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Faizel Patel – 27/04/2021
The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) says South Africa cannot be free until there is economic justice in the country.
The IJR’s Felicity Harrison was speaking to Radio Islam on Tuesday as the country marked 27 years of freedom.
This is the exact number of years that late former president Nelson Mandela spent in prison as punishment for his fight against the apartheid regime.
Mandela was released on the 11 February in 1990 and the country held its first democratic election in April 1994.
Harrison says freedom day it not only about political and social justice, but also about economic freedom.
“Our latest research which was produced in 2019 found that 25% of people in South Africa felt that they had worst future prospects for their households and I can imagine that that number has only gone up during the COVID times. So, we’ve seen inequality increase in the 27-years of democracy and I think that we’ve still got a very long way to go.”
Harrison says the level of trust among South Africans and for the country’s leadership has eroded.
“Trust is also low between people of different races and different genders. I think that the only way for us to have confidence in our leaders is for our leaders to show up and for them to start delivering on the promises that have been made during elections and between election times, the promise of the ‘new dawn’ with President Ramaphosa which some have called the false dawn.”
Harrison says the only way that public trust can be rebuilt is after those who have been implicated and identified as being corrupt are investigated by the police and brought to justice to face the full might of the law.
Listen to the interview with Felicity Harrison
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