Unity of privileged convenience is to be frowned upon

While in the country others beg for the right to trade, as their makeshift hawker tables stand empty, there is a plea impossible to ignore – mothers, grandmothers, aunts and uncles with families holed up in shacks and RDP houses filled to the brim with echoes of hunger.

On the other end of the spectrum, as the waves crash into the promenade, residents of Cape Town demand to go surfing.

Felix Frankfurter once said: “It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of the unequal…”

Then, almost as can be expected, open letters purporting to represent a collective are sent out to the Presidency for easing of restrictions – that exercising times be extended and that surfing be recognised as part of physical exercise.

This collective – that expects unity from a country whose majority are reeling under poverty – was silent when hawkers were told they could no longer ply their trade in the streets.

They rejoiced in the emptiness of the streets as traders were confined to their homes and they – the collective – went about their business, buying fruits and veggies in the comfort of air-conditioned Woolies.

I frown upon unity of convenience!

As images of snaking queues broke the internet and made headlines – with people ever so desperate for food parcels – it is clear these open letters do not reflect the feelings of the majority of the population. Surfing, longer exercising hours and the right to gather for entertainment purposes are not a priority.

The greater frustration comes with the inability of law enforcement to clamp down on the civil disobedience, as bushy tailed as they are in townships and the city centre.

May the application of the law be as uniform to the man in the street as it is to the woman riding the waves.

The country is under lockdown, not the poor, not just the rich – the population in its entirety. Sense of entitlement and privilege serves no good in an instance such as this!

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo.

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