Hon Speaker, distinguished members of this House, I thought I would address you today on entrenching democracy and the culture of human and peoples' rights, because this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the unprovoked and merciless massacre of defenceless young activists, children and elderly men and women in Sharpeville and in several other African townships, such as Soweto, Langa, Boipatong and Bisho, by the apartheid police force, under the instruction of the callous minority regime.
Their crime was to dare rise up against the brutal, repressive system of apartheid which had for many years, pre- and post- this fateful and dark moment in our history, sought to deprive, and succeeded in depriving, the majority of African and black people of their basic human rights and a decent living.
Former ANC president O R Tambo once observed that, and I quote:
Persistent contravention of human rights is a recipe for violent conflicts and war.
The people of Sharpeville, Soweto, Langa, Boipatong and Bisho had had enough, and waged a courageous war against the infamous system, in order to win freedom, democracy and peace.
Five decades since that tragic period that shocked the world and stripped naked the cruelty of apartheid for the whole world to see, we are sitting here today as a free people, with the capability and resources to determine and fulfil the kind of future that generations of our militant and brave martyrs dreamt about and fought for.
Today, as Parliament hosts this significant debate to talk about the human rights of the people of the democratic South Africa, we must pay tribute to the South African patriots who paid the supreme price, both inside and outside our borders, so that we can talk freely of this important subject, without any fear of arrest, torture or murder.
We must also salute the resilient strength and determination of the political formations under which these heroes and heroines of our struggle fought to bring about the constitutional democracy in which the rights of all people are respected and protected. I am referring here particularly to the militant and revolutionary organisations of the calibre of the ANC, the SACP, Cosatu, the United Democratic Front, the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, and the Azanian People's Organisation - organisations which, for many years, steered our country to the democratic dispensation it is today.
Parliament's hosting of the debate on human rights - which takes place just a few days before we come together to celebrate Human Rights Day on 21 March, exactly 50 years since the brutal massacre of our people - necessitates that, as a nation united in our diversity, we shun that which threatens our hard-won freedoms and defend, with an uncompromising fierceness, the myriad freedoms that are the fruit of our liberation.
As we celebrate Human Rights Day, we must remind ourselves that the democratic breakthrough of 1994, and the human rights that we enjoy today, are not manna from heaven; they were borne out of the struggles of our people in which thousands lost their lives and limbs. The opening paragraph of our Constitution therefore correctly honours the freedom fighters who dedicated their lives to the struggle for the liberation of our country and people. Besides, it honours the victims of apartheid and colonialism and the workers who built the economy.
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, the opening paragraph enjoins the democratic state to develop the full potential of every human being, which is the essential element of the humanity of all.
Our Constitution recognises human rights - that is, individual, socioeconomic and peoples' rights, respectively known as first-, second- and third-generation rights. The democratic breakthrough of 1994 restored our right to self-determination and individual rights, and created space for the realisation of our economic and people's rights.
The overwhelming majority of our people elected the ANC, which campaigned on the platform of five priorities, which include: The creation of decent jobs; the provision of quality education and health care services; security of person and property; and food security.
The ANC realised and acknowledged that the recovery of the full humanity of all South Africans, both black and white, can only be achieved through the realisation of these socioeconomic rights, which are also found in our historical documents, such as the Africans' Claims of 1943, the Women's Charter of 1954 and the Freedom Charter of 1955.
The five priorities of the ANC-led government are designed for the realisation of our socioeconomic rights. In his state of the nation address, President Jacob Zuma outlined practical steps for the realisation of these rights, and left the details to the Ministers.
The service delivery protests that we witnessed recently are an indication that our people did not fight for individual - that is, political - rights only; they wanted to use the political space created by the achievement of political rights for the progressive realisation of their socioeconomic and peoples' rights.
Notwithstanding these service delivery protests, there is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of South Africans still support the ANC and will vote for it again in the 2011 local government elections. [Applause.]
The message that the residents are sending to us through these service delivery protests is that they want to see faster change. That is why the President of the Republic, hon Jacob Zuma, defined 2010 as the year of action, and called on us to work harder, faster and smarter, for the realisation of the five priorities of government. We are aware that some service delivery protests are caused by the nonperformance of public representatives and officials, by corrupt contractors who do not fulfil their contractual obligations, and by a lack of accountability on the part of some public representatives.
We want to assure all communities, especially the historically disadvantaged, that service delivery protests and damage to public and private property will not improve our quality of life. This Parliament is their appeal board against the local and provincial government public representatives and officials that are incompetent, corrupt or unaccountable. This Parliament is an activist appeal board that exists within communities in the form of Parliamentary Constituency Offices that operate as one-stop centres.
Our offices do not require the permission of members of the executive - whether at the national, provincial or local level - to do our oversight work. We cannot and will not ask for permission from the executive branch of government to carry out our oversight work. [Applause.]
Our jurisdiction extends to all parts of the country, rural and urban. We call on all communities who are facing challenges of service delivery, local development issues and a lack of accountability on the part of their public representatives, such as MPs, MPLs and councillors, to report to our one-stop centre parliamentary offices, rather than embark on destructive service delivery protests, which delay rather than speed up service delivery.
