Human Rights Day - Liberty and Justice for All

On 21st March South Africans celebrate Human Rights Day, a day that also commemorates an event of the utmost significance in the history of our country. Almost fifty years ago, on 21st March 1960, thousands of people gathered at the Sharpeville police station in Gauteng to protest against the Pass Laws. A scuffle broke out and the police opened fire on the crowd. Many people were killed and many more injured for no other reason than that they stood up for their human dignity.

The Pass Laws required all black South Africans living or working in and around towns to carry a document, known as a pass, with them at all times. Failure to do so would lead to arrest by the police and, at best, being sent away from the towns in which these people lived and worked.

On 21st March 1960, protest events were planned around the country. The idea was that so many people would be arrested that the jails would become far too full. The hope was that the situation would thus become impossible and thus force a review of this draconian law. Tragically, this outcome was not to be achieved and the majority of South Africans continued to live without basic human rights for decades to come. Those who died were not to be forgotten however, and South Africans have commemorated Sharpeville ever since it happened, often in secrecy or in exile.

Today our rights are protected and we can celebrate the day both in memory of those who fought for the liberation of our country and as a re-dedication of resolve that people in South Africa will never again be denied their human rights. Today our rights are protected in the South African Bill of Rights, which constitutes Chapter 2 of our constitution, the sovereign law of our country.

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension. It is the presence of justice.” – Martin Luther King Jr

As free South Africans we now have the right to life, equality and human dignity. We have the right to food and clean water, adequate housing, health care and education. We have the right to express ourselves freely. We have the right to privacy. We have the right to be economically active and to be free from slavery and forced labour. We have the right to choose who we associate with and to move freely from place to place, to live and work where we wish. We have the right to citizenship, to know what happens in Parliament, to vote and to be politically active.

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean. If a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” – Gandhi

These rights are all enshrined in our constitution and these are the rights that we celebrate every year on 21st March. The South African Human Rights Commission is a national institution, established to entrench constitutional democracy and in particular our human rights. The Commission is committed to promote respect for, observance and protection of human rights for everyone without fear or favour.

While our rights are inalienable and protected as such in our constitution, rights also confer responsibility. The Human Rights Commission expresses it thus: “Because everyone has these rights regardless of their race, age or gender, we all have to respect other people’s rights as well. It is no good saying that you have these rights if you are doing things at the same time that go against other people’s rights.” Human rights exist within the wider context of the constitution and the laws of our country. It is only by respecting the rights of others that we are able freely to express our own.

It is arguably in the nature of global human history that tragic events have one of two outcomes. Such events are either mourned with an exclusive focus on the suffering and the injustice that caused them, or celebrated with respect for those who suffered the injustices with dignity, who gave their lives so that others may go free where they could not.

As a manifestation of my right to freedom of expression I would like to suggest that the memory of those who died for my right to freely express my opinion are better served by celebration than by mourning. With a deep respect for them, those heroes of Sharpeville, I will spend 21st March this year not in sadness, but in joy and gratitude. After all, I am a South African and I have the right to do so.