Madam Speaker, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers, ladies and gentlemen, hon members, comrades and friends, this weekend we will be bidding farewell to one of South Africa's finest - a revolutionary intellectual, a commander, an administrator, an organiser, a Minister, an artist par excellence, the "Animal", Inyamazane, the man I called "Holobye" - Minister Collins Chabane.
Thank you to all the parties represented in this House for a moving tribute befitting the stature of this late, unassuming, towering and gentle giant of our time. No one knew better the struggle for equal human rights for all than this leader of our people.
Human Rights Day 2015 is commemorated under the theme, "Celebrating the Freedom Charter, enjoying equal human rights for all". This year's commemoration will be in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the massacre. The basis of Human Rights Day is the Sharpeville Massacre, which took place on 21 March 1960, when 69 unarmed people were killed by apartheid police.
This year, we are celebrating the Freedom Charter as one of the building blocks of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as adopted in 1996. We are celebrating the ANC's unbroken legacy of human rights.
Other such landmark perspectives are the ANC's 1923 Conference Resolution on the African Bill of Rights, the 1943 Africans' Claims and the 1989 Constitutional Guidelines for a Democratic South Africa. The thread that runs through all of these perspectives is the human rights culture for all. These are the birthmarks of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa as adopted in 1996. Because of this unbroken devotion of the ANC to the human rights culture, South Africa is a better place to live in today.
Speaking on the same issue of the human rights tradition within the movement, then President Nelson Mandela had this to say, and I quote:
Since 1923, when the first ever Bill of Rights in South Africa was adopted by the ANC, human rights and the attainment of justice have explicitly been at the centre of our concerns.
The main theme of the African Bill of Rights document is that, amongst others, it sought to achieve human rights, that human rights should be universal, that all South Africans had an inalienable right to the ownership of land, that there should be equality before the law and equal political rights, and, finally, that all should be able to have an equal share in government.
The ANC led everyone in the country and the world towards having equal human rights for all. In 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Human Rights Charter, the ANC was more than two decades ahead of those who regarded themselves as part of a civilised world.
I would like to quote the UN Declaration of Human Rights and Diana Ayton- Shenker:
"All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated." This means that political, civil, cultural, economic and social human rights are to be seen in their entirety. One cannot pick and choose which rights to promote and protect. They are all of equal value and apply to everyone.
As if to settle the matter once and for all, the Vienna Declaration states in its first paragraph that "the universal nature" of all human rights and fundamental freedoms is "beyond question". The unquestionable universality of human rights is presented in the context of the reaffirmation of the obligation of states to promote and protect human rights.
The legal obligation is reaffirmed for all states to promote "universal respect for, and observance and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all ..."
Furthermore, the obligation is established for all states, "in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, other instruments relating to human rights, and international law." No state is exempt from this obligation. All member states of the United Nations have a legal obligation to promote and protect human rights, regardless of particular cultural perspectives. Universal human rights protection and promotion are asserted in the Vienna Declaration as the "first responsibility" of all governments.
Everyone is entitled to human rights without discrimination of any kind. The nondiscrimination principle is a fundamental rule of international law. This means that human rights are for all human beings, regardless of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Nondiscrimination protects individuals and groups against the denial and violation of their human rights. To deny human rights on the grounds of cultural distinction is discriminatory. Human rights are intended for everyone, in every culture.
When some amongst us propagated for privileges and rights for a select few through qualified franchise, the ANC pressed for universal human rights. They would not listen. Even when the then president of the ANC, Z R Mahabane, warned that Africans were not political children, the friends of the natives insisted on being the trustees of the natives. Today, they claim to be champions of the Constitution whose birthmarks are self-evident and whose grain they stood opposed to for decades.
In any event, the aim of the struggle was, amongst other things, to liberate white racists from the false ideology of racial superiority and the insecurity attached to oppressing others. Today, an equal human rights culture is a lived experience in South Africa.
The ANC was formed in 1912 as an instrument for the liberation and restoration of the human dignity of Africans. However, right from the beginning, the ANC, in the face of the gravest injustice, never once abandoned its principles. The very act of the formation of the ANC, against the historical injustice by our erstwhile colonisers, was a surge of an equal human rights culture for all. We have been on this journey for the past 21 years, and we keep on improving as we go. Again on this matter on another occasion, the late former President Mandela stated, and I quote:
We now live in a constitutional state based on the protection and promotion of basic human rights, a state in which the protection of human dignity stands supreme, and in which the constitution guards over such fundamental values as equality, nonracialism, nonsexism and the rights of all citizens.
This is yet another testimony highlighting the fact that South Africa is indeed a better place to live in. The ANC and its alliance partners have been at the forefront of fighting for and promoting a culture of human rights in this beautiful land. This reality will continue as we further level our sociopolitical landscape, yet the structural legacy of colonialism and apartheid that denied people their human rights is still with us today. We have come a long way but much more still needs to be done. The challenges of discriminatory practices in our society, such as racism, xenophobia, Afrophobia, sexism, homophobia and related intolerances are still persistent. These are a blight on our path towards achieving a universal human rights culture.
We call upon all peace-loving people in this country to join us as we crisscross the country, engaging in community conversations. We request everyone to support our social cohesion advocates as we deepen dialogue on the fundamental issues affecting our society. These campaigns are aimed at denouncing such practices and, at the same time, educating our fellow compatriots about their own responsibilities. They are meant to cultivate within us humanity's best qualities. They remind us of the noblest of principles for humankind, such as ubuntu.
The government continues to do everything in its power to improve the quality of life of all the people. It is doing so cognisant of the fact that such actions will further bolster equal human rights for all our people.
As we take this moment to remember these milestones in our history and plot the way forward, we pledge once more, in the words of Tata Nelson Mandela at his inauguration in 1994:
Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfil themselves.
Through our national efforts for social cohesion, through our heritage and legacy projects, through our collective wisdom and through transforming our economy, the sun will always shine upon us and our achievements as a people. South Africa is indeed a better place to live in today. I thank you. [Applause.]