Covid-19 Tyranny and Apartheid South Africa
The abominable rhetoric proposing medical apartheid via vaccine passports and segregation and persecution for the unvaccinated, cheered on by politicians and mainstream media journalists, is nothing short of evil. Both are in thrall to the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian, anti-science lockdown propaganda which has damaged many countries economically and socially. (https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/lockdown-zealots-its-you-who-are-the-selfish-ones/)
In our Orwellian dystopian present, their collective mantra of following 'the science' is now code word for following medieval, magical thinking. Many rules and mandates imposed in the name of 'Covid-19' have no scientific backing or proof. Yet, the bovine masses obey without question, blind to the fact that they are sleep walking into tyranny.
In Britain, the ruling party has morphed into a far Left regime. Conservative in name only, they are a now dire combination of socialist/fascist Labour Lite Greenies. In typical socialist style they have wasted billions of pounds on vanity Covid-19 projects like the woefully inept test and trace, conjured up nonsensical rules like tiered lockdowns and their infamous 'rule of six' and paid Britons to become Covid Marshalls, our very own version of the Stasi. The entire Parliament is full of shrieking politicians and their scaremongering rhetoric, threatening to punish us with lockdowns and segregation should we not obey their depraved demands.
There are no longer any checks and balances left in Parliament. The opposition Labour Party cheers on the Tories misguided approach to Covid-19, showing that we are at the mercy of a one party state, a hallmark of any socialist/fascist/police nation. They are drunk on power.
We are being subjected to Big Government, in which politicians control every minutia of our lives. This kind of tyranny never ends well. Their latest draconian plan is that of implementing obscene vaccine passports.
I will not be party to a 'papers please' society that these tin pot dictators are foisting on us. I have lived through this before, in Apartheid South Africa, where millions of peoples' lives were harmed by segregation and persecution. Detention without trial, segregation, forced removals, the army on the streets, compulsory conscription and the dehumanisation of the Other were all woeful features of the Apartheid South Africa I grew up in. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-dehumanisation-of-the-other/
I have already experienced living in one police state. I don’t want to live in another one.
Under Apartheid, 80 per cent of the South African population was subjected to segregating and persecution. The Apartheid regime passed multiple laws based on racism, enforced by the police, army and judiciary. The Group Areas Act, passed in 1950, allowed people to buy property only from those of the same race as them and implemented forced removals of black South Africans from their homes into the barren wasteland of the Bantustans. (https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/group-areas-act-1950) Whole communities were decimated by this system.
The Separate Amenities Act of 1953 forced different races to use separate public facilities designated for their own race only. All the facilities for white South Africans were far superior to that designated for non-white South Africans. (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-06-20-mn-222-story.html)
The 1976 Soweto uprising, during which 12 year old Hector Pieterson was murdered for protesting against further Apartheid humiliation, shows the inherent evil of a regime which sacrifices children for dogma and ideology. A society which sacrifices its children, for any reason, is a barbaric one. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/16/soweto-uprising-40-years-on-hector-pieterson-image-shocked-the-world). The world rightfully responded with great outrage against this. But this same world is silent now on similar global tyranny being enforced in the name of a virus.
Sinister curfews and states of emergency were enforced by the Apartheid regime. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-06-20-mn-11407-story.html) In 1986, the Apartheid regime created yet another state of emergency. https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/states-emergency-south-africa-1960s-and-1980s A national curfew was enforced, political funerals were curbed and some indoor gatherings banned. Journalists were denied access to black townships. Police had government permission to shoot to kill as they patrolled these places. They were also given legal powers to arrest 'suspects' and hold them in detention without trial for an infinite amount of time. Forced removals, assassinations, torture and beatings were administered in the name of keeping us all safe from 'die Rooi Gevaar' (communists) and 'dieSwart Gevaar' (black danger).
I find it chilling that so many Britons are so keen to have similar imposed here in the form of lockdowns and medical segregation. Britain is already in a state of emergency; the government can pass punitive laws in the name of a virus without debating these in Parliament. Democracy died in this country in March 2020 and in its place a segregated police state is being formed.
The Apartheid regime didn't only use martial law to ensure that every aspect of our lives was controlled by them. (https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/state-emergency-1985) Other notorious legislation made life intolerable for many South Africans. Mixed race marriages were illegal under Apartheid. https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/prohibition-mixed-marriages-act-commences Neighbours were encouraged to spy on each other and snitch to the police if they suspected a mixed race marriage or even just a romantic involvement. Police would then raid the home of these love suspects and haul them off to prison.
White boys between the ages of 16 to 18 were conscripted into the army. (https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/enforcement-military-conscription-all-white-males-sa) Some refused on humanitarian grounds, rebelling against being used by the government to inflict harm on their fellow South Africans. For their ethical stance they were sent to prison. A colleague's son spent eight years in prison because he was a conscientious objector. The army was often used to quell uprisings in the townships and principled anti-apartheid young white men would rather go to prison than inflict harm on their fellow South Africans on the command of the government.
At my university, I, along with other every journalism student, was placed on police file as soon as we started our studies. That way we could be tracked down and arrested if we criticised the regime.
The most troubling of all the creeping resemblances to the Apartheid State is that of vaccine passports, currently being imposed throughout Britain, and in other parts of the world. These are a horrifying historical echo of the infamous passbooks which destroyed the lives of many South Africans.
The Pass Laws Act of 1952 made black South Africans over the age of 16 carry identity papers, known as a 'dompass'. These passbooks controlled the movement of these citizens and contained information like permission from the government to be in a particular part of the country, fingerprints, qualifications to find work in an area and employers' assessment reports on their workers. If an employer was displeased with a worker then they could refuse to endorse the passbook. Workers could then find themselves expelled from their place of work by government officials.
For many black South Africans losing their jobs would mean starvation for them and their children. Most were employed in menial professions like mining and domestic work, which paid very little. If a worker lost the 'dompass', their families would be exiled to a wasteland. If black South Africans were caught by the police without a passbook, they were arrested and imprisoned at a rate of over 250,000 per year. I have childhood memories from the mid-seventies of sitting in my parents' car as they drove past one truck full of black prisoners after the other. (https://www.cortland.edu/cgis/suzman/apartheid.html)
Of course what we are going through is nothing compared to the suffering of my fellow South Africans under the Apartheid regime. But history acts as a warning to us, an early alarm calling out a wrongful pathway hurling towards destruction and suffering.
Democracies do not impose curfews like lockdowns. If they do then these are no longer democracies. Politicians in democracies do not encourage others to snitch on their neighbours. (https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-home-secretary-priti-patel-would-call-the-police-if-neighbours-broke-rule-of-six-12072281) If they do, then they are not democrats but wannabe dictators.
Swearing at journalists who hold them to account, as Johnny Mercer did last year on did on Twitter, is certainly straight out of the Apartheid regime's playbook.
The Apartheid regime also thought they were on a moral crusade, keeping us 'safe' from they told us was 'dangerous'. They stripped millions of their liberty and used their security forces to crush any dissent while doing so.
The current parallels with Apartheid South Africa are becoming more and more stark. We have to learn from the lessons of history so that we do not repeat them. The silence from most of the world over lockdown protesters recently shot by police in Rotterdam, or forcing children to take a vaccine they do not need or want, shows how badly humanity has regressed and that we are not heeding the call of those who suffered in the past. Whole countries are sleepwalking into tyranny.
Apartheid is Apartheid, no matter whether it is based on race or medical status.