The ANC has committed itself to addressing the problems of incompetence, corruption, local development issues and the accountability or lack thereof of public representatives. It will do so by engaging communities through community-based constituency local forums and door-to-door work to establish the challenges facing our people, especially women, children and people living with disability.
Our oversight visit to Orange Farm, amongst others, revealed that the people are not against the ANC, but are against corruption, poor service delivery, laziness and lack of accountability on the part of some public representatives. [Applause.]
As we did in Khayelitsha, we shall not hesitate to request state agencies to investigate and take corrective measures where we suspect, on reasonable grounds, that poor service delivery resulted from corruption and nonfulfilment of contractual obligations.
In responding to the grievances of our people, the ANC will be guided by the wise words of our icon, Nelson Mandela, who told the US Congress on 26 June 1990 that, and I quote:
It should never be that the anger of the poor should be the finger of accusation pointed at all of us, because we failed to respond to the cries of the people for shelter, for dignity of the individual.
Kheabarangwe Nelson Mandela observed that the problem of the African in the twenty-first century is poverty when he said:
In this new century, millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free.
The ANC has committed itself to engage and work with all communities to find lasting solutions to the challenges facing them. This activist Parliament is your tribunal, you the people. It is ready and able to listen to you and to hold the executive at all levels accountable for the delivery of adequate and affordable services. Do not despair.
In discharging this responsibility, we are always informed by the wisdom of Chief Albert Luthuli, who said:
If we truly respect fundamental human rights and noble divine concepts of man, the dignity of man and the worth of an individual, the brotherhood of man, we must come all out in defence of these values as they are being seriously threatened by evil forces in our land. We should remember that Providence has ordained it that a people who refuse to meet such a challenge deservingly suffer moral degeneration and degradation.
In our statement of 8 January 2010, we said that human development has both spiritual and material aspects and we committed ourselves to work with the National Interfaith Leaders Council to build cohesive, caring and sustainable communities. The religious sector in our land has undoubtedly identified their role in our developmental state. They have resolved to become not only advocacy, but also developmental, institutions.
The conference on moral regeneration for social development, co-hosted by the SABC, the National Interfaith Leaders Council and the Parliamentary Interfaith Council from 18 to 19 March 2010, bears testimony to this. The formal establishment of the Parliamentary Interfaith Council will enhance our collaboration with the religious sector in our quest to build a value- centred and value-driven society. It will awaken us to the critical contribution that cultural, religious and language groups can and do make to holistic - that is, spiritual and material - human development. Thus, the ANC will work together with religious and other sectors for holistic human development.
The 1969 ANC national conference held in Morogoro, Tanzania, noted that, and I quote: As far as languages are concerned, only Afrikaans and English have official status in the bodies of state such as Parliament or provincial councils, and in the courts, schools and the administration.
The culture of the African, Indian and Coloured people is barely tolerated. In fact everything is done to smash and obliterate the genuine cultural heritage of our people. If there is reference to culture by the oppressors it is for the purpose of using it as an instrument to maintain our people in backwardness and ignorance.
However, the ANC did not seek to reverse the situation and turn the tables, but went on to build a new South African nation in which equality reigns supreme and all its diverse cultures enjoy the same prominence and status in all facets of society.
The ANC's response to the inhumane system of apartheid is encapsulated in our reconciliation policy and revolutionary morality described in the 2007 ANC strategy and tactics document, which says, and I quote:
The liberation struggle by oppressed communities developed moral values of human compassion and solidarity far beyond the narrow confines of its opposition to the apartheid social system. It represented something good, not just something better than apartheid. It asserted the humaneness of the human spirit, the search of societies at peace with and among themselves.
Our progressive approach demanded that our nation-building projects should be based on co-operation with cultural, religious and linguistic communities.
To that end our Constitution enshrines a Bill of Rights which, inter alia, provides that, and I quote:
Persons belonging to a cultural, religious or linguistic community may not be denied the right, with other members of the community, to enjoy their culture, practise their religion and use their language.
The ANC regards our cultural, religious and linguistic diversity as a strength, not a threat to national unity and social cohesion. That is why we frown upon any one or more groups that seek to impose their culture, religion or language on others. [Applause.] All cultural, religious and linguistic communities should work together to develop understanding and tolerance for one another. Such understanding and tolerance cannot be decreed. It can only be developed through a national dialogue on our diversity and the need for an overarching value system that transcends race, class and gender.
It is in this sense that the ANC supports President Zuma's call for a national dialogue on a moral code. The desired code should be an integral part of our national efforts to build a united nonracial, nonsexist and prosperous South Africa in which the value of every citizen is based on our common humanity - on people's rights.
Newly independent African countries were aware that the bills of rights imposed by the colonial masters sought to entrench white rights and privileges. Thus, soon after independence they developed the African concepts of the rule of law and human and peoples' rights, which led to the adoption of, for instance, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
One of the main peoples' rights is the right to a clean and healthy environment. Benjamin Franklin said, in this regard, that if we can create an environment where we feel good and care for each other, everything else falls into place. To this end ... [Time expired.] I thank you, hon Speaker, for the opportunity. [Applause.]