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Jan Smuts

Smuts would have realised from the start that trying to legislate
a population into compliance would have at best short-term re- An essential component of having a compliant population is to
sults before the (adult) population believed themselves capable return their lives to as normal a situation as possible. It is inev-
of decisions the Government was insisting on taking on their itable I believe that a population will only adhere to regulations
behalf. Smuts would not have been autocratic, aggressive nor while they present at least some logic and make sense even at an
condescending when dealing with the people. He would have unsophisticated level. Nonsensical and seemingly irrelevant re-
been well aware that compliance would result from cooperation strictions would have only a short compliance period before the
rather than legislation, particularly when the legislation would public at large disregarded them. The extended restrictions on
seem with justification to be often apparently nonsensical and clothing, for one, were apparently devoid of logic and benefit.
of little tangible value. One could buy a long-sleeved shirt, but not a short-sleeved one?
Ladies could buy “winter” shoes but not shoes with open toes?
The cooperative compliance aspect of the regulations noted I cannot believe that Smuts would have seen any sense in such
previously would of course include the conduct of such law regulations and would have believed them rather to further
enforcement agencies involved in policing or ensuring com- aggravate an already incensed population.
pliance and certainly no heavy-handed and unnecessary force
and indeed violent enforcement would not have been tolerated, One can of course hypothesize almost without end on what
particularly of petty contraventions. might have been the case had Jan Smuts been in power when
Covid-19 struck and how he and his Government might have
There can be no doubt that after an initial lock-down arising reacted and responded and of course we’ll never know. I do
from trying to deal with what was at the time a mystery disease, believe though with some conviction that as an initial reaction
and as knowledge of the virus with consequential implications a Smuts Government would not have differed much from what
became evident, along with such best practice methods known measures were in fact taken, but beyond the initial four-week
at the time to deal with it, Smuts would have expedited the re- period I believe what would have transpired would differ in a
turn to an active as possible economy. There must be a balance substantial number of respects, just as I believe South Africa,
between the projected effects of Covid-19 and maintaining a and we South Africans, would have would be in far better posi-
viable economy. Without income, there can be no state inter- tion than that in which we currently find ourselves.
ventions to control or treat the virus and the Government has
its operational capabilities seriously curtailed, if not stopped Philip Weyers
entirely. Had Jan Smuts not realised this himself, which would Pretoria, South Africa
be hard to believe, there were in his Cabinet many who would May 2020
surely have seen the need for this balance to be effected at the
earliest opportunity.

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