First published by Daily Maverick 168

This time last year we were pregnant with expectations of what the new year, 2020, would bring. Some even colloquially christened it “Twenty Plenty” – anticipating a year of good fortune and prosperity. That is not unusual as the promise of a better tomorrow is perhaps the main reason we wake up every morning to tackle the day ahead.

To live in hope is to be human.

But by that time the first few cases of Covid-19 had been detected in Wuhan city, Hubei province. As more cases were reported in that part of China, the rest of the world watched from a distance. Normal life continued for the rest of the world. It was China’s problem, not ours.

Fast-forward to December 2020 and the entire world is buckling under the pressure of the runaway virus. Like Wuhan and the rest of China, most countries have since imposed lockdowns of different variations. Millions of people have been infected while over 1.6 million have lost their lives due to Covid-19. In South Africa we have lost over 23,000 people between March and the current week in December. After a few months of low infection rates, the daily infections breached the 10,000 mark this week. It’s not a good sign. It is safe to say that 2020 will stand as the worst year in our collective history. It is almost unimaginable how a virus which originated at a food market in central China could find its way to the remote village of Majola outside Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape. That shows how interconnected we are. For most villagers at Majola, their only connection to China is through the “Made in China” items filling up the shelves at supermarkets and bazaars.

We are all affected by Covid-19. This brings us to the current debate about the closure of beaches in the Eastern Cape and the Garden Route district of the Western Cape. KZN beaches will only close on specified “busy” days.

As with most issues in SA, anything can become political. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of the closure of the beaches in some parts of the country has prompted AfriForum and the Great Brak River Business Forum to approach the North Gauteng High Court to challenge the decision.

Although the AfriForum challenge is about the closure of all beaches, it is clear from the submissions that the decision was motivated by the closure of beaches on the Garden Route. But there was no such pretence from the Democratic Alliance.

The DA sent a lawyer’s letter to Cooperative Governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma demanding the reasons for the closure of beaches in the Garden Route.

Court action beckons. The uninitiated reader may wonder, as I have, why the DA is only interested in the closure of the Garden Route. Do beachgoers in Nelson Mandela Bay not matter? Could it be that the closure of Second Beach in Port St Johns is not of concern to both organisations?

The reality is that, like the Garden Route, Port St Johns is a coastal town whose economy is dependent on tourism. The reason lies in the fact that the DA has reduced itself to a party that exists to compete with the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and its surrogate AfriForum at every turn. The ties between the FF+ and AfriForum are deep – both champion the interests of the Afrikaner community while the majority of the AfriForum leadership have their roots in the FF+. Therefore it is easy to see an AfriForum campaign as that of the FF+. The DA lost over 400,000 white voters in 2019 and most of those trusted the FF+ with their vote. The main opposition party has made it their mission to win back those lost votes.

Perhaps that explains why John Steenhuisen’s DA is fighting for businesses on the Garden Route and not elsewhere. Granted, the Garden Route is in the DA-governed Western Cape; however, the DA was a party with a national footprint the last I checked.

In its court papers, AfriForum argues that access to a beach is a human right and the closure is an infringement on such a right.

One would think a right to life would supercede to the right to frolic on the beach. This happens while hospitals in the area are under pressure due to Covid-19, particularly the George Regional and Knysna hospitals, with the provincial government already redirecting patients “with non-life threatening conditions to access healthcare at their nearest clinic”.

This week the Western Cape recorded over 2,000 hospital admissions, the highest number ever – exceeding the figures seen during the first wave.

Also worth noting is that in November, the DA-led George Local Municipality took a voluntary decision to close all public pools in the area. This was followed by the closure of sports fields and public libraries. It is also worth asking the DA why it is acceptable to close the local pools but not the beach, given that the reason for the closure of both is to avoid crowds gathering?

It may well be that the residents or holidaymakers to the Garden Route have access to oxygen machines and private medical healthcare but the reality is that the coronavirus is indiscriminate. The people of Majola village in Port St Johns, which had hundreds of infections, had never been to Wuhan or Europe. Yet every week they are burying loved ones, lost to Covid-19.

The challenge to the beach ban by the two organisations must be seen for what it is – political opportunism. The moment we trust politicians with our lives would be as good as giving them away. Politicians of all hues care about their interests primarily. South Africans must take responsibility for their lives and those of their loved ones. This is not to defend Ramaphosa’s decision to close some and not all beaches, but to expose the politics at play.

The argument for opening up Garden Route beaches because “we can handle it” is akin to the indifference the world showed when the first cases were reported in Wuhan. Look at us now.

Let’s just stay at home. It won’t kill us. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for free to Pick ‘n Pay Smartshoppers at these Pick ‘n Pay stores.