MIKE MICHAELS NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH
“There are no gangs in Alpine Park. That’s the fruit of my labour.”
(From the archives) That’s the fruit of my labour.” He has fathered five children in wedlock (four from his first wife and one from his second), two outside of wedlock, and has 13 grandchildren. And that’s fine with him. In 1984 he was arrested by the Security Branch for underground activism and held in prison for 180 days without trial. “I was tortured and taken to Valkenberg. I was regarded as a ‘doctor’s patient’, which meant that they could keep me for six months. I was released on the 10th of June 1986 and placed under three years’ house arrest.” While in jail something significant happened to Mike. His fellow prisoners wanted to know why he did not have a Xhosa name. Up until then he’d never seen himself as a Xhosa man; he believed
he was Coloured. This made him sit up straight. He started reclaiming his identity when he contacted family members in Worcester. They told him his Xhosa name was Jongikaya (the eldest son) and his second name was Jonkikawa. “Any Xhosa man has two names,” he explains. And this is how he now wants to be known. So the Xhosa man, having lived all his life as a Coloured man, came to live in the Coloured township of Mitchell’s Plain. Living in Mitchell’s Plain exposed Mike to many things. “The first murder in Mitchell’s Plain was one of the boys executed by the Station Strangler. It was Jermaine Abrahams, a learner at Portlands High. Gang violence was rife. Clubs like Fantasia and Route 66 were breeding grounds for crime. As an activist I wanted to know how these gang activities worked. If I understood them I could fight them. Logical.”
Due to Mike’s work as a security officer he had an intimate understanding of the prison system. His knowledge of the prison gangs is astonishing. He estimates that there are between 50 and 150 gang groups in the Western Cape, the Americans being the biggest. In Pollsmoor the biggest gang is the 28s. According to Mike, prison gangs started way back in 1819, and have been growing and strengthening their connections ever since. Because of his insider knowledge he was able to navigate the streets of this evergrowing area. The first police forum was started in Manenberg and, soon after, Mitchell’s Plain followed suit with the formation of the Mitchell’s Plain Community Safety Forum. PAGAD (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs) was formed, and soon there was an all-out war against gangsters and drug pushing.
The more the gangs took hold in Mitchell’s Plain, the more Mike wanted to rid the area of them. Alpine Primary had to close doors eight times due to gang violence. He became the torchbearer for ridding the area of gangsters, rehabilitating them and keeping them out of prison. Many a night he has fearlessly stared down the barrel of a gun in his fight against crime. “Gangs make monsters out of our boys and taxi queens out of our girls. They must be stopped. Mitchell’s Plain should have a multi-skilled training and rehabilitation centre to assist the unemployed youth in developing skills that will make them an economically vibrant part of society.” Now Mike dreams of owning a piece of land where he can farm with chickens, and teach the youth of Mitchell’s Plain how to drive, basic Xhosa and skills like brick-making. “Skills that will keep them out of gangs and out of prison,” he says. Mike’s biggest achievement? Ridding Alpine Park of all the gangs. And will he ever leave Mitchells Plain? Never. Or … maybe when the government gives him a piece of a land near Worcester to start his chicken farm.
MITCHELL’S PLAIN: A PLACE IN THE SUN |
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2011/12/13 10:18 AM