Mob Justice And Intiidation

Today I was ashamed to be a commuter in Cape Town. While I know mob justice has taken place in Durban and Gauteng of late with drivers being threatened and forced to do what the mob wanted, but until today I was unaware of any such events in Cape Town.

Today however, a mob of 90 odd people surrounded a driver and guard on Cape Town Station and demanded that they make their train a 90 train (this travels the Bishop Lavis line) following trains being cancelled on that line for two hours and then they were advised that all trains on that route were cancelled.

I certainly understand the frustration of waiting hours for a train and having the trains cancelled one after the other and being unsure how or when you would get home, and to a certain point I understand why mob justice took over. I am sorry though as they had made no other enquiries or efforts to find about the trains and why they were not running on that line resorting to mob justice was not their only course of action.

I am told that although the driver and guard said that the mob was nice, they still felt threatened and were understandably worried about what could potentially happen to them if there were issues with either the train or with getting through to the end of the line.

A bad situation has now been compounded and no regard was shown toward their fellow human being who was just doing what she was ordered to do.  Yes, PRASA ultimately have to accept the responsibility of the situation as due to their failure to maintain rolling stock and infrastructure the current state of the railways is appalling, and to that their very real inability to communicate issues to the commuters has lead to the very real situation that this driver and guard faced today,  the mob mentality of just falling in with everyone else whether we feel it is acceptable or not lies squarely at the feet of the commuters.

Yes, we all understand that trains are late, overcrowded and often unsafe. And while it is the responsibility of PRASA to address all those issues, we as the commuters, and members of the communities need to start taking our share of the responsibility. There are ongoing issues with cable theft, and the vandalism of both the rolling stock as well as other parts of the infrastructure. This vandalism does not happen in isolation and there are, I am sure, people aware that their family member or friend are committing such acts. We need to stand up and be accountable and report when we know that these issues are happening and inform the police, or railway police.

The whole issue tonight, stemmed from infrastructure problems on that stretch of line and is not something that is a “quick” fix. I just hope that the driver and guard do not suffer as a result of the actions taken tonight by my “fellow” commuters.