How can we respect the law when officials loot with impunity?

This week I got all nostalgic when I came across a news report about a Sandton night spot being shut down for contraventions of the liquor laws. “Selling alcohol without a liquor licence,” it said.

I was moved to comment on Twitter that, ah yes, that was one of the earliest arrests in my life of crime for my flagrant contravention of the liquor laws.

Being a deeply aged person looking down the barrel of middle age, I was in fact arrested in the latter years of the apartheid era. As I mused on this, it struck me that apartheid, as well as being a system custom-designed for the violent oppression of black people, was also a form of state bullying.

In apartheid, even white people would find themselves arrested fairly regularly. Of course, I cannot begin to understand the levels of abuse, harassment and violence exacted upon black people. But despite the privilege I enjoyed – and continue to enjoy – I must confess that I am no stranger to the inside of a holding cell.

My first arrest happened at the age of 16, for lifting on a 50cc motorcycle, at the hands of a group of men identifying themselves as The Ghost Squad.

Perhaps to give us a fright, or perhaps to enforce the law, they arrested us and took us off to Louis le Grange Square police station where we were subjected to an interrogation of sorts.

Suitably terrified, we were then let go with a warning.

We emerged with a sense of utter relief, but also a feeling of injustice. We knew we had broken the law, but we felt – and justifiably so – that the interrogation process was a bit heavy handed. What did the cops really have to learn interrogating two white kids on a motorbike?

Not much, it turned out. Had we been two black teens, I’m sure things would have worked out far less favourably. However, despite our “luck” we emerged with a deep sense of antipathy towards the police and a kind of solidarity for the people our society deemed to be criminals.

This ultimately undermined the respect that we had previously felt for the law. Thenceforth, we had few qualms about contravening the regulations of the apartheid state, which in turn showed little compunction in arresting and harassing us regularly.

Within a couple of years, we had been arrested for loitering, dagga, dronkbestuur, being in a township and, of course, selling booze – all with varying levels of justification.

The point is not whether we were guilty. On balance, we were.

The point is that in our eyes, the law had lost legitimacy. For their part, the upholders of the law operated with a type of bullying impunity, misusing their rights in order to harass us. I remember once waking up to a policeman in my bedroom who simply wanted to search the place, for no better reason than just “having a look around”.

I was no drug dealer, no struggle comrade, no gangster. Simply a young white boy in a system that had become depraved. I am sure any white person my age can share similar stories.

Those were dark times. But they were made even darker by the fact that the law – and the state – had lost legitimacy.

A country is ultimately as much an idea as a physical place. It’s legitimacy is closely aligned with the idea of respect. Only when we respect the doings of the state are we likely to adhere to its dictates.

In South Africa there was no such thing in the ’80s and early ’90s, but it has been clawed back in the years since.

It is an elusive thing, though, respect for the law. It can’t be taken for granted by any administration.

You cannot assume your laws will be respected as you try to enforce compliance to lockdown restrictions. You cannot assume your laws will be respected if you violate those very laws through the corrupt dealings of your own government.

And you certainly cannot assume you will be respected if your policing methods are racist, murderous and abusive – as they were in South Africa in the ’80s and in the USA at present.

Laws, and the respect they enjoy, are a type of social glue holding the mythical idea of the state together. We cohere and we adhere to each other because we believe in one another. We earn that through the way we behave.

Having earned some respect, a state needs to protect it with everything it has – through the way it behaves and the respect that it shows for its citizens. In many ways, it is the most precious thing we have. It’s the reason we even have a we!

Hagen Engler. Picture: Supplied

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.