Never before in the last 25 years have South Africans been so seized by the issue of their personal rights.
In our more privileged areas; the debate has been furious. First it was the right to job and walk the dog, then it was cooked chickens from Woolworths. In the overcrowded townships the debaters voted with their feet, ignoring the regulations; standing close to one another, drinking openly, selling alcohol illegally.
The libertarians would argue that the regulations, first imposed by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday March 15 and then further ratcheted up with a 21 Day Lockdown from March 27 – and then extended for a further 14 days – were draconian. They may well be right, but that’s an issue for the courts to decide.
One of the premises of our constitution is that we are all equal before the law – that means it applies to all of us and must be seen to be applied uniformly for it to be considered fair and reasonable. None of us have the right to opt out from laws we don’t like. If we do, we are guilty of an offence. We do have the right to challenge laws we believe are unfair – but only in court.
If we try that with law enforcement officers on the street, we will end up being arrested, not just because we are committing an offence but because if others see us getting away with breaking the law – and getting away with it – there will be no incentive for them to stick to the law, especially when it seems unpleasant or uncomfortable in the first place.
What about our rights? We have the freedom to assemble where we like, to speak what we like, to worship who we like, to believe what we want and to publish it – we can even move where we like. That’s what our constitution says, but it also gives us the obligation not to exercise our rights to such an extent that other people can’t exercise theirs, or even worse, that our enjoyment of our rights actually endangers the lives of others.
Which brings us to South Africa in 2020.
We are currently in a State of Disaster. During this time, which can be anything up to three months and then extended on a month by month basis, many basic rights are suspended. A disaster, in terms of the Disaster Management Act of 2002, is defined as a “natural or human caused occurrence that causes disease, damage to property infrastructure or the environment of disruption of the life of a community”.
Covid-19 is the greatest public health disaster we have faced as a country in the last 100 years, worse even than the HIV/ Aids pandemic because of the speed it is transmitted and the percentage of people who end up dying because of it. It takes six years for the symptoms of being HIV positive to present and then, if left untreated, two years for this to develop into Aids and death. Covid-19 can take 21 days.
We have seen the speed with which this pandemic has over taken some of the most developed countries in the world. The United States of America is the most chilling example. Here at home, the risk is even higher because of the number of South Africans whose immunity has already been compromised by HIV/ Aids and/or Tuberculosis. If those people become infected with Covid-19, they have no chance. It’s that simple.
The rest of South Africa either doesn’t understand this – or even worse – doesn’t care. But the government does and that’s why it has implemented the State of Disaster and deployed the military to assist the police in enforcing the regulations and the back up the department of health when we ultimately hit the peak of this pandemic – which we will, it is only a matter of time.
Our only chance to avoid the worst of this – and the death of hundreds of thousands of neighbours, our loved ones, perhaps even ourselves – is to do as we are told: keep our distance, wash our hands and stay at home. Those that can’t do this are breaking the law and will be isolated so that they don’t pose a risk to anyone else.
This is how societies work. But for some reason, many of us think that we are different because of our past.
Our past was terrible, most of us had no rights as a minority government tried everything in its power, including passing unjust laws enforced by the military, to suppress the majority. Our present is nothing like that. We have a properly elected government living through the most difficult times imaginable doing everything in its power legitimately to protect the society. Comparisons between the two are not just disingenuous, they are hateful and juvenile. But even worse, they are dangerous.
As people refuse to behave, the state has to resort to tougher, legitimate, tactics to ensure obedience for the greater good in the face of this crisis – including transitioning from a state of disaster to a state of emergency where civil liberties are actually suspended for the duration. This is not a uniquely South African situation, but an international phenomenon – the safety of the society will always outweigh the rights of the individual.
The question is simple: what South Africa do we want? If we do as the government asks us, we will negotiate this crisis as quickly as we can, get back to a new normal and the soldiers can get off the streets and home to their families. Or we can force government to keep us in an indefinite state of limbo, and increasing discomfort, as our scientists and clinicians try to discover a vaccine.
It should be a very simple decision to make. Let’s do the right thing, Mzansi, let’s stay at home and give the government the time it needs to beat Covid-19 – for our sakes, not theirs.
* Siphiwe Dlamini is head of communications: Department of Defence.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.