TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Part minority_position

Subsection 10

■ HUMAN RIGHTS CULTURE

74 Because of the subject matter of the Commission’s task and the focus on gross human rights violations, it is natural to focus on so-called liberal human rights, to the extent that issues such as unemployment, poverty and illiteracy are seen merely as phenomena in our society. Both in our Constitution and in international human rights instruments, certain rights are acknowledged and extrapolated from these phenomena. All who promote a human rights culture need to understand that social rights are indeed rights. Social rights are not passive. They are not, as liberal human rights have been characterised, prohibitive. They are active. Historically, it is the responsibility of government to actualise these rights through its policies. The report does mention the need to address these phenomena for the sake of national unity and reconciliation. However, policy measures and action plans adopted by authorities are by definition threatening to the liberal mindset. It is therefore necessary to promote discussion in the more affluent liberal rights society of all races, genders and religions, to integrate these social rights into their perception of rights. This has always presented a crisis to such thinking. But crises deepened may trigger paradigm shifts, and what is foreign and threatening may thus become integrated. Where the private sector acknowledges these phenomena, they may become agendas for their resolution. This is the sigh of social rights protagonists. It is the culture underlying many of the speeches of government representatives. Can liberal society make it its agenda? If it does not do so, liberal human rights will remain an obstacle to the actualisation of social human rights.

75 The same approach can be adopted with regard to the so-called group rights of culture, language and self-determination, all integrated into society, with a view not to separation but to unity and reconciliation. As with traditionalism, the group phenomena were also acknowledged by the fathers of our Constitution, both in the chapter on human rights and in its provisions for deliberations in the Volkstaatraad.

76 Managing these conflicting mindsets calls for a ‘both and’ approach, very seldom an ‘either/or’ approach. Our politicians presently have a good gut feel for this need. However much energy it may demand, we should be wary of making exclusive choices without optimum accommodation of basic value system needs.

77 Lastly, all human rights have to be translated into rules, into dos and don’ts. That is a function of law and regulation. We need to know in simple terms what we must and must not do. Law must then be enforced. And if people comply with the law and live within the law, they are better left alone. They do not have to be made to like it or to observe it for any other reason than the reasons they themselves may choose.