubber/plastic bullets or buck shots. The authority must use whatever tool is capable of stopping a stone thrower or arsonist.
The aim is to surprise and stop the attacker and affect instant behaviour change. Those who attack buses, trains and so on must be stopped.
Our economy needs a stable workforce and workers need reliable and cheap transport. The idea is not to kill but a reply is needed.
Anyone who attacks public infrastructure to maximise harm to many innocent people is a terrorist.
In Europe, when a Muslim drives a car into a group of people, it is measured as an Islamic terror attack.
How many attacks on buses must we allow before we consider these acts of violence as terrorism?
Similarly, those who steal at Eskom are, in truth, economic terrorists as they endanger the economy of our nation. Those who stone buses regularly are not vandals but, in reality, micro-terrorists.
You cannot negotiate or reason with a terrorist when the terrorist wants to harm innocent people.
We are a constitutional democracy where we can vote for change. Thus no act of public violence or destruction of infrastructure must be considered legitimate. There is no excuse to validate an attack on our transport network as infrastructure is paid for by the taxpayer and ratepayer and we must ensure that this investment is safe.
The lawlessness must be stopped. The right of the collective must outweigh the right of a minority of vandals, criminals, economic saboteurs and terrorists.
As a pacifist, I suggest that as it is necessary for the authorities to safeguard our infrastructure, shooting a few criminals in the process seems necessary. Please go ahead, I understand.
* Cape Muslim Congress councillor Yagyah Adams.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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