| Summary: | The concern with the relevance of human rights to the socio-economic and political development
in South Africa is of threefold account, namely human rights, socio-economic and political
development, and South Africa.
Human rights have been consistently applied as a common standard of achievement in the
realisation that development cannot be implemented in pure economic terms only, but implies the
'duties of all people towards all other people. For rights only come into their own through practice,
the interaction of socio-economic and political facts with values.
The importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of I 0 December 1948 is of primary
account in this regard. This implies the right to development of all people as well as the classical
meaning of equity. The main social function of human rights is to become essential ingredients in
legal, political and social reality in each and every country.
The socio-economic implementation of human rights in the entire world includes the facts and
peculiarities of South Africa in the context of ethnic pluralism. This covers the unrealistic
overtones of apartheid, the unabated pressure of the United Nations and the achievement of the
new South Africa. There is a great difference between merely criticising and getting things done.
An important issue is the sustainability of the RDP, with its emphasis on Mandela's linkage
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between human rights, the rule of law and economic prosperity. COSATU with its unrealistic
trade unionism however, remains the chief stumbling block to the unfettered free market
economies and investments which are required for genuine job creation. Short of this the RDP and
GEAR, which have got off the ground, are in danger of collapse.
It is recommended that the ANC should work towards a genuine multi-party democracy at a
realistic level where honest criticism is respected. The universal implications of human rights
require that people should not be protected overduly simply because they are black at the expense
of others who simply happen to be white. Some people are not more equal than others merely by
virtue of being white or black. === Political Science === D. Litt et Phil. (Politics)
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