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.
A South African hospitality worker protests in front of advancing police in the streets around Parliament, Cape Town, South Africa, 24 July 2020. Police used stun grenades and water cannons to disperse a gathering of hospitality workers who were peacefully protesting against the current lockdown regulations that are crippling their industry. Several arrests were made. The hospitality, restaurant and tourism sectors have been severely affected by the new lockdown regulations with protests against government springing up across the country. Picture: EPA-EFE/NIC BOTHMA
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.
Also read: WATCH: Stun grenades, water cannons used in Cape Town protest for jobs
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.
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