Graca Machel Trust

 

 

Today we celebrate Human Rights Day. We thank the many great women whose conviction and courage drove them to voice and act against gender injustices with the belief women’s rights is indeed, a Human Right. They worked hard to change laws, attitudes and behaviours in order to achieve the freedoms most women enjoy today.  There are many African women who continue to fight against gender injustices and oppression and among them are the activists, human rights advocates, gender professionals, feminists and women who may not identify themselves with the term ‘feminist’ but still fight injustices as they come across them.

 

We revere the courage of Lilian Ngoyi, Sophia De Bruyn, Albertina Sisulu, Helen Joseph and Rahima Mossa who led the marching by the then Federation of South African Women (FSAW) in 1956 where more than 20 000 women of various races delivered petitions to the then-Prime Minister, JG Strijdom, against carrying apartheid’s ‘dompass’ by women.

 

We know there is more work to do. Child Abuse and Gender based violence is still on the increase. Women remain economically poor because they lack access to education, finance and means of production.

 

We also recognise the struggle for freedom continues and it is helpful to pause and remind ourselves of what it means and how we can realise freedom more holistically and sustainably. Freedom is defined as, the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants and sometimes this means we have to be first empowered economically, socially, culturally or politically in order to have the power for self-determination, which is the essence of freedom.

 

As we work towards gender transformation, we are inspired to consider noble ideas, such as, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ‘leave no one behind’, Dr Martin Luther King’s, ‘we are not free till we are all free’, non-violent community aspiration that leadership is ‘taking care of the whole’. We are also cautioned that the oppressed can become the oppressor.  These are ideals as it seems more instinctive to react with force to oppression than to respond with the best our humanity. How do we take people who cause great violations with us?  To this question, we are encouraged to understand needs with loving kindness and act with ‘courage, truth, and always love’. And while this is challenging, it seems to be the most sustainable way forward.

 

Freedom also appears to be mostly won through struggle and it is elusive in this way. Sometimes freedom is freeing ourselves from our own prejudiced minds and actions, be it prejudice born of gender, race, class, ethnicity and religion. Many of us either begin the battles with ourselves or we fight injustices outside us and then come back to rescue ourselves.

 

Whatever your preference, let us continue to increase our awareness, challenge our prejudices and raise our consciousness about freedoms. Let us treat others as we would like to be treated. We all have a role to play – the activists, politicians, professionals, healers, mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, daughters and sons. Let’s find our conviction and garner the wisdom to act with ‘courage, truth and love’ to positively transform our homes, our communities and our world.

 

By Korkor Cudjoe.