Deputy Minister John Jeffery: Socio-Economic Justice for All programme launch

Programme Director, Ms Siki Mgabadeli

Since everyone has been greeted and welcomed, I’ll just say – ladies and gentlemen,
Whenever one visits Constitution Hill one yet again bears witness to our unique history. One is again reminded of many of our compatriots who ultimately paid the highest price to ensure our freedom.

Waves of resistors to the repressive regime of the apartheid state passed through the entrance of, what was then, the Old Fort: many involved in the 1952 Defiance campaign, the Treason Trialists of 1956 including Nelson Mandela, and those imprisoned after various waves of resistance: Sharpeville in 1961, the 1976 uprising and the harsh clampdowns of the mid 1980s States of Emergency.

The prison complex of the Fort has impacted deeply on hundreds of thousands of ordinary South African lives as it was essentially a transitory prison where prisoners were held until they were sentenced before being transferred to serve their prison terms elsewhere.

Constitution Hill is reminder of how far we have come as a nation. The attainment of civil and political rights, as well as socio-economic rights, bring us ever-closer to the democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom that those, who came before us, had lived and died for.

One cannot over-emphasise the importance of socio-economic rights. Despite enormous progress over the last two decades in reviewing progress on transformation in South Africa at all levels and the achievement of substantive equality, dignity and human rights there is an acknowledgment that for the vast majority of South Africans, these goals have not yet been realised.

As Prof Sandra Liebenberg rightly says: “If the socio-economic rights in the Constitution are to amount to more than paper promises, they must serve as useful tools in enabling people to gain access to the basic social services and resources needed to live a life consistent with human dignity.”
I will return to the issue of human dignity in a bit.

When at Constitution Hill, one thinks of our Constitution, of the Constitutional Court with the impressive body of jurisprudence that it has built over two decades, and one thinks of democratic institutions that we have built since the dawn of our democracy.

It would be easy for anyone to stand here today and hail all the positive progress that we have made since 1994, as we have achieved so much.

We know that our Constitution is often hailed as one of the most progressive in the world, we think of the famous article by Karl Klare which highlights the transformative nature of our Constitution. We speak freely and easily of our Constitution as being Prof Mureinik’s famous bridge, the bridge from a culture of authority to a culture of justification. We – and I include myself – like to quote US Supreme Court judge, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said that if she were to draft a new Constitution today, she would not look at the example of the US as a benchmark, she would rather look at South Africa.

But there is one issue, which is equally important to the attainment of human dignity, which we would rather not discuss or debate. Or, when we do, we tone it down or refer to it euphemistically. Because it makes us uncomfortable. It detracts from what we believe about ourselves as the rainbow nation. It makes us question whether we should be patting ourselves on the back for all the things we have achieved. That issue is racism.

You are, no doubt, all familiar with what have been called, euphemistically as I’ve said, a spate of “racial incidents.” We know the “blackface” incidents at the Universities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch. There is the case of the racially segregated toilets in Musina. The case of a vicious assault on a gardener with a sjambok is but one of 10 recent race related attacks in Cape Town alone.

We refer to these as “incidents” because then we can make ourselves believe that it’s only a few isolated occurrences. But the list goes on and on.  Apart from these blatant incidents, certain groups of people appear to have an inbred sense of superiority about their own views, culture and history - at the expense of other South Africans.

If we were to be honest with ourselves we would call this what is really is – racism. Racism is the proverbial elephant in the room in the psyche of our nation.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would go so far as to say that if one looks at race relations since the dawn of democracy in our country, one will find that race relations are currently at a low point.

The Wits Centre for Diversity Studies has recently expressed similar concerns: "South Africa has not entered a post-racial, colour-blind era," centre director Professor Melissa Steyn said in a statement. She writes that - "These incidents make it clear that transformation is not a linear process, and that we should not assume that the passage of time since the 1994 transition necessarily translates into a steady, concomitant erosion of racism and racially abusive behaviour."

