How exactly will we lock down a township, and other questions about our legacy

Have you ever been to a doctor’s office where the receptionist, who has been there for 25 years, fancies herself a nurse and acts as though she has more medical knowledge and experience than a doctor?

Now the army, which has hardly seen deployment for a generation, is tasked with enforcing the lockdown. At this point, I’m trying to figure out how I can be assigned to Mabena. Jokes aside though, this is a vital task considering we still live in two South Africas.

In one South Africa, you can take your car, quickly pop by the clean shop, disinfect yourself at the door, buy your bread and milk for the day and some disinfectant for two weeks (because you’re in denial you’ll be back tomorrow), tap your card, go home, lock yourself away and repeat daily. In the other South Africa, you don’t have a car, you have to walk through a densely populated, poorly planned township (if you can’t afford an overcrowded taxi), navigate your way to a dilapidated store full of people, exchange cash for goods and make your way back to your home.

Lockdowns will certainly curb the spread in the first South Africa, but in the overcrowded model, I have three fearful questions.

How does one lock down a township? I was hardly around during apartheid so I’ve never seen it, but if you allow people to go buy food, I’m pretty certain that’s a gaping loophole to allow free roaming, especially if stores are so far from homes.

Who locks down a township? It would appear that this would be a combined effort between the police and the defence force, though the numbers do not inspire confidence and I noticed this during the alcohol limitations of last week.

The pub had a recurring presence of cops to ensure the numbers were below 50. After dark, though, when we took a trip to see if the taverns in busy areas were open, indeed they were. I’d heard stories about taverns being closed down and fined, which is great, so I don’t believe there’s no appetite to enforce the regulations, I just don’t know how much regulation there is to go around.

On the subject of appetite, what approach will be used? Where people are economically vulnerable they are also vulnerable to abuse. We’ve seen this through the decades, especially in instances where people are defiant against those who do not know how to wield their authority.

These three concerns, however, pale into insignificance when one considers just what might happen if an outbreak were to occur in a township … so I understand why the president is taking a hard stance on the lockdown. I’m just here hoping that it will be enough to prevent such an outbreak.

You may find yourself asking then, what more can be done to prevent this virus from spreading, and the answer is: not much. Even in instances of national emergency, the executive’s powers are not absolute. We tried something like that once a few decades ago and the results weren’t so great. The powers must be balanced within the frame of the Constitution and the necessity of their execution.

Even a state of lockdown may be considered overreaching by some legal purists. The limitation on freedoms is constitutionally justified by the ends they are meant to achieve and, as we’re shooting in the dark, we’re not certain whether they will achieve those ends at all. On the other hand, there is a mandate to protect the people of the nation in the role of the executive and that needs to be factored in.

Essentially, they are doing as much as they can, knowing it may be futile, but they must still do it and hope for the best all the same.

It’s not ideal and we’re uncertain about how effective it may be, but we’ve made it through worse. The more people who live in hope that this will work and support it, the more likely it will all be over in time for Liverpool to win the Premier League.

Richard Anthony Chemaly entertainment attorney, radio broadcaster and lecturer of communication ethics.

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