For many years until close to the end of apartheid in the 1990s, people of African descent throughout South Africa were chased and hounded by the apartheid police, each day of their lives.
They were routinely asked: “waar is jou dompas” (where is your ID book). And if you did not have it on your, you were bundled behind the police van.
The apartheid police were mean and merciless to the African people. African police in the system were also brainwashed by their white masters to hate their own. They too, were as mean as their white colleagues, and played a role in the dehumanisation of their fellow Africans.
This is a phenomenon that the late Steve Biko, the father of Black Consciousness, describes in his book, I Write What I Like – about black persons coalescing in their own dehumanisation.
It was the African police in those heady apartheid days who helped pull African people out of trains, in the streets, in shebeens, churches, supermarkets, quite content to dehumanise them at the behest of the oppressive system.
Today, the dehumanisation continues in a different form.
Why were the African people singled out for this treatment?
In the eyes of many white people, Africans were irritants deserving humiliation – and the dompas was used as an instrument to achieve the objective.
Under the leadership of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, African men and women revolted against the pass law system, and in defence of human dignity, the African people in Sharpeville, and other parts of the country, revolted against the system, many of whom were brutally killed by the police.
Why do I raise these issues? It is to lay a premise for an argument that is to follow, which is to suggest that discrimination, in whatever form it manifests, must be resisted.
South Africa, since 1994, became a constitutional democracy, governed by the supreme law which dictates that no one should be treated differently if there is no justification to do so.
We are all, in the words of the constitution and Bill of Rights, equal before the law (section 9) which includes the full enjoyment of all rights and freedoms.
Let us imagine a scenario where traffic officers routinely pull over motorists to inspect their details, including whether they have in their possession their driver’s licences, and whether they have not previously committed traffic offences for which their fines have not been settled.
On the face of it, stopping and pulling motorists over may seem a legitimate function by the officer of the law.
But what are the responsibilities of police traffic officers? Is it to collect “revenue” for cash-strapped municipalities or to maintain safe and effective use of road transportation, ensuring maximum road safety on national, provincial, and local road networks?
Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit from the law. Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms.
Freedoms were fought for to eradicate injustice.
“Everybody has the right to freedom and security of person, which among other things, includes the right not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without a just cause (section 12 of the constitution).
“We know, as an established fact, that some municipalities’ coffers are cash-strapped, largely because of corruption and other forms of malfeasance. To make up for budgetary shortfalls, municipality authorities, unconstitutionally resort to extrajudicial methods to collect “revenue” through extortion.
“We also know that road officers routinely hide in packs among bushes, only to pounce on motorists, pull them over, and under the guise of acting lawfully, demand a driver’s licence and check for unpaid fines.
“The absurdity of it all is that out of the thousands or more motorists who pass through our roads, it is only a handful of “handpicked suspects” selected to be “pulled over”.
But the constitution states: “Everyone is equal before the law and has a right to equal protection and benefit of the law. Equality includes full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms (equality clause, section 9 of the constitution). This means all motorists, not some, must be pulled over if justice is to be served.
If these anomalies happen on our roads, we are bound to think: the spectre of apartheid unjust system is still with us.
• Mdhlela is a freelance journalist, an Anglican priest, ex-trade unionist and former editor of the SA Human Rights Commission journals
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