Construction of the new truth: Human Rights Day

The appeal of democracy is said to be that is it government of the people, by the people for the people. I don't know what it is about our brand of constitutional democracy that makes it government of some people, by some people for some people but it turns out that way or there are at least enough instances where it is the case.

By way of an illustration, there are many people from all walks of SA lives that contributed to a lesser or greater extent to the eventual dismantling of Apartheid. In fact as some of you may have learned, nobody actually ever voted for the Nats, they just kept themselves in power through repression and fictional votes. Only Helen Suzman got actual votes. So, one would expect that if the idea of a new country and new morality is that we honour those that contributed to the bringing about of the new era; then that idea would apply to all. It is understood that not all the people can speak and be heard all the time, hence the idea of representatives. The representatives of the people went about doing all sorts of things on behalf of the people, one of which was the declaration of certain public holidays.

21 March was prior to the new era always known as Sharpeville Day. I am not sure what deliberations led to this historic day being named Human Rights Day but there it is, our new reality. This was probably done on some nation building argument - the mantra of the Nelson Mandela government. In his book, Long Walk to Freedom, the South African saint characterises the actions of the Pan Africanist Congress in relation to the Sharpeville protest and subsequent massacre as somewhat opportunistic. Benjamin Pogrund writes differently about the same history in the biography of Robert Sobukwe. What then is the truth about Sharpeville Day?

Whatever the truth may have been about that day, it has now been replaced by the new truth, that of Human Rights Day.