Celebrating a Long term Friendship

For me, you are the angel that restored the devil.  Before Khulisa, I didn’t believe in anything and I was the devil.  I did things that no human being would ever have done in their lives.  You gave me a chance.  You were the first one who gave me that one opportunity.  You gave me a second chance and I proved to you.  I believe in angels but I don’t see angels as a fantasy.  I see them in reality as people that give those who are condemned to the darkest pits, one chance to see the light.  You gave me the chance and I love the light.  I don’t want to go back to the darkness, not ever again.  I will always be grateful for Khulisa.

I was quite devastated because she was so young.  She passed matric and she had a baby.  She didn’t have a job that she had studied for but she was willing, hardworking and a caring mother.  For her just to be taken away like that!  Most of the guys in the family are ex-gangsters.  They were all looking at me – that was the worst.  We were devastated.  Everybody was looking at me as if it was my fault.  You were the one that made us weak.  You were the one that taught us not to retaliate.  You taught us that life is not about gangsterism and material things.  You told us that we can’t go on our knees and pray and expect miracles to happen.  They blamed me.

From my side, I was sick and tired of bloodshed.  If we had retaliated, even bigger things would have happened.  We would have recruited all the 28s in the area and in the neighbouring communities – it would have been a gang war.  I didn’t want that on my conscience.  I decided to walk away.

Gangsterism in the Western Cape is on the increase.  It’s even bigger than when I was a ganster.  They now have the IT and technology, etc.  They’re even better connected than the police.  There are hackers.  Gangsterism has become a lucrative business.

I think the solution would be that, first of all, there are hardly any jobs for the people in our community.  The EPWP isn’t handled properly in our communities.  There is always hostility whenever there is a government project in our areas.  Education and intervention in different levels and job creation, entrepreneurship could be a solution.  People should be educated.

I get questioned why I do what I do for homeless people and not for the people in the community.  I tell them that I work for an organisation that pays my salary.  The counsellors and the people who are elected to look after the people, all they do is look after themselves.  They don’t give a damn about the community and the living environment of the people or the education of gangsters and children.

I had a meeting with a Principal in Cape Town.  When I arrived, it was the same problems with drug abuse, misbehaviour, etc.  I could go from school to school but who will pay my salary and who will appoint me to do programmes in the school, trying to get the children to wake up and understand.

My argument since I was released was that it’s no use to start working in prisons because when they’re in prison they’ve already overstepped the mark.  It’s no use going to schools because when they go to high school, they think they are ripe for the gangsters.  No use going to primary schools anymore because the gangsters use primary school children because they are less detectable to handle their drugs and move their guns around.  Next, pre-school children will be used to carry it in their bags.  My solution would be:  Start educating children in pre-school, then to primary schools to further the education, then to high school.

You can’t build a relationship with somebody and then after a year or two, finish with them.  They’ll go back to their old ways because they feel you’re not interested anymore.  The Girls project at Phoenix that started last year, if we had left them at the end of the year, they would have collapsed because they were troublesome.  They proved that they can make right choices and because of that, all of them passed into matric.  Those are broken children with rape, abuse in their families; how can you overcome that?  They can only overcome it if we as organisations get involved.  I feel that Nicro on its own, Khulisa on its own, doesn’t work.  Organisations must come together and start mobilising in the community where the needs really are.  It’s not happening at the moment so gangsterism will thrive all the way.

Some of the people in my community said they want to be on the street because what the street people get, is what they want.  When I went to prison, we were punished.  We never had the luxury of nice food; we had porridge with worms, sand in our food – everything was terrible.  It sent the message that it is not the place for human beings.  We were treated like dogs.  Today they get five-course meals.  They have popcorn and Coke whilst watching a movie in prison.  They put it in the newspapers and on TV as if it’s something good.  So they’re promoting that it’s a good place to be.

In prison you don’t have to worry about where my next move is coming from, is there enough hot water, will I get coffee?  You have it all.  There’s drugs, corrupt wardens – everything.  They need to give harsher sentences, bring back the death penalty to scare people off.

I feel that I should have been dead by now.  Khulisa gave me the opportunity to show my talent and what I’m capable of.  Others didn’t do that; they took it away from me.  I got scared of my abilities and my talent and of what I can achieve.  What people don’t realise is that there are so many people with real life experiences, not educational experience.  They have the know-how and the work ethics.  All they need is a chance in life that is not given to them as a whole.  I was one of the lucky ones that got the opportunity to perform.  The crowd agreed to my methodology and to the way I do things.  I don’t do anything different.  I don’t do to people that I hate being done to me.  I hate people to judge me so I would never judge somebody else.  I hate people to treat me in an inhumane way, so I won’t treat anybody that way, etc. 

Our outreach success rate is becoming even bigger when we take them to their families and tell the families the stories of their suffering.  The families are amazed at the change in their own family members.  That is the core of our business.  It’s not about earning money; it’s about what you can put in.  Even when I’m sick, I pitch up for work.  When somebody needs me, I have to be there.

You need to have passion and commitment, to protect people with dignity, care for people in such a way that they can see you are not a farce.  I don’t wear a mask for anybody.  What you see is what you get.  I don’t try and be somebody else.

More people like me need to be given chances; stop seeing them as gangsters, murderers or rapists because then you’re degrading them.  Lift them up.

With me, you see an old mind that’s dry already.  If you look, you’ll find a core where you’ll find diamonds – more information and experience of life.  We live in a box where the Government has the say over everything.  We are streetwise and no college or university can teach you the lessons.  The other day I did a speech at the CPUT, not far from us.  The feedback was that it was the best speech they ever heard this year.

I don’t bore them –I tell them as it is.  They laugh, they cry and um and ahh because I tell them the reality.  The people on the streets are seen as nobodies, as rubbish but they are the gems.  All you need to do is to watch them and polish them, educate them and give their dignity back.  Show them that they don’t have to stay that way.

You have to push the right buttons with gangsters because every one of them are a father or a grandfather.  I let them watch their horror movie and what they’re doing to their children and grandchildren and what the end results are.  When they see get it, then they come to me for answers.  I have reformed so many gangsters in Mannenburg.

The gangsters must be nurtured.  Once they understand the damage they’re doing to their families, they want to come out.  People can’t understand why the guy I worked with in the youth programme is the best father because I told them the way.  I’m proud of them because they’re hard workers and the community loves them.  They used to be hated because they were rough and on crystal meth, heroine, cocaine and mandrax.  They now despise all those things.