Covid-19 has been a massive disruption for people around the world, often reflected in the practice of using lock downs to flatten the curve of infections. South Africa has been no different. For the lockdown the President of South Africa declared a state of emergency which allowed for the release of resources to combat the virus, including the deployment of the army into civilian areas. Covid-19 has been a traumatising time in itself, but what Lane and Mike discuss in this podcast is the added layer of the army and law enforcement activities in communities, especially traditional communities of colour. 

First Lane gives a brief overview of trauma and it how it affects our brain and biology as well as how the senses are triggered but things in the environment. For many communities the army is a trigger.

Mike picks up on that and briefly discusses the shadow of the state of emergency from the 1980's. In essence, we will not understand the way many people and communities are responding to lockdown until we understand how a state of emergency is a memory of the oppression of apartheid and the army's role in the war against the people of South Africa. Lane and Mike take this further and talk about inter-generational trauma, the trauma upon trauma, and argue that the problem we face (in South Africa and elsewhere) is that covid is the crisis rather than seeing as another layer of trauma in a wounded nation.

To end off, Lane and Mike offer some tools on how we can effectively respond at this time, recognising that we don't have control over the virus or the state of emergency, but there are things we do have control over. As far as possible it is the responsibility of those who are parents to model regulating their stress for their children and in that way, at least, disrupting cycles of trauma.