The Human Rights Day in South Africa is historically linked with the 21st March 1960 and celebrated as a Public Holiday in the new democratic South Africa.
And why the 21st March 1960, those not living in South Africa, will ask.

Sharpeville is the answer: On that day, 69 people died and 180 were wounded when police fired on a peaceful crowd that had gathered in protest against the unjust pass laws.

Today we commemorate on those events, and those laws are gone, and we live in a free and democratic society, so we say. But looking more closely, we have to admit, that changing to one person one vote has not brought us to the point where human rights are respected in South Africa.

The last weeks we experienced how a political party can call on infringements of human rights and threatened violence with their “national shutdown”. It was in most parts prevented by a coordinated effort of police and security services, as well as court decisions. Alone that Members of the National Parliament are able to use intimidation and threats tells a story.

But looking at the living conditions of many of South Africans, it triggers the question about human rights and the ability to enjoy them in current times.

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education and the list is longer.

At the end, it is the right to have a decent life in safety and security and sheltered in an adequate human way.

Looking at my working place in a township, I am not sure, I witness human rights making it to the front. Violence, gender-based-violence, poverty, lack of education and work opportunities, just to name some, prevent people from enjoying their human rights. It is not particular one place – many townships and locations don’t provide for the living conditions needed to enjoy the real meaning of human rights and human dignity.

I honestly often take my hat off seeing and experiencing the dignity and good will of people who are deprived of the chances and who still try to make the best out of it.

With all those people of goodwill, there is so much more to do to make our Human Right Day in South Africa a celebratory day. For now, it is a day of reflection and commemoration, but also a day of awareness and a reminder, what all has still to be done.

As the world is currently in general in a bad space or in a transition time, it is even more difficult for an emerging democracy to get it right and to give its citizens what they rightfully are entitled to.

Human Rights Day 2023 – a day of commemoration, reminder, and order and not political Sunday sermons.

Filed under: Africa, General, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, South Africa, Uncategorized, democracy, dignity, freedom, GBV, good-will, human, Human Rights Day, shapeville, south africa