Gun-Toting MP Revives Symbol of Colonial Civilisers Overpowering Savagery

The story of DA MP Ian Cameron, who packed a gun on a visit to Philippi, and used it when his vehicle came under attack, is deeply disturbing.

First, that he felt it necessary to carry a gun in Cape Town exposes the lie in his party’s claim that Cape Town is an exceptionally well-run city. In reality, the vast majority of Capetonians live in squalid conditions, in crime-racked areas, with little hope for the future.

Cameron, who chairs the Police Portfolio Committee in the National Assembly, will be quick to blame rampant crime in the city on the police because the DA is not in charge of the police. The fact is that policing on its own is not a golden bullet to stop crime; that requires social and environmental development. The DA’s decades-long control of the City of Cape Town and Western Cape governments have delivered no improvements to the quality of poorer Capetonians’ lives. Conditions in the Cape Flats ghettoes engineered by apartheid planners are arguably worse than ever due to over-crowding and over-burdened infrastructure.

Second, that Cameron has been hailed as a folk hero in conservative circles for shooting a Black youth reinforces old divisions. His actions are symbolic of the apartheid propaganda films depicting “civilised Whites” with guns overpowering “Black savagery”. If Cameron doesn’t feel safe doing his job in Black neighbourhoods, he should have the emotional intelligence to ask the Speaker of Parliament to facilitate protection rather than behave like a latter-day Rambo or Piet Retief.

Where else does he carry his gun? Does he pack only when visiting Black areas? Should MPs with a propensity for disrupting parliament consider adding bulletproof vests to their wardrobes?

The colleagues Cameron was travelling with on August 19, on an unannounced oversight visit to Philippi Police Training College, were understandably grateful that he was armed and dangerous. All three were injured when their car came under attack.

They’ll think twice before venturing on their own to the Cape Flats again. But it won’t cross their mind to link the state of lawlessness and hopelessness on the Cape Flats to their party’s deliberate under-development of vast swathes of the city.