How democracy can deliver dignity, not just discourse

30 years on, black South Africans are still waiting for rights written into law

- ALI RIDHA KHAN

THIRTY-ONE years after South Africa's democracy was born, its promise of dignity, equality and justice lies in tatters. The Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to "administrative action that is lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair" (Sec. 33) and names human dignity as its bedrock (Sec. 10).

Yet, too often, poor and rural South Africans experience the opposite: endless waits, casual corruption, and bureaucratic indifference. Former President Thabo Mbeki once praised the remarkable patience of the poor, but that patience has been weaponised to defer accountability and dilute real change. Today, we face an "undignified democracy" - one that lectures its citizens on forbearance while its own machinery betrays them.

In 1994, millions queued in hope under the African sun, believing a better life was imminent. The end of apartheid was negotiated on the premise that trust, patience and reconciliation could safely replace revolution. And by most measures - free elections, a robust Bill of Rights, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission South Africa looked like a global exemplar. Yet that very patience has become a vice: long-simmering frustrations have been funnelled into short-lived protests rather than sustained pressure for systemic reform.

The shameful irony is that, three decades on, black South Africans are still waiting for rights written into law. When people patiently fill out housing applications, they can expect a wait of 20, 25, or even 30 years.

In Gauteng alone, more than 1.2 million RDP housing applications remain unresolved some dating back to the mid-1990s. Soweto residents who applied in their twenties are now pensioners still living in shacks or overcrowded hostels. Bribes and "queue-jumping" have become as common as electricity outages, and the backlog only fuels recurring service-delivery protests.