People who gathered on 1 May on Sea Point's promenade were roundly criticised in some quarters, while other questioned the government's three-hour exercise allowance. (Jaco Marais, Netwerk24)
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We are unwilling to accept that we are worried about how this will all play out and what the impact will be on us today, tomorrow and in the future. It’s far easier to be outraged and angry and turn on one another, writes Mandy Wiener.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
So says Master Yoda.
As the 4th May is Star Wars day, drawing on the wisdom of the guru seems appropriate.
Over the past week, I have seen what appears to be a groundswell of outrage from some sectors about government’s lockdown regulations. Open letters have been written.
Petitions have been signed. Urgent court applications launched. People are very, very angry.
Some have rightfully labelled this a middle class, privileged discontent. It’s also been drawn down racial lines. Whatever the motivation, people’s opinions are strong one way or another.
But perhaps we should consider that this fury and outrage that is manifesting as vitriol and hate towards one another, is actually fear.
Fear has led to anger and anger to hate. It is indeed the path to the dark side.
We find ourselves in an unknown world, trying to decipher emotions that we can’t quite comprehend. As part of this process, we are struggling to label what it is we are feeling.
All of this is also spilling out in hysterical and ugly ways. Suffering.
What many of us may be struggling to label is that feeling of fear.
I for one am scared of this unknown. I’m scared of making the wrong decisions for myself and my family. I’m scared of what happens if someone I love gets sick.
I’m scared that if the lockdown is too long and too hard, people will literally starve and lose their livelihoods, their dignity and their lives.
I’m scared that I’m not doing enough to support others or tell their stories. Many of us are absolutely terrified of loss – of incomes, of stability, of safety, of sanity.
When I wrote last week about having Stockholm Syndrome in our relationship with our lockdown captor, (which I regretfully should have labelled Stuckhome Syndrome!), I also made reference to this fear of having to make decisions.
But now we are also feeling the fear that we have been disempowered from making those decisions.
We are terrified that government has removed our civil liberties from us and our freedom to make choices that impact our lives.
No one likes to be treated like a child when you’re an adult. We act out in irrational ways, looking for arbitrary opportunities to break the lockdown rules.
I have found myself in moments of panic when I have come to the realisation that I no longer have the choice to do as a please. It fills me with terror that I don’t have that freedom that I am accustomed to.
It also makes us suspicious and sceptical of the power that is being used to implement these choices. It leads us to assume that the motives of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma are sinister and self serving, if not criminal. Why else would she be making such an arbitrary ruling, one questions.
To draw on more wisdom from Master Yoda, “In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.”
In making what have been labelled "draconian" regulations, government has to share with us the full decision making process. They have to be transparent and honest in their communications, rather than appear to be issuing decrees.
This is why the backlash against Dlamini-Zuma was so vociferous.
The President had told us one thing and then she reversed it without sufficient explanation. No one bought that "2000 submissions" tale she spun or the laughable explanation about licking zols.
Similarly, when education officials sent out conflicting and confusing messaging last week around plans to reopen schools, it left most of us unconvinced.
Obviously it is going to take a great deal of time for officials to ensure they have the right plans in place and we need to grant them that space - but their messaging did not allay my fears.
When at first, the Education Department DG suggested that schools would reopen as early as this week, it filled me with terror. Others no doubt felt the same.
But then when Minister Angie Motshekga said in a media briefing a day later that some learners could return as late as September, I was filled with a different kind of fear.
To school or not to school evokes all kinds of conflicting emotions. Do we want our kids to return to classrooms when they could be at serious risk of contracting Covid-19?
But do we want them to stay at home and miss out on crucial education and development? Also, a lot of people don’t have the luxury of that choice and need their kids to go back to school so they can work. Theirs is again a different kind of worry.
People are reluctant to explain this as being scared or fearful.
Similarly, we are unwilling to accept that we are worried about how this will all play out and what the impact will be on us today, tomorrow and in the future.
It’s far easier to be outraged and angry and turn on one another, outright dismissing an alternative or conflicting viewpoint.
In an open letter of his own yesterday, President Cyril Ramaphosa wrote an explanation of why government flip flopped on the tobacco sales decision.
In it he said, "Under these extraordinary circumstances, as government, as individuals and as society we will at times make mistakes. When these occur, we will correct them. But we must carry on, losing neither our nerve nor our resolve. The situation in which we find ourselves demands courage and patience. It requires goodwill and trust between you, the citizen, and your government, and between each other."
Or as Master Yoda would say, “Patience you must have my young Padawan.”
If we don’t learn how to manage our fear, we will end up on the dark side.