Monday, 26 July 2010

Leaving Loopholes…

As I was writing my last post, I came across this picture:



It is a quote from the Freedom Charter, which was adopted in 1955 by the Congress of the People as the joint vision of the allied parties fighting against Apartheid. I thought that this picture was a nice representation of the vision of the Freedom Charter:

For all of Africa to live in brotherhood, to have the same rights and to enjoy equal opportunities.
For all people to have the right to live in decent houses, bring up their families in comfort and security; for slums to be demolished; for rents to be lowered, for food to be plentiful and for no one to be hungry.
For all men and women to receive equal pay for equal work; to have access to education that will teach them to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace.


The parties signing the Charter believed in these goals; Nelson Mandela and many others dedicated their lives to fighting for them and in 1994 Apartheid was finally abolished.

A lot has happened since then, a lot of progress has been made, but there is still a lot that has to be done. As beautiful as it is, the vision of the Charter is ambitious and South Africa is far away from fulfilling its dreams.

The artist, a wise man, must have realised that these ideals are hard to achieve. And so he decided to add a little star, a footnote, a reference to his artwork... I wonder what it meant to say?

We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know that South Africa belongs to all who live in it*

* South Africans only

* does not apply to immigrants


or maybe

* only holds when universal education, alleviation of poverty and zero unemployment have been achieved

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