MARK GEVISSER: Was apartheid the ultimate 'lockdown'?
Historians show that in the past SA took advantage of health crises to further segregate and impoverish ‘others’
Confined to my home, in comfort, with a full larder and uncapped Wi-Fi and a view over False Bay to the Cape Flats, I find myself pondering a question raised by the history I am reading: where is the line between quarantine and segregation? And another: how does an epidemic change society, or expose its underlying fissures?
The threatening coronavirus epidemic underscores the gross inequality of our society — and this division was actually written into law as a response to previous SA epidemics. In a seminal essay published 40 years ago, the historian Maynard Swanson tracked the way the bubonic plague of 1901 was used by the Cape authorities to achieve what they had always desired, namely “no less than the mass removal of Cape Town’s African population, even though the number of Africans contracting the plague was less than either whites or coloureds”...
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Subscribe now to unlock this article.
Support BusinessLIVE’s award-winning journalism for R129 per month (digital access only).
There’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in SA. Our subscription packages now offer an ad-free experience for readers.
Cancel anytime.
Questions? Email helpdesk@businesslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00. Got a subscription voucher? Redeem it now.