Cops roll out the big guns for softies

They didn’t set tyres alight; dig holes in the road or put up barricades; they didn’t throw rocks. They put out tables, held up posters and made a little bit of noise. Yet, according to Bheki Cele’s jackbooted enforcers of “law and order” in Cape Town yesterday, they were a clear and present danger to the public peace. And so they had to be dispersed with force.

Like the goons from a post-apocalyptic movie, they moved in, with their armoured vehicles, their stun grenades and teargas and their water cannon.

That is the government’s answer to an anguished plea from people who have lost virtually everything because of the harsh lockdown regulations.

They are restaurants which struggle to make ends meet because they cannot sell alcohol and because of the curfew, which means everybody must be off the streets by 9pm.

They are the hotels, guest houses and game farms who cannot take any guests, no matter how remote they are and no matter how well they enforce social distancing and practice good sanitation protocols.

What a difference from the attitude towards the taxi industry, which demonstrated its unhappiness at capacity and time restrictions by blockading roads. And then by ignoring the restrictions anyway and daring the government to take them on.

Of course, the government backed down.

But restaurant owners and staff and hospitality sector operators are much softer targets; after all, their day-to-day business is, unlike that of the taxi industry, conducted within the confines of the law.

The ANC government may have felt little for the middle class, suburban owners of these businesses. And, clearly, they felt even less for the staff of those businesses, who might well be pushed to starvation when they lose their jobs.

In a humanitarian crisis like the one we are facing, the last thing we need is inhumane policing.