Our new army of democracy needs to take off the jackboots of the old order

The streets were dead silent. Even the stray dogs that usually roamed the neighbourhood looking for rubbish bins to overturn for food saw fit to stay away that night. It was way past midnight and we were on foot. We were returning from a night vigil.

As we were about to reach the intersection that served as a boundary between our township’s Sections B and D, we were startled by a blinding light that suddenly exploded in front of us. This was quickly followed by the unmistakable sound of rifles being cocked.

“On the floor, on the floor,” somebody was shouting. Before we could even kneel, we were being kicked and punched.

Where were we going this late in the night? Where were our weapons? Who was our ringleader? These were just some of the questions we were asked as the beatings continued.

This went on for about 10 minutes, even though it felt like an eternity at the time. Eventually the soldiers realised that all we were armed with, and carried by only two of us eight boys, were a New Testament and a hymn book.

They were going to let us go, they said, but not without first teaching us a lesson about the dangers of venturing into the streets at night.

With R1 and R4 rifles pointed menacingly at us, we were forced to do frog jumps, push-ups, jumping jacks and other military exercises.

The sadistic soldiers completed our humiliation by forcing us into a slapping contest. Cruel.

By the end of that year, three of the eight had skipped the borders and joined the armed struggle. Two more were to join them a year later.

Now I am not suggesting that they would not have been “radicalised” had it not been for this incident. But it clearly contributed.

The 1980s were a dangerous period for township folk, especially for those who were in their teens and were male.

One afternoon, returning from school, we witnessed another pupil being assaulted by soldiers because he had seen his friend walking on the other side of the street and shouted his name to grab his attention. The friend’s name was Mandla and the soldiers, who were not proficient in the local language, thought the pupil shouted the anti-apartheid struggle cry “Amandla”.

We live in a country that is vastly different from what prevailed in the 1980s. Over the past 26 years, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has really worked hard to be accepted by all sections of our society.

It is viewed with pride by most, and not as the aggressor that was its predecessor during the bad old days.

The South African Defence Force (SADF) that used to wreak havoc in neighbouring countries, bombing villages and sponsoring rebel armies in Angola and Mozambique, transformed into an SANDF that does all in its power to save lives in flooded villages of Mozambique.

Just a year ago, South Africans were raving about the country’s armed forces following their impressive display at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s inauguration ceremony.

But the shameful behaviour of some of our soldiers during the current Covid-19 outbreak crisis could undermine all the credibility that the army has gained in the eyes of the population over the past three decades.

Last weekend’s killing of Collins Khosa, the 40-year-old

Alexandra township resident who was allegedly assaulted by soldiers for drinking alcohol, highlights the urgent need for the government to halt the human-rights abuses and assaults that are being committed in its name.

Since the start of the lockdown period there have been daily reports — largely from townships, informal settlements and other black working-class areas — of soldiers and the police assaulting residents who find themselves on the wrong side of the state regulations and law.

Some, like Titus Mametse, also of Alexandra, did not have to do anything wrong to find himself a victim of the law enforcers. According to the Sowetan, Mametse was returning from buying groceries when he was shot at.

While defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula did well to express regret and apologise for Khosa’s death at the hands of her soldiers, she needs to go a step further and demand that army generals take stern action against those in the ranks who abuse their power.

Clearly the right noises that have been made by those in authority, including the president, are not getting through to the minds of some of the soldiers on the ground.

Swift and firm action needs to be taken to show the wayward soldiers such brutality is not tolerated in our constitutional order.

Indeed it is wrong for citizens not to obey the law and stay at home, but that does not give the soldiers and the police the right to become a law unto themselves.

If these excesses are allowed to continue unchecked, a new wave of resentment will begin to grow in our working-class communities against the soldiers, and against the authorities in general.

It may not result in some skipping the country to take up arms again, but it will erode the state’s credibility in the eyes of its citizens and, in the long run, it will undermine the government’s ability to govern.