WHAT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS DAY IN SOUTH AFRICA?.

 WHAT OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS DAY IN SOUTH AFRICA?.

As we conclude this week and are about to conclude the month which has officially been termed or named the Human Rights Month, this name emanates from the Public Holiday known as Human Rights Day which is celebrated on the 21st of March . This Public Holiday is as old as the Democratic dispensation in South Africa. Prior to the 1994 democratic breakthrough this day was known as Sharpeville Day, it was named Sharpeville Day as it marked the commemoration of the Sharpeville Massacre which took place on the 21st of March in 1960. The Massacre was committed by the Apartheid government through its security forces(Police and other security forces). It was a protest known as a Pass Protest led by the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania(PAC) under the able leadership of Professor Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. It was an Apartheid law that Afrikans had to carry their pass(Identity Books) with them wherever they went, failure to do so carried severe punishment in a form of jail time. Afrikans rejected this draconian and racist laws hence they protested on that day(21 March 1960). The official stats by the Apartheid government and other sources put a number of people killed at 69, however , we cannot rely on this stats provided by the same government which committed the Massacre. The possibility exists that the number may be much more than the official 69.

With the African National Congress(ANC) having won the 1994 elections which ushered a new dispensation , they resolved to name the day as Human Rights Day. This move on its own is a very problematic move as it carries with it a serious threat of distorting or even worse erasing our history. I am saying this is a distortion of our history because the day has lost its meaning and essence ,which has denied the younger generation of an understanding of what this day is all about.This move by the African National Congress is not an innocent one. We would do well to understand that there has always existed tensions between the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania. The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania is a breakaway from the African National Congress, the split was brought about by the latter abandoning the African Nationalist ideology and opting for a Liberal ideology under the influence of the Whites which were beginning to take charge of the ideological apparatus in the African National Congress. This can be seen by the African National Congress adopting the Freedom Charter which says "South Africa belongs to all those who live in it".

Therefore we cannot put it beyond the African National Congress that naming the 21st of March as Human Rights Day instead of officially naming it Sharpeville Day was an attempt to write the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania out of the South African history.

It can bee seen by how the day is now commemorated (in fact the day is now being celebrated as a result of it having being named Human Rights Day). Little is being said about the events of the 21 March 1960. The day is now reduced to being about the basic human rights such as water,electricity,ect, not to suggest that those are not significant. However , my point here is that the Human Rights cannot be reduced to just being about access to water and electricity, but there is more to it. Human Rights are also about economic and social justice, the fact remains that all these rights remain an ink on the paper in the absence of economic power to access and exercise those rights. Unfortunately little is being said about this, especially in the mainstream media and politics. Our struggle against Colonialism-Apartheid was much more than being about mere access to water and electricity.

By

Teboho Sekhosana

Political and Social Activist

0844361494/ 0630394468

sekhosanateboho9@gmail.com