OPINION - It is sad to continue celebrating once-great events like Freedom Day, Women’s Day and the Rivonia Trial as all of these have become wishy washy events, totally out of sync with present realities.
The martyrs of yesterday have becomes the jokes of today. Remembrance of, for instance, the dark days of Mandela and hundreds of other freedom fighters languishing their lives away, far from friends and family, on a distant isolated island, hardly helps a youth to obtain simple employment today.
Meditating about the horrors of the frightening Rivonia Trial, which sent shivers down the spines of all non-whites in those days, or flashing back to the violent police crushing Sharpeville rioters, certainly does not assist much in obtaining a roof over the head, or even a straight-forward, low-cost education that motivates youth to smile warmly and look hopefully to the future.
Women’s associations can organise partying 'til the wee hours on Women’s Day, but still wake up the next morning to the very gruesome reality of continued abuse, discrimination and being sidelined in the workplace. This “celebration” concept also fails at other places on the globe. Martin Luther King Day, Independence Day and Memorial Day in the US have all become meaningless in the light of continuous racial discrimination, a lack of freedom of movement, ongoing war-mongering, and unemployment.
Independence Day and Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, as important days on the subcontinent’s calendar, have also been dragged into the mud as the caste system still reigns supreme and gross discrimination and persecution of minority groups gains momentum daily.
Yes, the word “celebration” needs to be recalibrated.
Ebrahim Essa Durban
Daily News