GOOD Speech by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
22 March 2023
Note to editor: This is the speech that was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General and Member of Parliament, Brett Herron, during today’s debate on Human Rights Day: Consolidating and sustaining human rights culture into the future.
Madam Speaker,
In 1960, when police killed 69 people protesting apartheid pass laws at Sharpeville, there was no such thing as a culture of human rights because the then-government did not regard the majority of South Africans as human beings.
Today we have a progressive Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the State, in its wisdom, has declared Sharpeville Day, Human Rights Day.
But we remain far from the promised land of developing a culture of human rights, which involves significantly more than celebrating the rights to express our opinions and move around freely without being beaten up or shot.
When we see millions of people struggling, without livelihoods, to feed themselves and their families…
When we see families living in squalor, raw sewerage flowing past their door …
When we see children dying in pit toilets…
When we see the rate of violent crime perpetrated, mostly by men and often against women…
The length of the journey that still lies before us to translate the principles of human rights and dignity in our much-vaunted founding documents into practical reality on the ground becomes strikingly obvious.
Human rights is a universal concept. Humans have rights whether or not the country’s they live in have Bills of Rights or not.
The United Nations describes human rights as, “rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more”.
It is the responsibility of governments to create the necessary environment to equip people with the skills to obtain jobs, and to develop an economy with the rigor to grow.
If we had developed a culture of human rights we wouldn’t accept a housing programme that perpetuates exclusion, inequality and spatial injustice. We wouldn’t build mundane suburbs of poverty miles away from anything, and burden lower income earners lucky enough to have jobs with paying 40% of their household income for the privilege of getting from A to B.
If we were serious about developing a culture of human rights we wouldn’t accept that 10 million unemployed South Africans wake up every day with nothing to do, nothing to eat and nothing to hope for. We would have restructured our budgets long ago to ensure that all have access to basic income sufficient to meet their basic human needs.
A country with a culture of human rights wouldn’t have abandoned the restorative justice process begun by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, thereby turning its back on thousands of orphans, widows, widowers, loved ones and communities who felt the direct brunt of apartheid human rights violations.
Madam Speaker…
Our human rights are enshrined in our Constitution. What remains for us to do is take these visionary words and practically embed them in our people’s daily lived experiences.
Media Enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 0825183264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Janke Tolmay, GOOD Media Manager
Cell: 0733671223
Email: janke@forgood.org.za