The right to protest or to demonstrate is often relied upon without reference to its qualification. A protest or demonstration ought to be peaceful.
When protestors come to a demonstration armed with petrol bombs, sticks, stones or any other weapons or makeshift weapons, the precondition is not met. When violence or intimidation is employed by strikers, their action cannot be regarded as peaceful or legal.
Many South Africans strikers / demonstrators bring sticks to a strike / demonstration on the grounds that the carrying of a stick or a so-called cultural weapon is part and parcel of African culture. And yet, when violence breaks out, or when other workers who have democratically decided not to strike turn up at their employer's premises, this transparently thin explanation falls away, and the sticks are used to teach the 'scabs' a lesson they will not soon forget.
South Africa was a society in which violence was used by the racist regime in order to oppress its opponents. Given that history it is understandable that the conversion from a society in which 'might was right' into a democratic one in which is peaceful, tolerant and respectful of human rights would not occur overnight.
However, South Africa has been a constitutional democracy for twenty years now, and if our Constitution and our rights including the right to freedom of expression are to have any meaning at all, there can be no place in our country for strikers or demonstrators to carry any weapons or sticks at all.
Nor can there be any place for workers who choose to strike to intimidate or threaten those who choose not to.
Surely no-one can argue that the absence of these weapons will in any way limit one's right to strike or to demonstrate. No one has a right to intimidate in a democracy. There is no need for and there should be no place for any weapons at any peaceful demonstration or strike. Had this simple measure been in place prior to the Marikana shootings where the South African Police shot at demonstrators who were apparently armed with sticks, the incident may well have been avoided.
Even if one suspends disbelief and accepts that some indeed carry these items for valid traditional reasons, it is all too easy for someone armed with a stick to resort to its use as a weapon if the situation becomes heated. Sadly, and all too often in this country, strikes and protests do tend to become heated affairs at the drop of a hat.
This issue needs to be discussed by our communities and our leaders in the hope that general agreement on such a ban can be arrived at by consensus. In the absence thereof, I doubt anyone will have the courage to introduce and enforce this common-sense but highly necessary measure.
This measure would be sensible in any country, but here the necessity to emphasize the need for non-violence and the supremacy of the rule of law makes it of critical importance.
To empathize the importance of nipping our tendency towards violence in the bud, I refer to the xenophobic attacks our people launched against people from elsewhere in Africa. It started in one part of the country, and to our shame, it spread throughout the country like wildfire. Foreigners were killed, injured and their property was stolen.
If we can't agree to break this cycle of violence during strikes, protests and demonstrations, then perhaps we don't deserve the Constitution and the Bill of Rights which Nelson Mandela and other human rights activists left us.
Any cultural reasons for carrying sticks to a demonstration must yield to the Bill of Rights and the rule of law.
However, I dare say that in earlier traditional times, I doubt that when anyone was permitted the right to demonstrate, they would have been permitted to do so by waving their sticks in the face of the Chief or the Elders. Respect goes a long way, irrespective of culture. And that, represents the best of Africa!
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