Something there is that doesn’t love a wall and yet, the Cape of Town is about to spend R115-million building one along the notorious stretch of the N2 highway, the so-called “hell run”.
A road that twists past the airport where daily commuters know it not for its scenery but for fear, the fear of smash-and-grab attacks, of stones shattering windscreens, of lives interrupted in a moment of vulnerability. Tourists from affluent countries look at the impoverished areas and wonder.
The City says the wall will protect motorists, improve lighting and make pedestrian crossings safer. In theory, it promises security. In practice, it raises deep moral questions: who is truly protected and from whom? and who remains on the other side of this concrete boundary? Opposition parties are politicising the issue, arguing that the wall risks hiding poverty rather than addressing the deeper structural problems faced by Cape Town’s poor, while others stress that crime is rarely defeated by stone alone.
A Robert Frost poem comes to mind for me. Mending Wall reminds us:
“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
“What I was walling in or walling out…”
The poet’s words echo across decades and continents. A wall, no matter how well-intentioned, is never neutral. It divides, separates and symbolises power as much as protection.
For the motorist, it is a promise of safety. For the resident beyond the wall, it is a reminder of separation and the failed democratic project, of the lingering shadows of poverty and desperation that line the edges of the city, visible to anyone who dares to look. For the City, it is a statement of order, control and security.
Yet again, Frost whispers that something always resists the wall: something human, wild and alive that seeks connection rather than division, that seeks inclusion and integration, that seeks liberation from the shackles of poverty that have chained humanity post-1994, that seeks acceptance
And yet, the stones will rise. Concrete will line the road. The workmen will handle each boulder, balancing them, placing them firm and true. The wall may keep the worst at bay. It may save a life or shield a commuter from fear. But in doing so, it also raises the fundamental question Frost asks: “What do we gain and what do we obscure?”
For Cape Town, this could be more than engineering; it could be a reflection of a city’s struggle with inequality, fear and safety. For residents and drivers alike, it is a daily reminder that protection often comes with a price tag of not only rands, but also human connection, visibility and empathy.
As the wall rises, commuters may feel relief, the City may claim victory, but the human spirit, that part of us that does not love a wall, will continue to whisper protection is necessary, but socioeconomic inclusion is far more important and everlasting
Perhaps, in the end, the wall may be only half the solution, but it serves to remind us all to ask the deep, hard questions: are we truly building safety or are we quietly repeating old patterns of separation, where privilege and poverty are divided by invisible walls? We did this all too well in the past, with space buffers along racial and economic lines.
Yet, alas, lest we forget. There is something that doesn’t love a wall. DM
Boitumelo (Tumi) Mpisi is an award-winning strategic leader, property professional and advocate for social justice with more than 15 years of experience in urban planning, property development and senior management in government.