More mosque protests
Various people are making their voices heard about the mosque in Centurion.
There were thunderous applause and shouts of Allahu Akbar (God is Great) from Muslims from Valhalla, Laudium and Erasmia when Tshwane metro mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa signed the authorisation for the building of Valhalla’s first mosque.
The signing and symbolic handover ceremony of land at the Vallies Park Primary school come in the wake of the metro council meeting last month, when most political parties voted in favour of the rezoning of the land on which the mosque and community centre would be built.
But a handful of protesters, including members of the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) held a placard outside the school to register their opposition.
FF Plus member Anel Geyser claimed the approval process was “handled incorrectly” because residents were not given a chance to purchase the land for alternative use such as building an old age home.
Reminiscent of the Islamophobia rhetoric, often from right wing groups in Europe and US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, Geyser said the protesters disapproved of “these people moving in next to us”.
“We are going to feel unsafe”, she charged.
“They already make a noise at 5 am in Laudium which we hear. We don’t want to hear it five times a day while we’re sitting on our stoep (porch),” she lamented in reference to the Adhan, call to prayer.”
She also charged that the community centre would invite criminals.
“We don’t want this in Valhalla. If you erect something like this you invite criminals and criminal activity,” she said.
Residents Richard Stax and Amanda Schoeman agreed.
“We’re a lovely community, lovely families and we think we’re going to be invaded,” Stax said while Schoeman added that the Adhan would “scare the animals”.
But in his address, Ramokgopa preached reconciliation between faiths and communities.
“People of all faiths and even atheists have the right to practise that what they believe,” he said.
“There is no community that can claim to be complete in the absence of the Lord, in the absence of Allah. We need to invite the Lord and Allah to be part of us,” he advised.
Ramokgopa stressed that the metro providing land to Muslims and other faiths was “forging a united city going forward”.
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