[South Africa] Poverty is an enemy to us all, says Jordan

from The Independent online

Poverty was the principal enemy of the South African public, Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan said in a Human Rights Day address at Phoenix Settlement in KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday.

"To confront and defeat this enemy will require the same measure of self-sacrifice, courage, endurance, determination and confidence that we demonstrated in the struggle to beat apartheid," he said.

"Tackling the scourge of poverty means hard-nosed reasoning and actions arrived at rationally through the appreciation of the immediate and inter-mediate capacities we can marshal as a country."

It was only by growing the economy of the country that its people would create the resource base that will enable them to fight poverty.

Jordan said the government recognised that the state on its own could not hope to produce the impact necessary if it was not met halfway by the private sector.

"The government is proceeding from the high level of macro-economic stability we have attained over the past 12 years of democracy to implement a number of economic reforms."

These were premised on evolving a partnership between the government, business, labour and civil society.

"The state's principal interventions will be in the realm if infrastructure - its expansion, refurbishment and reconstruction where necessary." The expanded public works programme would also feature prominently.

His own department would be making massive new investments in South Africa's creative industries, libraries and heritage institutions as part of its campaign to fight poverty.

Jordan called on the public to "find and define a role for yourselves in this massive thrust to eradicate poverty".

Poverty, racism and sexism demeaned and degraded all of humankind. He had no doubt that, fighting these side-by-side, the government and public would win the struggle for freedom and human dignity.

It was clear that the rights in the Constitution were aspirational and not yet the reality of the overwhelming majority of South Africans.

"The challenge I want to pose on this Human Rights Day is: What do we have to do to translate our constitutional rights from aspiration to the lived reality of our people?" Jordan said.