Posts Tagged ‘human rights’

by Kerry Haggard who suspects that she has the right to a full night’s sleep – but is struggling to convince her two sons of that… Follow her on Twitter @KerryHaggard

As South Africans, we are quick to brag about our Bill of Rights – one of the most comprehensive in the world. The rights of everyone from prisoners to old people are protected – the rights of children too.

What I struggle with, often, is that so many of us neglect to notice that rights come with responsibilities.

Yes, we have the right to free speech. We also have the responsibility to moderate our words to be constructive and honest.

We have the right to equal protection before the law. We have the responsibility to follow that law, respecting our fellow citizens while doing so.

We have the right to practise our religion of choice. We have the responsibility to tolerate the religion of others, and to understand what we have in common with them. You’d be surprised at how much that is…

We have the right to assemble to demonstrate our dissatisfaction with something. We have the responsibility to respect the property on which we choose to exercise this right.

We have the right to fair labour practices. We have the responsibility to work hard, be honest, and earn the money that we are paid.

We have the right to an environment that is not harmful to our wellbeing. We have the responsibility to look after it ourselves, whether it is recycling or spending our money with ecologically responsible suppliers.

We have the right to property. We have the responsibility to purchase it honestly, and to look after it. It is after all, part of our environment.

We have the right to health care. We have the responsibility to make wise decisions about our own health and wellbeing, whether that is by choosing healthy food, or monogamy.

We have a right to education. We have the responsibility to appreciate the value of this, to go to school or university, and to use our knowledge to improve South Africa.

We are blessed to have these rights, among many others. Our biggest responsibility is to teach these rights to our children – and to teach them that these rights come in tandem with responsibilities. Teaching them that someone else is always to blame for what is wrong in their lives, that someone else must always fix the damage, is simply irresponsible.

by Philippa Cross who would rather be outdoors than in, alone than in a crowd. She prefers dogs to cats, with a major leaning towards bulldogs. She hopes to win the Pulitzer prize for her yet unpublished novel. She started Thumb Media with a partner in June 2009

If you have read anything I’ve written before, you will have recognised that I try to see the funny side of most things. Sense of humour is essential if you wish to survive motherhood. It is even more essential if you wish to survive life in South Africa. Since I am a mother of 2 boys, living in South Africa, I laugh as loudly and often as I can. If I don’t, I will most certainly cry. And drink, more than the allotted 2 units a week or whatever is deemed healthy by experts these days.

So, as I pondered the subject of human rights, what they were, what it meant to have them as human beings, why we needed to write them down and talk about them, why we have a day dedicated to them at all, and where the children fit in to the whole subject, I got myself thoroughly depressed. When I look around, I see the rights of people, children especially, being so overlooked, so violated, so disregarded, that I can not laugh. I simply can not find a funny angle.

How do I teach my children about human rights when we see a mother and child begging at almost every robot we stop at, when nothing that I tell my precious children bears any truth in the reality of daily life in South Africa?

The depressing truth is that as a mother, I’m beyond teaching my sons what human rights are. I’m too busy making sure that the gross violations of human rights that occur every day under our noses, especially to the children in our country, simply don’t happen to my boys.

Instead, I pray daily for my children, earnestly, and without ceasing. I pray for their protection, for their health, for their safety, on our roads, and in the hands of their care-givers. I watch them like a hawk, lest they are kidnapped from under my nose by child-traffickers or muti-makers. I teach them how to handle blood if they are faced with another child’s injury at school, because I want to protect them from HIV.

I tell them they are special, and that their bodies are their own. I respect them, and I teach them to respect others. I teach them that we don’t hurt animals, and that the planet is our home and all life should be respected. We recycle.

I do all of this, because I know that although they may have rights on paper, in theory, no-one will enforce them when I’m not there. So I dedicate my life not to teaching them about their rights, and the rights of others, but to ensuring that their rights are upheld. I hope that by example, they will learn what human rights are, and that when they have their chance, they will uphold them more vehemently than we have managed to.

A glass of wine and giggle anyone?

by Joy Robyn Dembo, married, with an 18 year old son and a 25 year old daughter.  Addicted to the www, particularly Twitter. Recruitment Response Handling Consultant and Freelance Copywriter, vegetarian and animal lover.  Here’s her blog.

Sitting outside the Hotel School, I  watched the kids trickling out… White, Black, Coloured, Indian, Chinese …all smiling,  chatting,  joking and hugging.

“And your point?”,  you might be saying?

What  really struck me about this scene was that these kids are colour blind – they are just students pursuing a common goal! And, this makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. These kids don’t know how lucky they are to be growing up in an integrated, free society, as opposed to the abnormal, sinister society in which my generation was raised.

As Human Rights Day approaches, I wonder whether people just see March 21 as a day to remember the old Chevrolet ad “Braaivleis, Rugby, Sunny Skies and Chevrolet”, or whether they stop to think of the horrors of Sharpeville, The Soweto Riots, and the appalling human rights abuses that led to South Africa’s economic isolation, sport and entertainment boycotts, rolling mass action  and countless deaths in exile and detention.

I think back to a scene in the movie “Sarafina”, depicting the sharp contrast between an idyllic Parktown garden full of happy white kids, celebrating the “Madam’s” child’s birthday, laughing and shrieking as they bounced up and down on a jumping castle, while the “maid’s” black daughter looked on, remembering  the horrific ordeal she had just been through, at the hands of the SAP.

I think back to my childhood when my mom employed an amazing black lady who had a “Peri- Urban pass” which didn’t allow her to live or work in Johannesburg.  How absurd is that?  Whenever we got word that the police would be raiding in our area,  Anna would sleep inside the house.  But, we would still spend the night in a state of panic, in case we were raided and they found her.

I also think back to the years I spent at Wits. I was appalled that only Whites students were permitted to study there  and joined the picketers, protesting against Detention without Trial, Harsh Pass Laws, and the horrors of Vlakplaas and a host of other human rights abuses.

Inferior education and poorly paid menial jobs for black people were the order of the day.  Black families were split up by the migrant labour system, and black people were forced to live in appalling conditions (both of which will take a long time to rectify) Protesting and striking were banned, shops were prohibited from opening on Sundays, “Communist literature” and “immoral movies” were banned.  People were arrested and tortured for not carrying their ID with them, detained for no reason and murdered for standing up for what they believed in!

Suffice it to say those were dark and sinister times for the majority of South Africans, so this March 21st, let’s all remind our kids how lucky they are to be living in post- Apartheid South Africa.  Our fledgling democracy may be far from perfect, but it’s a huge improvement on the OLD South Africa!