It was apartheid. It was war, in the townships and at occupied borders. It was the time of conscription, of conscientious objections, objectors, and the End Conscription Campaign.
Freedom Day ended it all, ended the wars, ended conscription and ended the campaign. But did Freedom Day also end conscientious objection?
Objection due to a concern of conscience as a legitimate choice and declaration by citizens developed in response to official wars between nations.
In South Africa the first conscientious objectors refused conscription to the British forces in the Anglo-Boer War, or more correctly named, the South African War.
The convention held throughout the world wars, but it is during the 1980s that it was at its strongest and scores of white men refused conscription on religious and moral beliefs, facing a backlash from the apartheid state. When an unjust system ended, the need for a system that allows for conscientious objection on the face it all but disappeared.
Today the practice is far more associated with the health professions where health workers may refuse to perform certain tasks based on religious or moral reasons.
The notion of objections due to conscience also continues in Parliament, which allows for a conscientious vote.
This is a vote that allows for members to vote on a motion according to their own views, rather than the formal position of their political party, which they are legally bound to follow since the party was elected by voters to represent their interests.
Conscientious objection may also be claimed by interest groups that in public discourse advance a particular view. The land rights movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, for instance, opposes the celebration of Freedom Day, rather naming it as “un-Freedom Day”.
This they do because they consider the “the killings of activists, the killings of land rights, the killing of leaders and of politicians themselves” as an indication of the absence of freedom.
Last week the movement marched with a memorandum for the president to stop the killing, because “we feel that no one has the right to kill”. Their argument is precisely that of the conscientious objector throughout history, essentially declaring wars are unjust for its killing of people.
Their objection, however, does not qualify as a conscientious one in the formal sense, even if protesting on moral grounds. It does not qualify because it does not protest an official rule or requirement that all citizens must adhere to, and from which the citizen can refuse completely, or adhere to only in part, or adhere to only in certain circumstances.
Also, a formal objection of conscience succeeds only if it resembles a consistent concern of the objector over time, rather than one adopted at one instance – a consistency not of argument, but of sustained attempts over time to respond as a citizen with moral-ethical considerations to programmes of the state, and in public discourse.
After almost three decades since April 27, 1994, it seems the conventional understanding and practice of conscientious objection have all but vanished – no war, no objectors.
The argument for conscientious objection to military conscription historically was against an unjust war and for the sanctity of human life.
Today, to rise up for human dignity and against injustice will make yours an argument no less than that of the conscientious objector in the wars of our past, but one of a new war to return freedom to the soul of a nation.
* Dr Rudi Buys.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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