ArticleBlog | Pete Portal – Seeking justice in Cape Town’s forgotten ghetto
Pete Portal – Seeking justice in Cape Town’s forgotten ghetto
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 10.03.20
Pete Portal describes the endemic gang culture and drug addiction in Manenberg as the ‘collective trauma’ of a community sidelined as a dumping ground for the poorest under South Africa’s apartheid regime. No neutral ground: Finding Jesus in a Cape Town ghetto is his story of moving from British middle-class comfort to living with drug-addicted gang members in the notorious township. Alongside tragedy and trauma, he has seen healing, transformation and the hope of justice in one of the world’s most forgotten places.
Your book is titled No neutral ground. You say that every square inch of Manenberg is owned by a gang of some kind. There’s no neutral ground. But what do you mean by it?
What I mean by ‘no neutral ground’ is that when we say ‘yes’ to following Jesus, we can no longer live in a way that just palely reflects the way we’ve been living beforehand. Someone once said, ‘You should live your life in such a way that it would make no sense unless God exists.’ I was in London, and I was tired of living in a way where my life made complete sense. It was a fairly passive and pale reflection of everyone else’s around me.
