By Harry Sewlall
Cape Town - The recent death of Philasande Yende, a bright Grade 7 pupil killed while witnessing a protest action in Mpumalanga, is a tragedy.
Yende is not the first person to be killed during a protest. Violent protests have become the norm, with a “service delivery” protest taking place almost every week, marked by burning tyres, rocks blockading roads and stoning of vehicles.
As I pen this letter, a violent protest by Dunlop workers is taking place in Ladysmith. One source informs me the unionised workers are demanding suspended colleagues be reinstated after disciplinary action had been taken against them.
Clearly, many South Africans are not yet mature enough to embrace the idea of a “democracy”, an ideology like any other, meaning different things to different people.
If the writers of our Constitution thought they were framing a document for a mature democracy like some in the West, or even India, they were deluded.
I experienced a protest of sorts in India in 1986. I saw the Hindi word “Bandh” (meaning a shutdown) emblazoned across a factory door. It was a workers’ strike but no worker was in sight. No sticks and stones; just one word!
While the South African Constitution says people have the right to picket and to demonstrate peacefully while unarmed, this is far from reality. It boggles the mind to think of how many productive hours are wasted when commuters are prevented from going to work, not to mention the damage to our roads and infrastructure when protesters take to the streets.
To be blunt, street protests should be illegal.
Do well-paid union bosses have to take every grievance to the streets? Can aggrieved parties not negotiate in good faith with their employers? Shouldn’t disgruntled citizens address the source of their discontent, like at municipal offices or the offices of Eskom, or whatever, instead of disrupting our fragile economy?
Parliament needs to re-look at our liberal Constitution with a view to amending many sections of it before we descend into utter chaos.
We cannot blame the police for every death when they are faced with mobs wielding stones, machetes and firearms. We damn the police if they don’t take action, and we damn them when they do.
Cape Times
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