Me being clear again: I am not Muslim. I have no plans of converting to Islam. I don’t Salaah, I don’t go to Mosque, but I am insulted to the core of what makes me Capetonian. When the Westernization and White-tification of these shores unfolded, till all that was left was a standardized behavioural code and touristy roles for matters cultural, those who practiced their faith stood as a beacon of example in an environment of Christian-National Oppression.
Much of this was manifest in District Six as is still evident in the link to Bo-Kaap. Mosques

I'll admit. I'm triggered. The Homeless People in The District know Martha. I doubt if any of them would harm her like this. Also, they have no issue with knocking on the door or stopping Martha on the street to ask for assistance
The gangsters don't bother with us.

https://twitter.com/SoliPhilander/status/1444163251894358019

We lay claim to no territority and we don't abide by the rules of engagement. We don't engage.
We have recently had an alarming gang-related incident that doesn't bear repeating it sounds so ridiculously bizarre (and I was there!) , but there is no active or passive animosity

“At the time of the shooting, I was outside. I ran inside the house when I heard gunshots and people started running. When I entered the house, there was my little girl in a pool of blood,” said Monique Cottle

1/ Cape Town Police sold guns to gangsters
2/ A number of people have

https://twitter.com/allcapetown/status/1443879760250032129

died in the latest conflict in Woodstock, fed from the Flats and spreading into the Northern Suburbs.
3/ As the mother of this little girl indicated there was such shooting they couldn’t tell which direction the bullets were coming from. The family of the little girl lived in a

Because of that distinct difference between ‘getting people of the street’ and actually addressing the factors behind the constantly escalating housing crisis in Cape Town. But as been shown, it is a different crisis for the City - For them it is the idea that the visibility of

https://twitter.com/contestedspaces/status/1443459394696630272

Homeless People is the issue. Their inadequacy to effectively address it and now criminalising their existence is not up for consideration. Get them off the street and punish them into the system. And any criticism of their failure - evident in the number and treatment of

With all the respect and sorrow for The Good Reverend, but I never believed she would get a FAIR hearing. When she had to go on a Hunger Strike to be heard? When the Archbishop didn’t agree with her right to be heard? All this during a period the Church was still ‘formulating’

https://twitter.com/sabreakingnews/status/1443815960780046340

its approach to GBV? And while the Church was intent on protecting the identity and integrity of the man she claims raped her? When the Archbishop’s close friend publicly attacked her character and mental state?
This whole harrowing ordeal has been about men protecting other men

@RobynPorteous The blessing of breath. That automatic action without which we would be nought, but on which we seldom spend a thought. So we wallow in our breath's shallows, we stutter and sputter, and instead of breathing deep when the going gets steep, we block our airflow or neglect to @RobynPorteous go slow, so that at times we over-ventilate when we most need to oxygenate, or under-inflate as opposed to making our lungs dilate, and we miss the connection between coping with what we have to face, and breathing at a steady, abdomen-based pace.

Allow me also to mention,

You're a gran (your latest a couple of months old) so at night you go out to feed children who don't have, you panic about running out of food, it's about to start raining again, and...
I don't know how she does it
#Heartbreak
#DistrictSixMatters
#TheSoliPhilanderFoundation They're remarkably tough and surprisingly fragile, housing- insecure people, and you always come across yourself...
#GivingAndReceiving
#DistrictSixMatters
#TheSoliPhilanderFoundation
#TheNetworkOfCare

I'm sitting here listening to the rain, feeling such love for my late Grandmother.
Those of you who know, know. The sink-huisies with leaks, sleeping under plastic bags to keep dry, clambering onto roofs in the rain to once again try and lessen the raining inside. And the build-up to it, the soup (Annie was renowned for her 'stamp en stoot), the finding dry spots for things that could ruin, the placement of buckets and pots and other containers to catch the leaks.
The sheer 'adventure' of making it through a rainy night.

Here's the thing though:

The challenges facing Selina's Soup Kitchen in Wellington centres around resources, capacity and consistency. Our first delivery incl a stove, a 100l big pot, dry foodstuffs and masks and sanitizer
#TheNetworkOfCare
#TheAnwarJakoetFoundation
#TheSoliPhilanderFoundation Selina and Meghal have been operating with no assist from Gov or local business. We are very happy to welcome them to The Network Of Care and the support, skills and resources we hope to access for them
#TheNetworkOfCare
#TheAnwarJakoetFoundation
#TheSoliPhilanderFoundation

I told my mother they found Courtney's body.

It was Mothers Day.

I listened as she lost herself, found herself. A short lament and then a litany of ways in which Courtney's murderer was to be tortured, made to feel the extremes of pain, made to long for death, a death withheld and only brought to bear in the most lingering, extended expression of suffering possible.

