Julian Roup – A new Pharoah gets a kicking from a modern Moses Ep26

In Episode 26 of his new book, author Julian Roup notes that President Cyril Ramaphosa is coming in for a kicking for his handling of Covid-19.

In case you missed Episode 25, click here.

Life in a Time of Plague

Sussex, 1st May 2020

By Julian Roup 

As usual, I keep an eye on how things are going in both South Africa and California and this morning I get an interesting heads-up about South Africa’s President getting a kicking.

Francois, a South African friend based in Kent, forwards the following, saying: “Bit dramatic, but it sums up the vibe in SA.” It is an email sent to the South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa.

It reads:

Dear President Ramaphosa

I’m going to keep this brief, because I know you’re dealing with a lot:

We’ve all been ready to support you and your administration in your efforts to save lives from this pandemic. Even people like me, who have questioned the idea of a lockdown as the best response, have decided to comply and do whatever we could to help. We set aside our concerns over the heavy-handedness of the police and army; we swallowed and accepted that poor people in informal housing would be crammed into their one-room dwellings for a month; we limited our trips to the shops and even accepted not being able to buy hot food (for whatever inexplicable reason).

When you couldn’t put your mask on, we laughed and we were charmed to see that you were able to laugh at yourself too. For a time, you won everyone over again. You yourself have said that it has taken much for people to give up their liberties, their right to be with family and friends and the ability to freely move around. Our patience and emotional state of affairs are on a knife-edge. We are losing hope.

Governments walk a fine line in times like these, where the regulations not only have to make sense, but also have to have significant buy-in from the public – otherwise people will break them, in big ways and small. South Africans are mostly compliant – but when you promise something and then break that promise, it makes us feel like we should break your regulations in return.

Many of us aren’t afraid of the virus anymore. It’s our health, and we’ll take our chances, thank you. We ARE afraid of the havoc your lockdown is wreaking on the economy, on people’s lives and livelihoods. I see fewer and fewer explanations from ministers and more and more capricious, some would say spiteful, regulation. I’m not a smoker – I don’t like cigarettes at all – but when Minister Dlamini-Zuma announced that she was (after a consultation none of us believe happened) going to keep the ban on tobacco products in place, many of us (even the non-smokers) were ready to give her the middle finger – and start risking breaking the rules. There are more of us than there are police officers and soldiers, so if you piss enough people off, things get very hairy. I’m sure those advisers in the security cluster have mentioned that they can’t shoot us all or put us all in jail.

Your government, Sir, have not covered themselves in glory over the last 10 years. Some people in this country already have a taste of anarchy, where municipalities are bankrupt and there is no service delivery. They see no evidence that the ANC will fix parastatals, cronyism, kleptocracy and for once and for all cease their childish flirtation with outdated and failed socialist ideas. Your hold on power depends on people willing to comply with the rules – the same rules they expect you to comply with. Our patience grows thin, and in tandem your tax collection runs dry. When you speak of a social compact, it goes both ways. You have to take your boot off our throats.

When Moses told Pharaoh to let his people go, Pharaoh didn’t listen and there were plagues. We all know how that story went for Pharaoh. You have to start letting our people go Mr President, or this plague will be the least of our worries. Even Moses would tell you that.

Yours,

Gareth Cliff

Oh Lord! My heart goes out to Cyril. Who’d be a politician right now? I think President Ramaphosa has played a blinder and covered himself with respect for his statesmanship, but there will always be naysayers. I wonder what Mr Cliff would be saying if South Africa had Britain’s death toll?

It has been a bizarre day, weather wise; we’ve had three mini-storms pass through with sunshine between. After lunch, Jan and I decided to have a walk down the hill to see the bluebells. Coming out of our drive, a small grey Renault pulled up. It was Georgie Winters, the groom who is looking after Callum for me. She said that he has been behaving himself on their walks down to his paddock, so much so that she takes her own horse, Claude, at the same time, walking the two large warmbloods to pasture. There was however, a ‘BUT’. Two days ago Callum got the wind under his tail and decided to take off for his field, almost tearing the lead-rope out of Georgie’s hand. But Georgie, though not tall, is no pushover. She hung on for grim death and managed to control the huge 17hh chestnut with both hands, letting Claude loose. Claude, to his eternal credit just kept walking by her side. Callum, she said, was not best pleased to be thwarted in his bid for freedom and made faces. She is a brick, is Georgie.

As we headed downhill into the woods, the sky to the west turned an ominous black. At first the thunder was muted, but then the rain started softly and by the time we reached the valley floor, the storm was overhead with lashing rain, thunder and lightning. Gus was totally unperturbed. And then it began to hail just as we reached the bluebells.

We sheltered under the trees, with our jacket hoods up over our caps and stood, heads down like old horses, watching the mossy ground underfoot turn white with hail. As it eased off, we saw a figure appear out of the mist, a neighbour of ours, Susie and her Labradoodle Stanley, a large, white, curly haired lad, coming down the track heading to their home in the woods nearby. We were guests of hers and her husband Ed at Christmas, which seems like a lifetime ago, not just four months. Stanley stood like a good ’un. He was a total teenage tearaway who used to jump on Gus when out walking, but is now a rather sedate gent of a dog. Gus was not entirely convinced and stood tight against my leg.

As we headed home, we passed the bridge where long ago we hid clues to a treasure hunt for a friend’s young daughters to find. At my age, time ricochets back and forth, the present, the past, the distant past. Facing the steep climb up the hill to the cottage, my memory canters back to a scene at this very spot that still makes me smile even now.

Some years ago, I was riding home on Chancer, a lovely dappled grey Irish Draught, which I bought as an unbroken three-year-old and who turned into a great riding horse who was unusually good on the forest at night under moonlight.

As I pointed him up the hill for a last run home, I noticed a bunch of young cyclists on mountain bikes, pelting down the hill at a great lick. The lead rider spotted me and yelled over his shoulder to his friends in Afrikaans: “Oppas! Daar is ‘n ou toppie op ‘n perd!” (Careful! There is an old codger on a horse). I could not resist – as they came level with me, having slowed right down, I in turn shouted out: “Wie de fok is jou ou toppie?” (Who the hell is your old codger?) There was a stunned silence and then we all started laughing at the same time. We chatted for a while and it turned out they were down from London for the day for a spot of countryside enjoyment. We spoke briefly of South Africa and I told them I was from Cape Town and had lived here for decades. As ever with fellow South Africans there was an instant connection, and as I wished them well and rode up the hill slowly now, tears in my eyes and a bit choked by the warmth and menslikheid (humanity) of the conversation, thinking of all I had lost.

Back home from our walk, once more in the present, Jan planned a delicious supper, having had a food delivery earlier – steak and asparagus with a baked potato. I put my feet up with a bag of salt and vinegar crisps, and listened to the BBC for the news of the day.

Currently the search for a vaccine is in the forefront of all minds. The first human trial for a vaccine was announced last month by scientists in Seattle. Unusually, they are skipping any animal research to test its safety or effectiveness. In Oxford, the first human trial in Europe has started with more than 800 recruits. Pharmaceutical giants Sanofi and GSK have teamed up to develop a vaccine.

And this floored me: Australian scientists have begun injecting ferrets with two potential vaccines. It is the first comprehensive pre-clinical trial involving animals, and the researchers hope to test humans by the end of April. Ferrets? How strange.

However, no one knows how effective any of these vaccines will be. My bet is that Australian Bruces and Sheilas will thrive on the ferret serum, but it may not cure us all.

Click here for Episode 27

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