30 years on, unity in diversity is in trouble

• Published date: 26 April 2024
• Publication title: Mercury

Not too close to completely healing “the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights”, and not too far from finishing laying “the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law”

Tilted on its axis to improve the “quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person” and striving daily to “build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations”.

A society so bountiful and varied that it has nourished and inspired its people with values of “human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms”.

Such is an image of South Africa today, our only home inhabited by all as citizens of a rainbow nation. And in that stunning array of life is what many today call a thriving unity in our diversity and solidification of a cornerstone of our democracy because countless ways of being proud citizens have evolved and are evolving.

Disappointingly, the unity in our diversity, a cornerstone of democracy, is in trouble.

First, some good news: Decolonisation events worldwide tended to be accompanied by murder, torture and brutal repression rather than drumbeats and energising folk songs.

In South Africa, 30 years ago this month, in 1994, citizens of all races braved all the odds to vote in the first non-racial elections and ushered in a new Constitution that became the supreme law of the republic.

It made law or conduct inconsistent with it invalid and instructed the state to fulfil the obligations imposed by it – something unprecedented. South Africa’s negotiated political transition was a glorious exception to this dismal rule.

Written with diversity in mind and to strengthen the cornerstones of democracy, it obliges the state to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Constitution.

It further grants the state – and this is important – the authority to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of the rights meant to better the people’s lives. This was monumental.

Significant anniversaries inevitably serve as occasions for state-of-the- nation-style reflection. Since 1994, we could vote only for political parties to represent us in national and provincial legislatures. This time round...