TSWELOPELE MAKOE
This past week, South Africa savoured its 2023 Human Rights Day. The theme of the annual commemoration was coined as “consolidating and sustaining human rights culture into the future”.
Human rights, as outlined by the Parliament of SA, are rights that everyone should have simply because they are human. Access to food, shelter and education has been amongst some prevalent human rights challenges, not only in our country but throughout the continent.
Human rights discourses have also occurred extensively where cultural practices are concerned, for example, within the practice of initiation and circumcision. Ultimately, the value of human rights is immeasurable in our modern society. It ensures that the rights and safety of all people are effectively instilled and secured.
Although many see Human Rights Day as a restful day off, this public holiday stems from a significant historical event. For the uninitiated, the history of human rights day derives from the Sharpeville Massacre on the 21st of March, 1960.
On this momentous day, a peaceful protest took place against the necessity of passing laws by the brutishly racist Apartheid government of the time. The crowd of over 7000 peaceful protesters was violently fired upon and tear-gassed, leaving 69 dead and over 180 people wounded, some permanently.
This event was among a plethora of different forms of activism that sought to demolish the racist and deeply inhumane apartheid regime. This was the outcry of a generation of people who were seeking an equitable, democratic system of governance.
Upon the eradication of Apartheid in 1994, the new SA Constitution, adopted in 1996, was underpinned by the Bill of Rights. In this way, the Bill of Rights is correctly preserved in our Constitution, and is the backbone on which our democracy and Constitution are anchored. The Parliament of SA outlines our Constitution as the supreme law, under which “no laws may be passed that goes against it.”
Human rights are not only enacted through legal means, but are fundamental to our society and intersect with every sector of our society. Law, medicine, education, art, agriculture, technology, and engineering are among many sectors that are interlinked with human rights. This ultimately ensures that all the sectors of society are treating people equitably, impartially, and conscientiously.
This ensures that our citizens, no matter the sector that they are centred in, are treated humanely. For large conglomerates this means that employees must legally be protected from dangerous environments, exploitation, and, most commonly, financial manipulations.
For those in medicine or education, this means the protection of one’s intellectual property and barring people from unethical and prejudicial practices. For those in political and leadership positions, it means undertaking moral, righteous, and ethical behaviours in one’s governance.
Human rights are also deeply societal. They begin in the home. Human rights in the home are manifested through various forms, such as the instilling of fairness, empathy, compassion and respect for one’s fellow human beings. Ubuntu/Botho sentiments, stemming from traditional African philosophy, are the culmination of these sentiments of understanding one’s values as a collective, often expressed through the phrase: “I am because you are.”
This not only emphasises the value of fellow human beings but also inspires a sense of community. Our modern-day societies continue to grapple with human rights issues on various levels. Violent behaviours owing to racism, sexism, xenophobia and culturalism are amongst a few human rights violations that are consistently contended with.
Human rights must not be addressed as an isolated matter. It needs to be at the forefront of all the sectors of our society for them to be addressed effectively. Human rights violations have a ripple effect that pervades deeper and further into society, and that affects the way we are socialised.
This is seen through the extensive rate of Gender-Based Violence and xenophobic attacks, both locally and continentally. Poverty is rife in the African context. The issue of financial literacy was especially accentuated in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, where many were left jobless, without any income and susceptible to mental health challenges.
Women-led households, which earn significantly less than male-led households, were more affected during this time. This was a dire situation that highlighted the need for financial literacy, especially at a fundamental educational level. Countless citizens in our land become adults, unaware of budgeting, investments, and multiple streams of income.
This issue is not only self-developmental but affects our entire economic system. Human rights are not only about humanity but the ability of humanity to sustain itself. Human rights extend far beyond the prescripts of the law; they particularly speak to the sustainable development and upliftment of our whole society.
They encourage the collective development of our nation and the sustainable communal growth of our people. Equity, defined as “the situation in which everyone is treated fairly according to their needs”, is what human rights call for. Our country is a deeply stratified nation that requires human rights to be at the forefront of discourse and developmental objectives.
The contentious history of this nation means that many citizens are barred from the basic human rights that our Constitution demands, for example, access to food, health care, and education. This is increasingly exacerbated by our capitalist and globalised society, where basic needs are increasingly unaffordable.
We are in a society where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Our modern society does not support the development of all people equally. Issues of equity, access, and quality are central issues in our contemporary world. This is especially evident at the social level, where many cannot even afford to leave their hometowns.
This is also starkly evident in the higher education sector, where additional costs, such as application fees, student housing, transportation, and language issues, leave many young people despondent. Although it may take time, it is of the utmost importance that we intentionally and systematically dismantle the conditions that seek to reject and ostracise many underprivileged people from pursuing a quality future.
We need to begin to facilitate a society where equity is at the forefront rather than capitalist and institutional greed. As modern-day citizens, countless resources at our disposal intently function for the sake of our personal and communal development.
Although SA is a multicultural society, we are all intrinsically interdependent. Our social groups may be differentiated by different cultures, religions, beliefs, and languages, but the participation and self-development of all people should be at the root of what we strive to become in our present and our future.
The woes of the underprivileged are not exclusively confined to the underprivileged communities - all sectors of society are affected. The betterment of others certainly results in the betterment of the collective. Although we live in an individualistic society, we must remain vigilant in our capacity to empathise and uplift. Societal development cannot be left in the hands of civil society groups by themselves.
We must ensure that our institutions, cultural practices, societal frameworks, and economic systems are for the benefit of everyone. This would not only be for the advantage of the current generation but also future generations who deserve an equitable and just society stand to benefit.
*Tswelopele Makoe is MA (Ethics) Student at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice at UWC. She is also a gender activist.