On Wednesday, a mighty armed force of the state descended upon Camps Bay in Cape Town. Grim, imposing, intimidating, it had arrived to ‘stamp the authority of the state’ on its enemies. It was headed by none other than Minister of Police Bheki Cele (an enthusiastic state stamper), and assisted by three police generals (the ANC has militarised the police force) and sixteen officers.
A picture, perhaps intended as a warning to enemies of the state, showed a policeman on the beach brandishing a shotgun. But who were the enemies of the state in this case? Suspected terrorists? No. Violent criminals running amok on the beaches? No. In this case, the enemies of the state were a film crew making an advertisement for a non-alcoholic drink.
According to J P Smith, Cape Town’s Democratic Alliance mayoral committee member for safety and security, the film company had a permit to film and the filming was not in breach of President Ramaphosa’s new beach regulations. Cele disagreed and ordered the filming to stop. (The City of Cape Town went to court and, on Friday, claimed victory: an out-of-court settlement Smith described as ‘prohibiting the police from interfering with film shoots when the city has issued a permit’.)
The interesting thing was not so much about whether the filming was compliant with the crazy beach regulations but about the order of priorities for the South African police force, indeed the priorities of the ANC itself. Twenty kilometres east of Camps Bay is the Cape Flats, probably the worst badlands on Earth, racked with gang warfare, drug dealing and violence against women, giving Cape Town the highest murder rate in South Africa (69 murders per 100 000 people).
Yet I cannot ever remember seeing Cele with three police generals explaining how they were going to stamp the authority of the state against the killers, rapists and gang bosses. I cannot remember a picture of one of his policemen brandishing his big shotgun in front of one of the many well-known drug dealers instead of a five-year-old boy on Camps Bay beach.
Burnt and destroyed
In November, over 30 trucks in South Africa were burnt and destroyed, and more than two drivers killed by criminals. Where were Cele and his three police generals then? Why did I see no video of big, brave, hat-wearing, authority-stamping Cele confronting a truck arsonist in the same heroic, wrathful way that he confronted the film company on Camps Bay beach?
Why do I never read about the police getting involved in the terrifying epidemic of violent robberies of cash-in-transit vans? Oops, I withdraw that remark. Actually, I have read plenty about such police involvement, in Anneliese Burgess’s superb but frightening book, Heist. The trouble is that it was the police themselves that planned many of the heists.
In South Africa today, this is clear: nobody is above the law, except for the criminals, especially the violent criminals. Only law-abiding citizens need fear the law. Last month I saw people queuing for over six hours to renew their vehicle licences. They knew they would be heavily fined if they were caught with their licence a day beyond expiry. But other people drive freely without licences at all, quite confident that the police would never dare act against them. The police will watch a minibus taxi driver going straight through a red light and do nothing, but woe betide you if you do the same.
President Ramaphosa’s latest pronouncements on Covid-19 were not quite as stupid as his previous ones but still pretty stupid. He said beaches on the Garden Route and in the Eastern Cape would be closed over the festive season, and KZN beaches on certain peak days. Ramaphosa will, however, allow everyone to shop in malls and enjoy certain other indoor activities. Covid-19 spreads most indoors, where the air is still, and least outdoors, where the air is moving, especially on windy beaches. So these regulations will surely help to spread the virus while smashing the tourist industry. What sort of demented thinking is behind the ANC’s National Coronavirus Command Council?
In number of deaths per infection, Covid-19 is about three times worse than the common flu (much less than the flu for children but worse for the old). In terms of years of life lost, Covid is much milder than the flu. This is because death at 10 years (which almost never happens with Covid) causes more years of life lost than death at 90 (which happens quite often with Covid).
Lockdown kills
Loss of life from lockdown is the other way round. Lockdown kills disproportionately more children, since lockdown causes poverty and malnutrition, and malnutrition does far greater harm to children than adults. Ramaphosa’s lockdown regulations will have caused far greater loss of life than Covid-19 ever could.
But these regulations will be ruthlessly enforced by Police Minister Cele – that is, if those who violate them, or at any rate those who he thinks are violating them, are law-abiding. If they are criminals, he will look the other way.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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