Perhaps recent surveys offer some glimpse of an explanation as to why this is the case. According to the 2014 South African Reconciliation Barometer white South Africans are less likely to remember the oppressive nature of apartheid than other citizens. In 2013 only 53% of white people who took part in the survey agreed with the statement that apartheid was a crime against humanity. This was compared with 80% of African people, 77% of Indians and 70% of coloured citizens who agreed with the statement.

What does this have to do with Foundation for Human Rights (FHR) and the launch of today’s programme?

Government together with the European Union established the Foundation for Human Rights in 1996 as an independent grant-making agency for the promotion of human rights. Our department is extremely proud of its partnership with the FHR and what this partnership has achieved.

The achievements of the earlier Access to Justice and Promotion of Constitutional Rights Programme are well-known and we know that this programme will be equally successful. The Socio-Economic Justice for All (SEJA) programme is aligned to the goals of the National Development Plan and provides a rights-based approach to support the eradication of poverty, promote sustainable and inclusive growth, and consolidate and improve democratic and economic governance through the realisation of socio-economic rights, building participatory democracy and an active citizenry. SEJA is a results based programme and has 6 Key Result Areas. There are 2 key result areas that I would like to highlight:

Firstly, the SEJA programme provides support to the Constitutional Development Branch of the department to fulfill its mandate with a particular focus on building sector coordination in the social justice and human rights sector, building the capacity of the South African government to fulfill its international and regional reporting obligations as well as providing support to the department in promoting the National Action Plan to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Other Related Intolerances.  Promoting the NAP means fighting racism and building a more tolerant society.

Secondly, the SEJA Programme will assist us to enhance participatory democracy through public policy dialogues on constitutional rights. Policy dialogues can also contribute significantly towards ridding society of discrimination and prejudice.

We often focus on building awareness of human rights amongst those in our country who were previously denied. That is correct and what we must do. Access to justice is of fundamental importance, particularly to those who have been excluded in the past, the poor and marginalised.

But, as the project leader of the Reconciliation Barometer, Dr Kim Wale, said, the findings were perhaps an indication of how history was being taught and that there was a real need to engage white South Africans on what their whiteness meant in relation to the lived experiences of other races. In other words, human rights awareness programmes should address both those who were disadvantaged as well as those who were advantaged.

Ido Lekota writing in the Rand Daily Mail says:

“As a black middle class person I resent it that some white people do not, for example, want to acknowledge the insidiousness of white privilege that perpetuates unequal power relations associated with the persisting unequal distribution of resources in this country.   
       
White South Africans must accept white privilege and recognise that although they may not be directly responsible for the over 300 years of colonial oppression of black people, they are invariably undue beneficiaries of that racially exploitative system.

Once they accept this they will be more open to learning about the power of privilege. Doing so will go a long way in earning the much needed trust from black people and to building racial harmony in this country.”

Distinguished guests

Those of you who followed the Steve Hofmeyr/Chester Missing case, were probably equally disillusioned by some of the comments on social media coming from the right-wing.

Let me on behalf of Government say this to Dr Dan Roodt and his ilk: crime has a devastating effect on all races. All our people are affected by crime, violence and abuse.

The bottom-line really is this: our programmes, initiatives and campaigns such as, for example, the 16 Days of Activism are not just for black people, or just for white people. It is for everybody. When we extend social grants to help the poor, we help whoever qualifies for a grant, be they white or be they black.

When we seek the attainment of socio-economic rights, we seek it for all. We do not ask whether someone is white or black or coloured or Indian before we provide health care, water and sanitation or education to them. For government it is not about “us” and “them”. There is only “us,” all South Africans, all united in our diversity.

Ladies and gentlemen, the irony of course, is that when opinions are  expressed that Hofmeyr and Roodt don’t like, they are very quick to approach either the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) or the courts for assistance, but they themselves feel free to say whatever they like, regardless of whether it may be hate speech or discriminatory. In other words, a classic example of hypocrisy or of “the pot calling the kettle black”… or in this case, white.

Haji Mohamed Dawjee writing in the Mail and Guardian says:

“We don’t all have to experience racism first hand or see it out in the open – apartheid style – to know that it really does exist, that it still is a massive issue.

