Women who fought injustice
CREDIT must be given to the women throughout history who campaigned within their own societies and tried to get various governments to change the law by very different means.
Millicent Garrett Fawcett, who lived in Victorian England (18401929), campaigned for the rights of women to be allowed to vote on equal terms with men. The vote was given to women who owned property and were aged over 30.
Rosa Parks (1940s-1960s), from the American South, defied the law that treated black people unfairly, to prove it was unjust. The Supreme Court upheld her view. Her example inspired other blacks to stand up for their rights and a great mass movement was born.
In South Africa, Winnie Madikizela-mandela (1950s) concerned herself, for her fellow Africans, with the campaign for the abolition of the unjust apartheid system and was involved in the struggle for equality.
South African author Nadine Gordimer was an unwavering critic of apartheid and an outspoken advocate of black majority rule.
In Britain (1903), Emily Davidson committed suicide to draw attention to suffragette demands for equal votes.
The great Victorian reformer Elizabeth Fry (1870) was so appalled by the conditions she found in prisons that she devoted her whole life to trying to make life better for prisoners.
March Mcleod was a most influential black campaigner for civil rights (1930s-1960s) in the US.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1930s-1965), wife of former US president Franklin D Roosevelt, worked to improve conditions and civil rights for black Americans.
Many women from the black, white, Indian and coloured communities in South Africa worked together to oppose apartheid, among them Helen Suzman, Margaret Ballinger, Fatima Meer, Helen Joseph,
Lillian Ngoyi, Amina Cachalia, Dr Kesaveloo Goonam, Emily Hlatshwayo, Cissie Gool, Walima Mudliar and a host of others.
These women all worked alongside other men as well as women.
Their home and family lives were disrupted and sometimes had to take second place to their campaigning work.
They have all had to face times when they felt that they might never manage to achieve their aims within their own lifetimes, although all of them had the faith that, because their cause was just, it would eventually succeed.
They all shared a vision of a better future for the people around them and had to make difficult decisions about the best way of turning that vision into a reality.
Society needs to remember these women who made a contribution to make the world a better place – August 9 marked national Women’s Day, celebrated in South Africa.
It will be appropriate to remember and salute these women of past years and those still living.
They will all have a place in the annals of history.
ISMAIL M MOOLLA umzinto
THE SUNDAY Tribune Herald article on August 12 “Clean India project to deliver 111m toilets in five years”, refers.
A big bouquet to the Sunday Tribune and Independent Media which, for the first time in history, has managed to publish an article on India and Modi without its regular lies and distortion of facts.
There actually isn’t the usual, almost obligatory, “right-wing Hindu nationalist” nonsense. There is in fact, (wonder of wonders) praise and enthusiasm for the hardest working prime minister India has ever had.
Consider for a moment the words: “It’s the biggest, most successful behaviour-change campaign in the world,” said Val Curtis, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Environmental Health Group, who has worked on the programme in India. “Every time I go there, I feel like I can’t sit down for weeks after because I’m excited about what they’re doing. It’s incredible.” Imagine the word “incredible” being used.
Oh well, it is from Bloomberg, not Reuters, ANA, the New York Times or, of course, Sanjay Kapoor.
However, one cannot help recalling Time magazine’s cover story on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on March 19, 2012, before he became prime minister.
A certain community (Theywho-cannot-be-named) expressed “outrage” and “called for an international campaign” against the prestigious magazine. The problem? The article praised Modi.
A spokesperson said a meeting with the editorial board of Time was being sought to “sensitise” them with the sentiments of the particular community because they had been deeply hurt by the article on Modi.
I hope that does not happen with the Sunday Tribune.
SANU SINGH Reservoir Hills
I REFER to the letter by Clinton Govender published on August 5.
I write as councillor for Ward
30, which includes parts of Bonela, Mayville, Cato Crest, Sherwood and Westville.
I do not recall ever having engaged a person by the name “Clinton Govender” about
Bonela issues. His name does not appear in my cellphone or email records, on registers of numerous community meetings or on any of the 15 Bonela-based community Whatsapp groups that I am part of.
It seems unlikely “Clinton Govender” is even a real person, much less that he saw me “shrug” when he raised an issue with me.
As far as commercial activities of the company known as Multi Sands at Bonela Secondary
School are concerned, I share the frustrations of residents in regard to the nuisance and disturbance created by those activities, and by the passage of heavy 16-ton trucks laden with sand, coming into and out of Bonela.
By the way, Multi Sands is not a “construction company”. It brings sand to the school premise, sifts it into various grades and removes it from the site. I have sent about six emails to the municipality’s land use management department about the activities of Multi Sands at the school. On June 21 last year, I was informed by email that a “Section 79 Notice” had been issued and the matter had been “logged for enforcement”.
On November 14, I was informed in an email from the municipality: “Council has served notice on the school, especially the Department of Public Works who are the custodians of all government land.
“Unfortunately it is not possible to take Public Works to court to stop an illegal activity that the school governing body has allowed at a time when the MEC is encouraging schools to find ways to supplement their income by leasing out facilities.
“We, however, continue to engage the relevant officials with the intention of resolving not only the Bonela issue but the many other illegally used schools in ethekwini.”
Further emails were sent to the municipality on December 19 and on February 12 and March 13, all without response. What more can a councillor do on this specific issue?
It is clear the main purpose of the letter is to take a dig at the DA.
The idea that I was “parachuted” into the ward I serve is absurd. I have lived at my current address for 17 years. If Govender is a resident, he is welcome to contact me directly.
WARREN BURNE Ward 30 councillor