We must all do the right thing to survive

During apartheid, I spent years behind bars and was placed under house arrest after being released from custody to what, we referred to in those days, as “a bigger prison”.

But, like others with me at the time, we were fortunate to have come out alive, while countless others in the country were brutally murdered during captivity by a system despised by most of the international community as a crime against humanity.

Ask any anti-apartheid detainee of the 1980s under PW Botha how it felt to be rudely awoken in the early hours of a chilling winter morning by members of the security police, not being given enough time to dress properly before being loaded into a back of a police van and whisked away for interrogation.

A scary new world of the unknown.

After hours of interrogation, your ordeal would not be over, as you would be driven to a faraway prison filled with activists – from as young as 16 years old.

As Mzwakhe Mbuli so well articulates the experience in his poem: “Days became weeks, weeks became months and months became years.”

Only mass support, international solidarity and camaraderie inside prison kept us in high spirits.

Similar to the situation we find ourselves in during the coronavirus lockdown, to survive in prison we soon developed our own programme, which included political education, sport and games.

These helped us accept our new life and surroundings behind bars.

As we find ourselves in a strange new world of the unknown and facing an uncertain future, only solidarity, psychological preparedness and sticking to a rigid programme will keep families and friends firmly focused on dealing with the scourge.

Jameel Ahmad, a currency strategist and market research guru with FXTM, put it like this: “This situation is very much like turning the lights off in a home and not having the faintest idea when the lights might come back on.”

When he is not studying or grabbing food out of the fridge, my youngest, soccer-playing, son takes out the lockdown blues on indoor physical training and playing soccer with friends in the yard.

Not only does this keep him physically fit, he tells me how well he sleeps after a day’s workout.

With numbers of those infected increasing daily and deaths mounting up, we only owe it to ourselves – not President Cyril Ramaphosa or security forces – to do the right thing, by obeying regulations, social distancing and adhering to hygiene.

While some of us may find lockdown regulations punitive in restricting people’s movement and clamping down on gatherings, there is bound to be light at the end of the tunnel.

To many, social distancing is a culture shock by a society used to hugs, handshakes and kisses, but how else do you survive?

In dealing with a disease that knows no class, colour, creed or standing in society, you either adapt or die.

Brian Sokutu.

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