More to democracy than voting
South Africans cannot be satisfied with thinking that all democracy requires of them is to vote every five years.
That was the essence of the message delivered by former cabinet minister Trevor Manuel when he presented the seventh annual Imam Haron Memorial Lecture at the Bellville campus of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) on Monday 29 September 2014.
“If indeed that is our approach, we would not understand the heroism of a martyr’s past, we will not appreciate the value of our achievements in establishing democracy, and the only relationship we will have with our children and their children, including those unborn, will be the material possessions that we might have to leave in the will – which for most will be nothing!
“History demands our continued active engagement in all we see and experience,” he said.
The former Finance Minister, who was himself a key figure in the liberation struggle in the 1980s and 90s, pointed out that those who were involved in the breaking down of apartheid have a responsibility to build a caring democracy.
“This responsibility does not vest only with elected or employed officials – in fact it is up to the unelected and ordinary citizens to construct the quality of democracy that they desire. I fervently believe that our struggle is continuous and the state has an enormous responsibility to level delivery between those who can afford private services and those who cannot.
“In fact, ours is a struggle to have public services of a much higher standard. If we stop believing this and if we stop agitating for this we must declare all sacrifices in our past struggles to have been in vain.
“It cannot be sufficient to have fought for this democracy and to not care about the outcomes any longer. We surely would not treat any other aspect of our lives – whether this be physical or spiritual – with the same disdain. There is none among us who would adopt the view that all we require to be alive is to be able to breathe and that the quality of that life is immaterial.
“There is none among us who would accept that we may have been born with a level of intelligence, we don’t need to read or study to improve our knowledge. Why, then, do we not mind if our democracy falls short of the ideal we envisaged during those years of struggle?”, he asked.
Reflecting on the heroic struggle for democracy which eventually overcame the deeply entrenched and powerful apartheid system, Manuel said recalling key moments in the liberation struggle in the 45 years since Imam Haron’s death was “a necessary exercise because we must undertake an evaluation of our circumstances from time to time to evaluate who we are, where we are heading and what we ought to be better at.”