Racism in South Africa is a little bit bigger than Steve Hofmeyr and Dan Roodt. We can laugh, and point and mock their ignorance, but they are just poster boys of a much bigger problem. In many ways, they’re just small fish in a very big pond. A pond filled with hundreds and thousands of centuries-old, ingrained and inherent superiority complexes, privilege and acts of racism at the hands of white men.
A sense of entitlement, in these very men, so large and so vast and so delusional that it is the very thing that allows them, and people similar, to deny a black man’s experience of racism and the violence that ensues because of it.”

Distinguished guests

I wish the Foundation for Human Rights all the best for this new programme.

The National Development Plan prioritises the role of the State in advancing socio-economic rights development as envisaged in the Constitution.  Economic, social and cultural rights constitute the first step to ensuring that access to all human rights is guaranteed to each individual.

Poverty that results in the deprivation of capabilities or lack of empowerment, amounts to a denial and a violation of human rights. People living in poverty may lack formal rights or, where formal rights exist, be denied substantive, equitable access to the rights formally accorded to them. When people are unable to enjoy rights such as adequate food, water, clothing, the highest attainable standard of health and adequate housing, they are unable to live decent lives.  They are deprived of the dignity that is essential to social justice. The pursuit of socio -economic rights, civil and political rights has become the new areas of struggle.

We know that we have an extremely able, committed and skilled partner in the FHR. We are equally assisted by our Chapter 9s, in this regards, in particular, by the South African Human Rights Commission. 

The broadness of the mandate of the SAHRC necessarily makes the duplication of some of its activities by an institution such as FHR inevitable. However, the enormous human rights and participatory governance challenges facing South Africa and South Africans make positive and complementary duplication of some of the activities of the SAHRC a welcome development.  

The vision of the SAHRC is “Transforming society. Securing rights. Restoring dignity.”
I would argue that one of the best ways of restoring dignity and transforming society is to rid it of racism. Transformation, rights and dignity go hand-in-hand.

We cannot fulfil civil and political rights, without socio-economic rights. Similarly we cannot build a free and democratic society based on equality and dignity while we still experience racism and racially abusive behaviour.

All the progress that we have made in the area of socio-economic rights, best illustrated in cases like Soobramoney, Grootboom, Khoza, Joseph, Jafta, Blue Moonlight and Mazibuko, progress which seeks to restore human dignity, that progress is eroded by racism, racial abuse and discrimination.

Access to justice, in the narrow sense, means assisting people to take matters to court and to access the justice system. But perhaps there is also a wider definition of access to justice, which includes social justice, and creating a society where there is no injustice, no racial superiority, no stereotyping and no prejudice.

We must ask ourselves how it is possible that we have incidents of discrimination and hate speech in society, yet our Equality Courts are vastly under-utilised.

We need partners such as the FHR, our Chapter 9 institutions, civil society and all stakeholders if we are to succeed at building the future that Mahomed CJ speaks of in Makhanyane.

The NDP is explicit on the role of civil society in transforming society and uniting the country.  The primary objective is to enhance social cohesion and bring about a social compact by means of an active citizenry. The NDP also provides some concrete recommendations for civil society’s role in establishing a cohesive society through active citizenry, including identifying aspects such as government-citizen communication, information sharing, performance monitoring and leadership. Civil society plays a key role in the realisation of human rights and the democratisation of our society.

I would like to leave with you the words of former Chief Justice Mahomed, or Justice Mahomed as he was at the time, in S v Makwanyane:
“In some countries, the Constitution only formalises, in a legal instrument, a historical consensus of values and aspirations evolved incrementally from a stable and unbroken past to accommodate the needs of the future.

The South African Constitution is different: it retains from the past only what is defensible and represents a decisive break from, and a ringing rejection of, that part of the past which is disgracefully racist, authoritarian, insular, and repressive, and a vigorous identification of and commitment to a democratic, universalistic, caring and aspirationally egalitarian ethos expressly articulated in the Constitution. The contrast between the past which it repudiates and the future to which it seeks to commit the nation is stark and dramatic.”

We have some great legal minds and strong activists here today, every single one of us works in an area where we can make a difference. We are the ones who have to ensure that the democratic, caring and egalitarian future that Mahomed speaks of, becomes a reality.

I thank you.

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