I watched as she marched endlessly between kitchen and bathroom, doing something, anything, to work off the adrenaline of the anger and the

The Pride of Brackenfell?
'It's not right to hit a woman, but....'
You're part of the problem
Or you didn't see the woman walking AWAY from him?
Oh wait, you don't recognize her right to protest.
Because you don't recognize rights you don't agree with
Right But for yourself you insist on the rights you like
And your concern for your children
Is that they should stay believing that it only matters that all is well with them - even if that means disregarding the person right next to them.
And I see you justifying it with the

This narrative denies that 'addressing our concerns responsibly' in the Western Cape invariably means being corrected on our evaluation of our lived experience. I was recently engaged with a Social Worker at the Children's Court and made myself very 'irresponsible' when insisting

https://twitter.com/alanwinde/status/1325805747603730433

on a youngster not being racially profiled. In fact, my choices were shut up or be removed. Everywhere in my experience the context only works if everyone gets on board with pre-determined parameters. Parameters imposed on community. Should the deep concern here not be for those

#BlikkiesdorpMatters
Champion: Ursula Felkers
Food Provision: Gail Bester/St Vincent Da Paul
Partnership: Extreme Soupathon
Support: #SpringfieldMatters Shahiedah Davids Sharon Van Schoor Anthea Jordaan
Eleanor Martin Berenice Wyngaard Rasdien
Visionary : Wynand du Plessis
7Nov

I have worked with Camillo for many years
Intersected at various points in our careers
I have always had the greatest respect for him
It has to be said: his light was not dim
To say that I am shocked, stunned and staggered at this news
Would be as understated as just saying he's accused
He's arrested, let me say
Appearing in court today
Someone who I was convinced had only the best intentions for his community at heart
A passion for his people, a love for his art
Someone I know, love and respect
That I now have to evaluate and inspect

The eruption around 'who is Soli Philander' has been...enlightening. In the spirit of let our judgement be reserved for those raising the alarm, rather than the people the alarm are being raised about, here are aspects of my CV that would seem relevant: Five one-person shows TAKE TWO
- profiling what is positive about growing up in a Coloured Community
WOESKROES
- the corruption and abuse of the law and justice systems
HOTNOTSGOT
- the 5 major challenges facing the Coloured Community in the Western Cape
THE PASSION GAP
(with Christian Bennett)

#SheIsSafe

Much has been made of my contribution to making this hashtag a reality for a little girl at risk.

I owe an explanation about how this wasn't me, but about everybody.

To do that I have to tell you about my children. I love my children. They live a heart-breaking reality, wedged in here between the City and the rest of the country, with a fortitude and determination that echoes something vested in my cells a long time ago.

I played here as a child. Stayed here as a child. Memories of laughing together, sorrowing together, being together,

Good Morning.
Feeling a lot better than I look. Rested Reviewing last night :
Whilst Peter Augulhas slipped out to the shop, the children slipped into The Marion through a door he had left open
Everybody sat down in the hall. 5 parents, myself and the children of our community. I presented my plan to them. We would approach a couple of respected people in the larger community and try and put together a team to Save The Marion. I say we, because the children elected me as their spokesperson. They left quietly to engage with their

@wincadman She likes me. She really does. I'm a very nice person, because I choose to be. You know mos what I mean: If I need to wys you, I can. But I don't really like being nasty to people. I can be, but I don't like it. Maybe in the moment, a little. If I'm hurting particularly. Anyway, @wincadman So, my grandmother literally grew up in an Afrikaans Boere-huis from around age 4, when her mother died, may her departed soul rest in peace (my gran's too - but with the worrying that woman did over me while I was alive, I doubt it, esp my emotional state at the moment)

Good Morning, Fellow What-What's 😁
Here's my insistence
Wear a mask, wash your hands
And KANALA keep your distance 🙏🏽

The art of what's in my heart:
👇👇👇 This reading below
Is from nearly six years ago
The ask is pretty much the same though :

Moonlight Sleeping'
8/19/14

It's very
'O, koud is die windjie, en skraal'
in The Mother City this evening

DON'T PANIC STATISTIC

'Don't Panic '
Have you heard that perpetually?
And when exactly was it
That you were behaving panicky?

Yeah, I bought pasta
And a couple of brands - no-name
I did not do the trolley-dash
The long queues outside GAME And I watched work and especially money
disappear
Yes, with alarm, but I don't consider it panicking, nothing even near

Though when observing the strident protest
About what's economically best
I'm to accept the idea of a future of 350
And let it calm me into

I find it best not to even start looking for a word or words to describe the state of things right now, my cold comfort that I don't find myself alone on planet 'what the hell is going on?' In all honesty, I do not expect much from government - read whichever or whatever manifestation of it you think refers- or the army-supported police services, doing what they have always done. Business can't but make business the bottom line. Religion demands faith in law and tradition without feel for flaw and abolition.