WITH Human Rights Day being celebrated this week, and a national general election looming, it is fitting to link the two significant events.
The proclamation of Human Rights Day was rooted in eliminating discrimination after the apartheid past and was specifically linked to the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960.
During that era, the majority were deprived of the right to vote.
This denied them the right to determine their own lives and futures.
They were excluded from a wide range of basic freedoms under laws such as the Group Areas Act.
They could not own land, were given inferior education and were restricted in movement and employment.
Thankfully, those days are over.
The struggle for a democratic South Africa has been fought and won, and was celebrated with the free and fair elections of 1994 and subsequently.
But it was never a matter of simply attaining democracy, it was about the road on which that democracy would take its citizens.
Sadly, the humiliation of the masses has not been eradicated.
For many, their lot in life has not improved.
This is vividly portrayed daily as communities battle without water, sanitation, electricity and other basic human rights.
It is also evidenced by pothole-riddled roads, power failures, failed infrastructure, rising joblessness, increased cost of living and unprecedented personal debt levels
Politicians across the spectrum would do well to remember that people can’t live on electioneering promises.
They need substance, rather than rosy pictures.
Bread and butter issues – survival – are on the minds of the majority, and on this matter the plundering of money by many within the governing system is disheartening, to say the least.
Self-enrichment was never a part of the struggle plan, and people have a right to expect officials to act in the best interests of the citizenry.
And if they don’t, they anticipate that these people and their private sector cronies will be exposed and uprooted.
They also expect that officials and politicians will work diligently and honestly in the cause for a better South Africa.
So many of our human rights are dependent on a well-functioning, corruption-free government, especially at local level.
