Cape Flats

In geological terms, the area that makes up The Cape Flats is a vast sheet of aeolian sand, ultimately of marine origin, which has blown up from the adjacent beaches over a period of a hundred thousand years.

Below the sand, the bedrock is in general alternating layers of dark grey shale, siltstone and minor sandstone from a late-Precambrian rock formation called the Malmesbury Group.

The noted English naturalist, William John Burchell, remarked in 1811 that the deep sand of the Flats made travel by cart or wagon extremely difficult.

The situation was aggravated by a widespread shortage of firewood, causing fuel collectors to cut the relatively few indigenous shrubs and trees that stabilised the sand.

It was an era before the advent of modern technological methods for the construction of permanent roads and in those days the Cape Flats was a massive sea of unstabilised sand dunes that moved with the winds.

There was a single, narrow road across the Flats from Cape Town to The Strand that ran between walls of alien rooikrans bushes and one could travel for miles without seeing any sign of habitation other than a few fences and a handful of farmhouses.

The army used the area for military exercises and the few farmers who inhabited the Flats eked out a living by growing vegetables in pockets of relatively poor soil between the barren dunes.

Since many of the mostly Xhosa workers and their families, were designated under apartheid as citizens of assigned native reserves/homelands, many who were out of formal work were obliged to live in the area illegally, further contributing to the growth of informal settlements.

[7] Since the end of apartheid, these communities are no longer legally bound by racial restrictions; but history, language, economics and ethnic politics still contribute to homogeneity of local areas.

Popular musicians from the area include pop singer Brenda Fassie and jazz artists Abdullah Ibrahim and Basil Coetzee, who named their song "Mannenberg" after a Cape Flats township.

[10] The Cape Flats' political history is complex and sometimes baffling even to insiders: for instance, the politics of the Coloured communities of the Cape Flats have included Trotskyist activism in earlier years, and mobilisation for the ANC's United Democratic Front in the 80s; and then, widespread support for the historically white National Party (which had presided over apartheid) in the early post-apartheid elections.

[citation needed] During the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was significant armed conflict between various gangs and PAGAD (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs), a vigilante organisation.

[citation needed] In late 2019, South African political group, the TRAKboys began enforcing a ceasefire between the gangs in Cape Flats.

Citing the repeated failure of government initiatives aimed at curbing gun violence in Cape Flats, the TRAKboys created a system of community justice and enacted harsh punishments on any gang members found to be plotting violence on any members of a rival gang or a fellow Cape Flats resident.