South Africans are generally not great respecters of boundaries.
For example, if the speed limit is 80km/h, we drive at 100km/h; and if the limit is 100, we drive at 120; and it it’s 120, we drive at 150.
For the past month, we have been under a Level 5 lockdown restriction.
Who would have guessed? By rights, the streets and shops should have been almost deserted.
That is certainly the picture we are seeing in cities all across Europe.
Instead, traffic on our roads, while somewhat reduced, has been the same as an average Sunday.
Parking lots at shopping centres remained three quarters occupied – and totally full on pay days.
Many smaller businesses kept their doors open, using the very suspect ‘essential services’ permits which can be self-generated online.
Once again, we pushed the limits. And what about the insane queues on SASSA grant payment
days, where social distancing was a meaningless concept?
With no marshalling at all as the lines of people – minus masks – circled the buildings, it made a
mockery of the lockdown. After all, if a person can be crammed up against a stranger for six hours waiting their turn to be served, there seems little point in stopping him from visiting his neighbour when he gets home.
I would go so far as to suggest that these queues, as well as the panic buying rush when the lockdown
was first announced, possibly did as much to increase the spread of the coronavirus as any other behaviour pattern.
In summary, we’ve been on Level 5, behaving as if we were on Level 4 or even Level 3.
Logically then, on Level 4 we can expect the situation to look like Level 2 in terms of human activity.
Whether it is plain disregard for the law, or whether we are simply risk takers by nature and enjoy living on the edge, it seems as though we just love to disregard consequences… or we don’t believe we will be caught.
As an example, in most countries, if word went out that there was a shooter at the shopping mall or the dam on the river was about to burst its banks and flood the town, people would run for cover.
Not us good old Safricans. We would jump into our cars and rush to where the action is.
Maybe it’s a part of the wild Africa kill-or-be-killed jungle instinct that’s inherent in our psyches.
So, good luck to those who must enforce law, order and conformity.
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