Brindley J Fortuin

Public Education @ Parliament SA | Doctoral researcher | Queer geographies, race & violence | Director, Atlantis Women’s Movement | @examinedlives
Views my own

[Brindley J Fortuin @FortuinBrindley]

Here is a small contribution I hope produces some productive tensions for some and acknowledgment for ‘others’. Thank you @africasacountry for publishing my reflection.

[Africa Is a Country @africasacountry]

We do not have to die, become sick or leave the academy to live and be in this space. https://t.co/DEJoWIOGHM

[Msunu ka Johann Rupert @ZizinjaAbelungu]

Jacinta calls for the old Apartheid Law that our people fought so hard to abolish—requiring people to carry an ID document wherever they go.

People died to abolish this law and she wants to bring it back.

Our Ancestor must be shaking from their graves, ayikho lento 💔🤦🏾‍♂️

[Irfaan Mangera 🍉🇿🇦 @IrfaanMangera]

Reject the xenophobia.
Reject the violence.

[SABC News @SABCNews]

The latest data from StatsSA shows that there are 9.5 million young people aged 15-34 not in education, employment or training (NEET), or 45.9% of South Africa's youth. #YouthDay #SABCNews

[Chisomo Kalinga, PhD @ChisomoWrites]

The US Christian right pours millions into anti-LGBT initiatives in Africa every year. They use the continent as a testing ground for culture war issues that help them mobilize strategies in the United States as well. https://t.co/hGCcpuCOPi

[Mambaonline @Mambaonline]

LGBTQ+ activists once again packed the Khayelitsha Magistrates Court on Tiesday as proceedings continued in the case centred on the brutal killing of queer Cape Town teen KwaKhanya Mhlanganisi. https://t.co/bNllZPkKJN

[Governance-Cluster @GovernanceClus1]

MEDIA STATEMENT:

COMMITTEE ON WOMEN, YOUTH AND PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES ADOPTS ANNUAL PERFORMANCE PLANS AND BUDGET VOTE REPORTS

Parliament, Wednesday, 13 May 2026 – The Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities today finalised and adopted its Budget Vote Report on the annual performance plans (APPs) of the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) and the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) for the 2026/27 financial year.

The committee started its proceedings by acknowledging the difficult conditions currently experienced in parts of Cape Town owing to inclement weather, particularly in vulnerable communities and among women, youth and persons with disabilities.

In considering the plans before it, the committee welcomed the tabling of the APPs and the incremental increases in the department’s budget allocation. However, members were unequivocal that these gains remain insufficient when measured against the extensive and cross-cutting responsibilities entrusted to the department.

https://t.co/UPirlzfSAV

@ParliamentofRSA @DWYPD_ZA @HealthSocClust @FinanceCluster @EconoCluster

[hunter @3gpmh]

how grotesque is the expression “earn a living”

[𝑺𝒅𝒖 @shufflesdu]

Steve Biko was beaten to a pulp and transferred naked and chained to the van floor.

The comparison doesn't even begin to compare.

[Brett Herron 🇿🇦🍉 @brettherron]

The Court’s silence on the unlawful charges collected this year…and still to be collected til 30 June…must be dealt with.
As a party to this litigation @ForGoodZA raised this in our case (see below). We have asked our legal team to advise on our options to address the court leaving this unresolved.
The City must PAY BACK THE MONEY!

[Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 @OmarHamadD]

Massacres against Palestinian civilians in Gaza are still being carried out by Israel. Just minutes ago, another massacre occurred in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.

[Brindley J Fortuin @FortuinBrindley]

#NewProfilePic

[Adil Haque @AdHaque110]

"There is an outdoor play area that appears on Google Earth as early as 2017."

Inexcusable.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: The U.S. was responsible for a missile strike on an Iranian school, an ongoing military investigation found. The inquiry said the strike — which Iranian officials said killed at least 175 people — was the result of a targeting mistake. https://t.co/88FIdIJOQi

[Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib @RepRashida]

After lying about it, the Trump Administration confirmed that they bombed a school in Iran—killing 175 people, mostly girls.

Trump should be impeached. Hegseth should be fired. And the Administration must be held accountable in international courts for their heinous war crimes.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

“The historian of the Palestinian cause.”

Walid Khalidi, the venerated Palestinian historian whose research helped document the Nakba and shaped generations of scholarship on Palestine, has died aged 100.

🔗: https://t.co/TcuA1JlWQh

[Al Jazeera Breaking News @AJENews]

BREAKING: At least 83 children killed in Lebanon in past 7 days: UNICEF

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/ldLhTs8c8x

[UN News @UN_News_Centre]

Nearly 700,000 people – including about 200,000 children – have been displaced in Lebanon in just 10 days of war in the Middle East, according to UNICEF.

Food and fuel prices are surging as the conflict spreads across the region.

https://t.co/Qq4OiAli4m

[Muffin 🇨🇿 @CatReviewer]

remember when all of gaza was pushed into rafah? with the promise of it being a city safe from bombing?

[. @naledimashishi]

The western concept of bombing people to death and claiming you’re liberating them

It’s never made sense before and it’s not making sense now

[‏ً @BALUCIAGA]

even if every, single digital nomad left cape town tomorrow, the city would still feel inaccessible. these problems aren’t being caused by the foreigners, they’re being exposed by them, bc the real issue is structural, and the real problem is the DA.

the cape town housing crisis isn’t accidental, and it isn’t just market forces. it’s the result of political choices, particularly in the western cape. the province is one of the most difficult places in the country to build new housing bc of restrictive zoning laws and layers of bureaucracy that slow down and limit construction. that manufactured scarcity pushes property prices up which benefits existing homeowners and forces black and coloured residents further away from the city and further from economic opportunity.

and at the same time, the DA actively promotes cape town as a destination for foreign residents and digital nomads through relaxed visa pathways and lifestyle branding. the increased demand enters a housing market where supply is already constrained, which inevitably drives up rent. foreigners didn’t create the crisis, but policy choices have made it easier for global capital to compete w locals for limited housing.

these zoning frameworks didn’t emerge in a vacuum. south africa’s spatial planning laws were originally designed to enforce apartheid geography, deliberately separating low-income black and coloured communities from city centres. many of those patterns remain intact today. resistance to densification and affordable housing is often strongest in historically white suburban areas, where homeowners oppose developments that might change neighbourhood demographics or affect property values.

the result is a housing market heavily leaned toward luxury and high-end developments w a severe undersupply of affordable housing. demand at the lower end far exceeds supply, yet reform is slow or blocked altogether. this is where the DA’s contradiction becomes v clear. the party frequently criticises labour laws, BEE and employment equity as overly bureaucratic and claims to champion deregulation and economic liberalism. but when it comes to zoning reform and housing integration, that appetite for deregulation disappears. liberalisation is welcomed when it protects property values, but resisted when it would allow black and coloured working-class people closer access to the city.

what’s being preserved isn’t efficiency, it’s an inherited spatial order. the language has changed, but the outcomes are very familiar: exclusion repackaged as market logic and inequality defended as inevitability.