Covid-19 discourse reveals society’s imaginings

In the last fortnight when the coronavirus came to grip national and global attention, social and political discourse has, as always, revealed more than it concealed the political imaginings of multiple sectors of society.

Locally, the most striking output came from the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) Peter Mokaba region in Limpopo 10 days ago.

The league “gravely” lamented the government’s decision to utilise the bush-sandwiched Ranch Hotel outside Polokwane as the quarantine site for “the more than 100 people who would be repatriated from coronavirus borne Republic of China”.

Of course, the ANCYL meant the People’s Republic of China and not Taiwan; that disputed territory which officially calls itself the Republic of China.

In fairness, the statement reflected legitimate fears about a rapidly spreading disease which has so far claimed over 8,000 lives around the world and has the potential to spiral further out of control.

According to the ANCYL, “A workable solution to this impasse would be to have each province having its own quarantine facility [with] manageable numbers to deal with.” This ostensibly to avoid “shockwaves in our communities” and “bad publicity to the vulnerable tourism economy of the province”.

The statement betrays regression to a parochial provincialism and retreat from the civic spirit and humanism that informed the anti-colonial and apartheid struggles. It must ultimately result in a cocktail of unmitigated nagatives, including descent into a full blown ethnic social and political enterprise.

A national liberation movement of the ANC’s pedigree cannot but confront this tendency head-on, lest the country ideationally and otherwise slide back to the Dark Ages.

Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on Sunday, this week commenced with “panic shopping” expeditions by people who, as the phrase goes, presumably elected to “social distance” or self-isolate, minimise or avoid the effects of an almighty disaster.

Social media was abuzz with photographs of empty supermarket shelves and long queues of predominantly white shoppers wheeling full-to-the-brim trolleys.

It provoked memories of yesteryear, with some likening the moment to the 1994 stockpiling of tinned and dried food items by some white South Africans who feared a civil war that never was after the first democratic elections.

In similar vein, a widely circulating social media post notes that the coronavirus affair is the “first crisis ever in South Africa where no one is talking about emigrating”. Tongue in cheek, but a truism nonetheless.

Beneath these comments are multiple layers of issues. They range from the thorny subject of race, racism and the state of race relations to how South Africans of all races respond to various national problems and challenges.

Regrettably, in the last 26 years, the nation has been unable to engage in a sustained no-holds-barred and constructive discussion about these issues, in a sense, peel off the layers of the onion, afraid that its pungence will evoke tears. We continue to tiptoe around them in the belief that this will secure lasting peace.

If anything, the comments point to the limits of this false consensus. No one can tell the point of rupture with certainty, but imagine if the virus were to manifest in one of South Africa’s innumerable squalid spatial spaces. The ramifications might signal the beginning of our undoing – black and white, rich and poor.

At minimum, the outbreak of the coronavirus calls for scrutiny of social inequalities in morbidity and outcomes as a social justice issue and better preparedness for the future. To do otherwise serves no one since we sink or swim together.

Further afield, the virus resuscitated sentiments which not only lay bare Western political schisms and fault lines, but also question neo-liberal assumptions about the workings of the domestic and international political economies.

Earlier this week, the German and US governments tussled over the latter’s attempts to acquire the German biotechnology firm, CureVac, reported to be developing a vaccine for the coronavirus.

Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer publicly advised that the coronavirus was no longer a health crisis. It had become “a question of national security”. The German government was therefore duty-bound to secure its borders, food supply and “our medical products and our medicines”.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier declared that: “Germany is not for sale.” He proceeded: “When it’s about important infrastructure and national and European interest, we will also act if we have to.” Legislator and epidemiology professor Karl Lauterbach tweeted: “The exclusive sale of a possible vaccine to the USA must be prevented by all means. Capitalism has limits.”

If Lauterbach’s assertion on the limits of capitalism has any merit, how would it look like and manifest in our setting, especially now as we battle with the coronavirus?

At a press briefing on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump treaded a counter-productive and divisive path. He referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus”. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had earlier used the pejorative phrase: “Wuhan virus.”

When challenged with the implicit racial stereotyping of the vituperation, Trump was obstinate and decidedly obtuse: “Because it comes from China. It’s not racist at all.” So, even if it is to be achieved by stoking up the demon of racism, China-bashing seems to be a key performance area of the Trump Administration’s struggle for hegemony over China.

Also this week, in the Foreign Policy magazine, Elisabeth Braw of the British defence and security think tank, the Royal United Services Institute, bemoaned Europe’s “morally lamentable selfishness” and “shameful lack of solidarity” with Italy.

Europe, she argued, had failed “to give [Italy desperately needed coronavirus] medical assistance and supplies.”

Braw was deeply troubled by the political implications of aid to Italy having so far come from geographically far-away and ideologically poles apart China. One wonders whether such Cold War vestiges are useful under the circumstances.

Since they impact on the domestic, the coronavirus evidently points to the need to improve our theoretical and empirical knowledge of world affairs. Ultimately, for its pivot in the survival of human civilisation, pursuit of an-all round progressive outlook remains ever relevant.

Mukoni Ratshitanga.

• Ratshitanga is a consultant, social and political commentator. (mukoni@interlinked.co.za)

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