Speaker and hon members, Dr Martin Luther King Jr once said that "our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter".
The erosion of the respect for a human rights culture in South Africa is a matter that all South Africans, regardless of political persuasion, must never be silent about. The growing and disturbing disregard for the human rights culture in our country cannot be the best way of honouring those heroes and heroines who died for our freedom in massacres, such as in Sharpeville in 1960 and KwaLanga in Uitenhage in 1985. Their commemoration should always be marked by the visible promotion of human rights by all South Africans. Yet, it is precisely here that we are falling every day.
One of the classic examples of this is the alarming slide of our policing, from being a community-friendly service to becoming a hostile force. Crime must be fought, but in the process we should never accept the compromise and sacrifice of even one innocent life. We must vehemently reject the shoot-to-kill policing philosophy. Since this call was made, innocent lives have been caught in the crossfire. South Africans should not accept this as unavoidable. The untimely deaths of Olga Kekana and Ibrahim Ganchi, caught in the crossfire of shoot-to-kill, are bad indicators of where we are going as a nation. They must haunt us; they must haunt our collective psyche.
Central to the erosion of a human rights culture in our country is the total debasing of Chapter 9 institutions. Cope believes that we need to strengthen the Chapter 9 institutions, by ensuring that those who head up these institutions are not deployees of any political party, but rather that they are selected in the same way that judges are selected. These institutions are the last line of defence for our hard-won Bill of Rights.
As often observed by civil rights organisations, it is not always in the interests of governments for the citizens to be informed. It is the task of government and civil society to keep the citizens conscious of what is at stake, if our human rights culture is not to be eroded. This assertion is underpinned by what Boutros Boutros-Ghali said back in 1992, that, and I quote:
... an essential element for protecting human rights is widespread knowledge amongst the population of what their rights are and how these can be defended.
A focused drive for heightened literacy among our people is a primary requirement for raising human rights consciousness.
Speaker, unless Parliament takes it upon itself to inform and educate the citizens about their human rights and also seeks to inculcate and promote the culture of rights with responsibility, communities will continue to burn down public facilities, drive out people with different sexual orientation or nationality from their localities, and prohibit meetings of people of different political persuasion. Cope believes that our activist Parliament must prioritise the intensification of public campaigns of education for a human rights consciousness. It is disturbing to hear more and more about some of our people being refused treatments such as dialysis from state hospitals because of poverty. The right to life is important for all our people. Let me again gratefully acknowledge hon Minister Motsoaledi's response last week to my question in this regard. Cope wishes to urge the Minister to look at the need for interdepartmental responses to the crisis of the poor in this regard. Failure to do so will heighten the sense and perception that human rights are a preserve of the privileged and not all citizens.
While we honour the clinicians for the sterling service they render to the poorest of the poor in the public health institutions, it is disturbing that some cannot receive dialysis because they live in informal settlements, without basic services such as running water. Recently Busiswa Danxa, according to public reports, was refused treatment because of this reason. Whilst it may be beyond the means of the clinicians to do something about her social situation, it certainly is not beyond the means of the government.
It is at the level of each citizen that the sincerity of our Constitution is tested and the government's commitment to human rights is expressed.
One of the fundamental tenets of human rights is free speech. The protection of this right means that we must tolerate the things said by others, even those that we absolutely deplore. On the other hand, we have to call for responsibility from the citizens. Words can destroy, as much as they can build. Cope, whilst acknowledging words that formed part of our struggle as part of our history, cautions that not all the words used to liberate us are of equal value for the building of our future. We need words that will help us affirm each other's right to life and dignity. It is with this in mind that at this stage of our national development, we reject the usage of slogans such as "Kill the boer, Kill the farmer".
History moves on. [Interjections.] Today is the day to find slogans that bind us together as a nation, slogans ... [Applause.] ... that propel us to a future of a shared destiny and a prosperity for all South Africans, built on the unshakeable foundation of human rights for all. [Time expired.] I thank you, Speaker. [Applause.]