On 21 March each year, South Africa celebrates Human Rights Day, honouring those who fought and lost their lives so that all South Africans can now enjoy the constitutional rights that form the cornerstone of our democracy.
These include human dignity, equality, and freedom, and these rights apply to all South Africans, without discrimination, regardless of their race, gender, colour, culture, language, disability, or sexual orientation.
This day also holds special significance for the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).
On 21 March 1975, a group of patriotic South Africans, under the leadership of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, established Inkatha yeNkululeko yeSizwe, the national cultural liberation movement.
It is fitting that the IFP should celebrate its birthday on Human Rights Day, as the IFP’s foundational values of solidarity, freedom, and unity in diversity, and the Party’s vision for a just, prosperous, and moral society, whose citizens engage with each other on the basis of ubuntu/botho, are echoed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The IFP’s Founder and President Emeritus, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, has further lived a life in service to the people of South Africa, in pursuit of the very rights enshrined within the Bill of Rights.
For the past 48 years, the IFP has worked tirelessly to ensure the realisation of these rights, and we will continue to do so for the next 48 years, and beyond.
All South Africans have, among others, the right to life, and to be free from all forms of violence; the right to access to adequate housing; the right to have access to healthcare services and sufficient food and water, and social security. All South Africans have the right to use the language and participate in the cultural life of their choice, and the right to a basic education, and to further education.
As the IFP, we are committed to making sure that these rights are more than just words on paper but rather, become the lived reality of each and every South African.
As per the Preamble of the Constitution, where the IFP governs, we remain deeply committed to “[improving] the quality of life of all citizens and [freeing] the potential of each person”.
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Contact
Mkhuleko Hlengwa MP
IFP National Spokesperson
071 111 0539
