Drop the agenda

Your editorial on the tragedy at Osi’s Place yesterday uses the righteous platform of sympathy for the eight victims and their families as an opportunity to imply that there is, in the Western Cape (read that, “the DA controlled Western Cape”), a perception that black lives are less valued than those of whites.

According to your editorial, your basis for this conclusion is that in some (unnamed) newspapers, this terrible and unnecessary loss of young, black lives warranted only second or third-page reports.

In an ironic twist, after reading your piece in the Cape Times on a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg in which the Osi’s Place report was on the front page, I picked up your sister newspaper, The Star, and the same article on the front page of the Cape Times was on the second page of The Star.

So, what to conclude? That in Johannesburg (ANC-controlled), Western Cape people’s lives are not of importance? Or that Johannesburg has some racial prejudices to overcome as you imply is the case in the Western Cape?

It appears that your newspaper’s clear intent in using race as a means of supporting the ANC’s endeavours to unseat the DA in the Western Cape has no limits.

Mark Witney

Hout Bay