Lest we forget the Esidimeni tragedy

One of the most important aspects of history is that of a persistent, collective memory – which passes from generation to generation – about evils done to innocent people.

Here in South Africa, millions remember the pain of apartheid, Jews around the world will never forget the Holocaust and, in Russia, even today’s youth solemnly remember the 26 million Soviet people who died in World War II.

The persistence of memory ensures that victims and heroes are remembered – but also serves as a warning to future generations not to make the same mistakes or fill up the same killing fields.

That is why it is so important that a new online memorial is being set up to remember those who died in one of the post-apartheid era’s most awful abuses of vulnerable people – the Life Esidimeni tragedy.

First and foremost, the website keeps alive the memory of the 144 people who died from trauma or neglect at the hands of the Gauteng department of health during a botched process to move them to private institutions and care homes.

Like much that is touched by our ANC government, the Life Esidimeni tragedy was part greed and part incompetence – greed for the wholly unprepared institutions which were paid to look after the people and incompetence because the people running the health department didn’t bother doing their due diligence.

And, even when they saw what was happening, they did nothing to stop it. Worse still was the obvious lack of feeling displayed by the health department bosses – as personified by health MEC Qedani Mahlangu, who had to be forced to do the right thing and resign … although her party saw to it that she was looked after by re-election to its provincial structures.

The Life Esidimeni memorial should remind us: never again shall we allow our people to be abused so brutally.