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Showing posts from May, 2014

Our stories are the equalisers

Have you tried to find snoek in a restaurant in the Central City? What about umngqusho or chakalaka? Why is it that if you want `culture' you visit a township? Why is a City Tour a tour of only the original Cape Town city, and not the broader city, as if nothing out of the City Bowl is Cape Town? Why is the East City the neighbourhood surrounding the City Hall and the Granary, and not as far as Khayelitsha and Muizenberg? Can we change the city by changing the language we use to describe it? Can we tell its story well if we as citizens are excluded from the narrative? Cape Town is a great place to be, don't get me wrong. One of the reason's it is great is that it's a city that demands a lot of questions, which makes it challenging and stimulating. And isn't that fantastically, disgustingly, middle class? That the extremes of the city make it stimulating? How different would the perspective be of someone who lives on the poor extreme, where the quest is for surv