GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
Unite for Change Leadership Council Member & GOOD Secretary-General
21 March 2026
Thirty years ago, South Africans’ centuries-long struggle for equal rights and justice was technically concluded with the adoption of a progressive Constitution and Bill of Rights.
However, the struggle to convert technical rights into better lived experiences for the majority of the population persists. The nation is stuck between good constitutional intent and poor practical implementation.
With local government elections on the horizon, populists, sellers of identity politics, and those who don’t believe in non-racial justice, are licking their lips.
Thirty years is a thin sliver of time in which to fundamentally transform a society structured on a 350-year history of denial of the basic humanity of the majority of citizens by the minority.
Even so, a combination of factors, including government ineptitude and a long-term official opposition party intent on resisting redistributive justice, has conspired to severely curtail progress.
The environments in which millions of people live today are disgraceful. Millions of people don’t have jobs, don’t have enough to eat, don’t have a decent roof over their heads… live in a sea of need, crime and misogyny.
A State that sits back and watches communities and civil society continuously rushing to court for orders forcing it to do its basic work and make their rights real is not a caring State.
The slow rate of progress in normalising the abnormal society, and the continuing depth of poverty, inequality and indignity, fuels populist politicians and threatens the sustainability of the constitutional democracy.
The right wing is mobilising against multiculturalism and inclusive human rights. From the White House to Centurion, they feel more powerful than the reverberations of unattended events in history… too powerful to be held to any account.
Most thinking South Africans know better: They know that you can’t just wish the impacts of 350 years of history away… that the longer it takes to clean wounds, the more danger of infection… that continued failure to turn paper rights into better lives for the majority of South Africans is our greatest existential threat.
Either those in power make speedier progress or cede power to others with alternative approaches to the Constitution, humanity and human rights.
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