Why being a Capetonian sickens and distresses me

A relentless, unforgiving Cape Town heat is shimmering across Rondebosch Common as I drive around it on this Saturday afternoon.

The common is almost empty, except for a lone teenager with a ball in his hands and a security guard from a local school taking a break under one of the pine trees.

The parking lot is filled with police vehicles. They are presumably on standby should anyone try to occupy the common, which people had attempted to do the previous day.

A loosely-based coalition of "occupiers" wanted to hold a summit on the common, a public space in the middle of suburbia bequeathed to them as residents of Cape Town.

That no one occupied the common is the culmination of a series of events that led me to feel deep shame at being a Capetonian.

For those who don't know the full story, I am not going to intimate that I do. But the horrifying scenes that played out on the edge of the common on Friday have left me feeling dazed and confused - and angry.

The Occupy Rondebosch Common summit was billed as a weekend event to highlight issues of poverty, homelessness and dissatisfaction with non-delivery to the poor and dispossessed of Cape Town.

The organisers reportedly applied for permission to march from Athlone stadium to Rondebosch. Permission was refused, apparently because they missed a meeting with the Cape Town City Council to put their case to them.

On Friday morning a friend posted on Facebook that anyone with an emergency should not look to the police for assistance as most of them were patrolling and surrounding the common. Through the day there were reports that people had been stopped from leaving Manenberg and Athlone and that one of the key organisers had been arrested.

Then came reports that police had used a water cannon to disperse about 40 occupiers. But they did not say anything about the blue dye. And so, when I was confronted by the images on Saturday morning of blue dye being sprayed on the small group who had made it as far as the edges of the common, I was whipped back to 1989: to images of purple rain in the city when the apartheid police doused anti-apartheid protesters with purple-dyed waters from a water cannon in the middle of the city.

During the standoff on the common between police and occupiers, 41 people were arrested. I have watched the filmed arrests on YouTube. A group of police officers protected by full riot gear move in among the protesters, most of whom are seated on the ground.

Young women are bundled into a van. One is heard asking: "What have I done?"

I am sickened by the images and I am sickened by what seems to me to be an overreaction of polarising proportions.

But I am confused by the politics. I am not heartened by Cosatu's Tony Ehrenreich's apparent attempt to appropriate the event and stamp his political agenda on it. Neither am I heartened by the comments on the Occupy Rondebosch Common's Facebook page . In fact, there appears to be a fair amount of name-calling and ad hominum attacks on individuals .

I'm still trying to work out why everything feels so wrong, so I take another drive around the common. It is still eerily empty except for the police cars. The evening is cooling down, but there is an edginess afoot.

I know there are two sides to every story. I know the DA runs what everyone thinks, and in many ways is right to claim, one of the most efficient provinces in the country. I know that providing housing is a complex issue that requires dancing through a maze of red tape and conflicts between provincial and national government competencies.

I know all that, but when I read Patricia de Lille's response to what happened on Friday, I am enraged again. It all sounds so reasonable.

The city is engaging with the "right" people to bring change. It is a long-term project and we should all be patient and let them get on with it.

The occupiers are playing the race card. But the mayor's contention that the occupiers had no right to come to what is commonage, open public space bequeathed to the city, to hold their summit holds a sentence that distresses me: "This [Rondebosch] is a peaceful and diverse community known mostly for its schools and retirees."

Does this mean that discussions about homelessness and poverty should not be held in what is, quite frankly, an upper-class privileged area? In all honesty, if it were not for the University of Cape Town, Rondebosch would not be very diverse at all. And yes, it has great schools, but does this mean they must be shielded from the sight of poverty and not see people from other areas raising their concerns? Can we not move past the "us" and "them" divide?

- Timeslive THE BIG READ: Crocker lives in Rondebosch