McDonald’s in Nick’s belly, a cigarette in Gabriel’s hand, the Two Crickets in a thorn tree reflect on South Africa’s moans of relief as the country’s lockdown gets eased from “Level 5”. Should our lockdown be lifted because it worked, or because it was the wrong kind of lockdown from the start, and where to next? This leads to deeper questions about the long-term, and long-term as a political conceit. What if Ramaphosa is the kind of long-term strategist whose policy is aimed a century into the future?

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