Secrecy of the state disempowers citizens
ON MARCH 21 every year, we should honour not only those mown down at Sharpeville in 1960 but also the countless thousands whose lives were sacrificed in the struggle for democracy and human rights.
Their deaths should inspire our defence of the constitutional freedoms we now take for granted, for the present government is increasingly paying only lip service to human rights.
On the international front, it has shielded Omar-al-bashir from prosecution for war crimes, and attempted to withdraw from the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
The context of wars and gross human rights violations in Africa is a global one involving powerful multinational mining interests, organised crime syndicates and arms dealing (which does not absolve individual guilt) and is best dealt with on a global level.
Instead of squandering the moral authority gained in the 1990s, the government should be playing its part in addressing the shortcomings of the International Criminal Court.
The first founding provision of our Bill of Rights is “human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms”, but we have made little progress in implementing those rights.
Some, such as freedom of expression, are under threat, as the government considers regulating social media. We are the most unequal society in the world, not because of lack of resources but due to policies and corruption.
There are intermittent ugly incidents of racism, but also a widespread failure on the part of representatives of the state to treat their fellow citizens with dignity, especially if they are poor. In addition to the scandals surrounding social grants payments and the treatment of psychiatric patients in Gauteng, the Department of Social Development’s representatives regularly fail to provide due assistance to people in need – including vulnerable women and children.
It also fails to ensure adequate support for NPOS working with people who cannot afford private care for family, psychiatric or addiction problems, and flouts constitutional provisions about privacy and confidentiality (and social work ethics).
While there are many dedicated health professionals in the public sector, too many facilities are badly managed. The dignity of patients is regularly impugned by staff who do not respect patient confidentiality, are rude or refuse to assist them when they need help, or fail to provide them with the information about their health to which they are entitled.
Treatment for serious illnesses is delayed because scanners are not working, and cancer patients in KZN are dying because radiological machines have not been serviced – which, like a number of other serious healthrelated problems, is allegedly linked to gross irregularities in the procurement of goods and services.
Political patronage dominates service delivery. Instead of empowering the residents of informal settlements and hostels by giving them skills to upgrade their homes and undertake repairs, or promoting entrepreneurship by providing land for site and service schemes, obscene amounts of taxpayers’ money is paid to tenderpreneurs who often build sub-standard housing. Handouts foster a culture of dependency but the possession of skills, and work, gives dignity.
The ANC’S dangerous and divisive land rhetoric flouts the constitution, and diverts attention from government collusion in dispossessing poor black people of their land, including for mining. Areas in KZN targeted include Fuleni (where proposed mining poses a grave threat to precious water resources and the Imfolozi Wilderness area), Somkele (Mtubatuba), where removals of residents occurred several years ago, and the Mkhwenazi community (Mthunzini).
The rights of traditional communities will become even more tenuous if the Khoisan and Traditional Leaders Bill is passed, giving more land-related powers to chiefs and municipalities. Despite the government’s anticolonial polemics, this legislation perpetuates it since racial and ethnic categories invented by the oppressors form its cornerstone.
Endemic violence impacts on all areas of life, leaving the majority of South Africans feeling unsafe. Increasingly, policing and justice have become subverted to narrow political ends. There is a growing threat of militarisation – with deployment around Parliament, and the proposal by the mayor that a military base be established in ethekwini. Such militarisation must be strongly opposed.
The carnage that continues in areas such as Glebelands hostel – and spreads elsewhere – is due to the gross mismanagement of policing, and the failure to root out corruption in the service.
Most disempowering of all is the abject failure to provide decent education for the majority of learners.
One of the consequences of this disempowerment – which also fuels protest – is the lack of widespread and critical public engagement with a government which is becoming increasingly unaccountable and secretive.
We need to find ways of replacing violent protest with peaceful lobbying and advocacy if we are to ensure that we defend the freedoms, and build the democracy, for which so many South Africans died.
• Mary de Haas is a violence monitor and analyst based in Durban.