That was last week’s key message of Buang Jones. He led an SAHRC delegation to Emfuleni for talks with residents and the local authority.
Only three civil society groups attended the meeting in Vanderbijlpark. No representatives of Emfuleni Local Municipality attended.
Jones stressed the legal tenets of the SAHRC’s Emfuleni report released in February 2021. It demarcates the framework for strong legal actions, should government at any level continue disrespecting basic human rights.
Jones also asked locals to volunteer as SAHRC monitors. A cynical Maureen Stewart and Mike Gaade of Save the Vaal Environment (SAVE) reported on the Rietspruit catchment, where more sewage flows into the stream than the wastewater plants of Rietspruit and Sebokeng can treat.
Also the Federation for a Sustainable Development’s (FSE’s) Mariette Liefferink and her daughter Simone, reported on the dire state of the aquatic ecosystem of the Barrage and the downstream Vaal system.
Rosemary Anderson, speaking on behalf of the Golden Triangle Business Chamber, tried to put a positive spin on an urban community garden project in the Rietspruit catchment. Somehow that message may have missed the mark.
We are living in a time of compounded and unpredictable social and ecological disruptions. COVID-19 continues to globally wreak social-psychological havoc. As humans we are unable to engage with each other in a normal way. The consequence is a profound state of communication lapses.
For example, our inability to socially engage was responsible for the July 2021 unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng. We simply seem unable to read the signs of the times. Few of nowadays bother to take note of thousands of people standing in the sun waiting for a paltry monthly government stipend of R350 to stay alive.
South Africa’s unemployment rate is now 30%. Imagine what can happen if government takes pro-active measures to employ the poor – as it had done during global Great Depression (1929-1933).
Thousands of people were employed on government construction projects. For many it meant a new lease of life. Some became farmers. Others studied further in their spare time, whilst earning a livelihood, to support a family at home.
The five-volume study of the Carnegie Commission on the Poor Whites in South Africa (1932) historically informs us on what we accomplished previously. Repeating that feat, for all South Africans in 2021, requires leadership of a special kind.
