GOOD speech by Brett Herron,
GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
22 March 2022
Note to editors: This speech was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General, Brett Herron, during the debate today in Parliament on entrenching human rights culture in the fight against racism, xenophobia and other related intolerances.
Madam Speaker,
If democratic South Africa wished to entrench a culture of human rights, a good place to have started would have been holding the perpetrators of apartheid human rights violations accountable for their brutality.
Instead, in its wisdom, acting on the instructions of its political bosses, the NPA decided not to prosecute the more than 300 serious cases referred to it by the TRC.
Rather than contributing towards entrenching a culture of human rights, this decision entrenched a culture of impunity. Impunity that generates steepling crime statistics, televised insurrections and state capture.
When we choose not to hold those who killed in defence of racism to account, how do we advance the fight against racism?
A few years ago, a middle-class KZN woman was correctly prosecuted for referring to Black beachgoers as monkeys – in a much publicised case.
But those who tortured political detainees fighting for non-racial justice to death continue to walk free.
Speaker,
Last week in the town of Robertson, violence erupted between workers of Zimbabwean and Basotho extraction.
While they clashed over jobs, workers born in the area – many born on farms, the children of farmworkers – sit without jobs in shacks in sprawling informal settlements on the edges of our rural towns.
We must be very clear about this: Documented immigrants and migrant workers are as entitled as locals to earn a living. That is not the issue.
The issue is the declining number of local people living and working on farms. Instead of accepting responsibility for their workers, many of whose families served their parents and grandparents, farmers prefer to hire necessary labour in town – often through labour brokers.
We cannot talk about entrenching a culture of human rights and tolerance without having a conversation about the responsibilities of our commercial farmers to contribute to repairing our social fabric. Nor, without appropriate and properly implemented immigration policies.
Speaker,
Our transition to democracy, and adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, have not fixed relationships in our country. Instead, inequality and grinding poverty are at all-time highs.
Our founding documents are there to guide us; they provide the opportunity to nurture a nation with a culture of tolerance and human rights. But it is up to us to make their words practical, and the better nation they describe, real.
It is not only politicians who share a duty to build a rights based culture. Every South African person and business does, too.
Those in positions of political and economic influence have particular responsibilities. They must avoid being tempted into opportunism by our ill-managed immigration policies and get on board the nation building project.
Media enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 0825183264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Samkelo Mgobozi, GOOD: Media Manager
Cell: 0792315977 (whatsapp)/0829684021 (calls)
Email: samm@forgood.org.za