People are losing interest not only in politics, but in everything associated with it, judging by the attendance at the recent Human Rights Day events that were held in different areas last Friday 21 March. The support was not convincing at all.
Instead of people attending the events, they were doing their house chores while others were drinking as usual.
Being a Human Rights Day, Youth Day or Women’s Day are all the same. People are no longer interested.
As the non-white community, we owe a lot to our struggle stalwarts who dedicated their lives fighting for us. I feel as if we don’t appreciate the role they played by those who were before us. We don’t have to attend these events, but to show respect by staying sober for the day instead of roaming around the streets drunk. Maybe as parents, we fail to educate our children about the significance of these public holidays.
We don’t have to attend those political affiliated events but do our own things. Just do constructive things that will have a positive impact in our communities. Think of Ashley Kriel, Bantu Biko, Joe Slovo, Ahamed Kathrada – some of them lost their lives for the betterment of this country. Comrade Joe Slovo had the privilege to live a good life because of his skin colour, but he chose to fight for the poor. These are some of the people that we need to honour, people who had nothing to lose but decided to sacrifice their lives. Let’s not be dissuaded by the circus that our politicians are doing in parliament. The current political leaders are singing for their supper.
All I’m asking is to honour these public holidays and educate each other about their importance. What our struggle stalwarts did, the current leaders cannot do. Those were the leaders who stood up for what they believed was right not only for them, but for the masses as well. Now, we have leaders who are pretending to be messiahs while they are looking after their stomachs.
