HumanRightsDay OPINION: Sharpeville struggle continues to haunt South Africa
It was on 21 March 1960 under the leadership of Pan African Congress leader Robert Sobukwe that the people of South Africa - in particular, the people of Sharpeville - marched against the pass laws, the laws that denied us human rights. People died struggling for the right to vote and to be represented by the leaders of their choice in Parliament.
The law-makers of our supposedly liberated society are still beyond our control, as the people of South Africa. Just as all power was in the hands of the white minority in the days of apartheid; all power in Parliament is now in the hands of party headquarters. A tiny number of very powerful party officials choose who will be an MP and who will not. If anyone of their MPs steps out of line, they can kick that person out of Parliament at a moment's notice and replace that person with another one of their children's puppets.
As we mark Sharpeville Day, let us remember what they died for, let us fight to achieve that which they fought and died for. In a very major sense, our situation now is worse than under apartheid. The terrible reality is that under apartheid, the economy grew while the electricity supply, the railways, and employment expanded. Today, state capture has wiped out a third of South Africa's gross domestic product , failures of electricity supply are normal and unemployment is increasing. The worst of its effects are still to come.
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