While Covid-19 or the coronavirus has been indiscriminate in who it is targeting – ignoring class, gender, race and age – the response to it and the government’s resultant lockdown, which took effect from yesterday, has revealed the deep differences that still exist in our society and that will, unfortunately, still exist way after this pandemic.

While there appeared to be general support for the strong measures President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Monday night, the immediate response varied from panic-buying to wondering whether they would be able to job or walk their dogs among more affluent citizens, while those in poorer communities were contemplating weeks, if not months, of not been able to earn even a little money to support their families. They were also thinking of how it is possible to self-isolate when you are six or eight people living in a corrugated iron shack or an RDP home.

Concerns among those with means seemed to bother on the personal and the private, while among poorer communities there appeared, as always, a level of communal concern, what we called “comradeship” during the days of struggle.

The concern for many with money was about making sure that they have enough food, toilet paper, hand sanitisers and, of course, alcohol.

Immediately after the Police Minister announced on Wednesday night that no one would be able to buy alcohol during the 21-day lockdown period, many started planning their trips to the bottle store for the final time in a long time on Thursday. Of course, some middle-class people on social media blamed working-class people for the ban on alcohol, because “they” resort to violence, especially against women and children, when “they” have had too much to drink.

South Africa has always been, and probably will always be, a country with two nations: one rich and one poor. Class has become the new marker for privilege in South Africa, rightfully replacing race as the great societal divider.

In this period of uncertainty for our country, one hopes that all of us will use the next 21 days to reflect on our role and contribution to the divisions in our society and how we can rather play a positive role in helping everyone to work together for the betterment of our country.

Already there have been positive signs. When the two richest families in the country each donate one billion rand to help small businesses – something they did not have to do – their gesture should be appreciated and not frowned upon because they built their wealth on the back of the poor working class. Instead, we should look at whether their contribution could mark a new beginning in their relationship with those who are most vulnerable in our country.

Others have come forward and made smaller contributions, but there are many others who could do more. The banks, for one, at the time of writing, had not committed fully to helping relief the plight of many people who have lost significant chunks of their income because of the coronavirus.

Other financial institutions, such as insurance and assurance companies, could also make a contribution by suspending payments for maybe three months. Municipalities could also offer some relief by offering payment holidays on, for instance, rates. We are all in this together and all of us are expected to make sacrifices.

When we became a democracy, I believed that our first democratically elected President, Nelson Mandela, missed an opportunity to effect proper reparation on our country. He could have imposed heavy taxes on people who built their wealth during apartheid and no one would have batted an eyelid. Everyone in the world would have supported him.

We have a second opportunity to test the commitment of everyone to our country. Some can make monetary contributions much bigger than others, some of us can offer our skills, some can only offer humanity and love. But we all have something to offer.

Let us find ways of making the differences in our society work in our favour as we lockdown for 21 days, but especially when we resurface afterwards to rebuild our country.

(First published as a Thinking Allowed column in the Weekend Argus on Saturday, 28 March 2020)