Each one of us should escape from lockdown

To the surfers, dog-walkers, achar-sellers, buyers of black-market cigarettes, and braai-brigades, I salute you. Because with you, I am prepared to fight this war against Covid 19.

Unfortunately, in this war, we, the people of South Africa, have all been taken prisoner. It’s called a lockdown but, in reality, we are locked up with uniformed, armed soldiers ensuring we remain behind our own burglar bars and steel gates, only allowed out for our daily exercise.

We are also rationed with what we are allowed to buy and consume. And on top of this, we are rationed with information – effectively being kept in the dark by our captors.

Now, in my book, this makes all of us effectively prisoners of war.

And that places on all of us a moral (and in the case of the US, a legal) obligation to attempt an escape.

Contrary to the myth popularised by movies such as The Great Escape, prisoners of war were never legally bound to attempt an escape. But all that changed in 1955 when the US president, Dwight D Eisenhower, issued executive order 10 631, implementing a code of conduct for US military personnel.

This code included, for the first time, a requirement that US prisoners of war attempt to escape and assist the escapes of others.

Article III reads: “If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape.”

We, as prisoners of war, should all take this article to heart. Keep in mind that history will judge us harshly if we accept our fate without at least one attempt at escape – however feeble it might be. Because every attempt at escape serves as motivation and example for others to follow.

I am by no means encouraging anybody to tunnel into their nearest Tops.

No, in this war, we should not look at one Great Escape.

We will achieve more with 57 million little escapes, like selling achar, riding a wave, smoking a cigarette or even just having a braai. What will you be adding to the list of little escapes?

Danie Toerien.

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