A vigilant mass culture is essential to prevent the degeneration of human rights as seen in Zimbabwe, said the South African Communist Party (SACP) on Wednesday, Human Rights Day.
The organisation called on people to participate in democracy, civil society organisations and community structures to deepen the culture of human rights.
”It is in the interest of our own revolution that we do so, for we have learned how the revolution can degenerate if our own people are not vigilant,” it said in a statement.
”This we have witnessed in our neighbouring country in Zimbabwe in terms of how the culture of respect of human rights can degenerate unless you have a vigilant mass-based culture.”
The poor and the working class are the victims of such a collapse, making it imperative for them to be at the forefront of defending human rights, the organisation said.
The organisation also called on a one-off credit amnesty for five million people who have been blacklisted. ”Poor communities are excluded and cannot benefit from the interventions of our own government in the informal economy and even low-income housing subsidies because of blacklisting.”
Volunteerism
Meanwhile, Pan Africanist Congress’s (PAC) president Letlapa Mphahlele said on Wednesday that the spirit of volunteerism that swept South Africa in the 1950s and 1960s ought to be resuscitated in order to bring about healthy values to the nation.
He was addressing a gathering of about 1 000 people in Sharpeville outside Vereeniging on the 47th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre.
”We should stop being a selfish party whose leaders and members suffer from an acute poverty of revolutionary values and start giving back to the community.”
Mphahlele said the PAC leadership and members should rather emulate their selfless predecessors who fought for freedom ”from hunger, joblessness, illiteracy and lack of shelter or housing”.
”Instead of castigating the government for poor matric results, the learned among us must rise up and help matriculants like Robert Sobukwe did when he helped Archbishop Desmond Tutu with his studies at the Wits University.”
He urged PAC members to do some introspection as they commemorate heroes of the Sharpeville massacre. ”We should use March 21 as an act of turning the search light inwardly … Sobukwe said we must serve our community unconditionally.”
PAC members were also urged to contribute towards the fight against HIV and Aids, as well as to eradicating crime in the country. ”In order to rid this beautiful country of crime, we must bravely confront criminals in the streets and stop bribing traffic cops.”
Mphahlele also pleaded to the government to release ”freedom fighters rotting in South African prisons like Zweli Mhlongo”. — Sapa