Ordinary South Africans on Monday celebrated a decade of democracy by sharing with Parliament their experiences of the new ”rainbow nation”, whose post-apartheid Constitution ensures equality for all.
But many of the 150 participants who attended the special session complained that the black majority were still sidetracked after decades of oppression, and formed the main chunk of the jobless.
According to unofficial estimates unemployment is as high as 42%.
”The African youth are still largely marginalised, they perform below their counterparts, and swell the ranks of the unemployed,” said Peter Mohlahledi, a youth representative from Gauteng, South Africa’s richest province where Johannesburg is located.
Mohlahledi’s address was broadcast in all of South Africa’s nine provinces via a satellite link.
Parliamentary spokesperson Luphumzo Kebeni said the move was part of a campaign to give real meaning to the concept of a ”people’s legislature.”
The guest speakers included women, workers, people with disabilities, youths and beneficiaries of a national land reform programme aimed at redressing the imbalances in land ownership, still dominated by the white minority.
South Africa’s first post-apartheid government in 1995 set up a two-pronged approach to land reform that provided for the return of property seized by the former regime and an overall redistribution of land.
White farmers own 80% of arable land in South Africa and the government’s objective is to ensure that 30% of that land is in the hands of black farmers by 2014, 20 years after the end of apartheid.
Special guests included those who were involved in drafting the post-apartheid Constitution as well as lawmakers and government officials.
”Ordinary people in real life situations … are called upon to live this Constitution and make a difference in their lives,” said Leon Wessels, a former member of Parliament and eminent lawyer who was involved in the drafting of the new Constitution. – Sapa-AFP