Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
It’s not as if someone will walk here to the TV studio in Auckland Park and get shot. That doesn’t happen and it won’t happen.
And now I read in the Mail & Guardian:
A group of men armed with rifles and pistols robbed a Coin security van collecting money at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) head offices in Auckland Park on Friday, Johannesburg police said.
No comment needed.
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