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20 Hum. Rts. Q. 628 (1998)
The Development of a Human Rights Culture in South Africa

handle is hein.journals/hurq20 and id is 642 raw text is: HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY The Development of a Human. Rights Culture in South Africa Jeremy Sarkin* I. INTRODUCTION A human rights culture could not develop in apartheid South Africa.1 The system bred intolerance, a culture of violence, and lack of respect for life and, indeed, rights in general. After the fall of apartheid there was therefore an urgent need to help create and foster a human rights culture and to demonstrate the value of, and need for, human rights. Four years after the country's first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa is a far better place, at least as far as human rights are concerned, than at any other time in its history.2 This is not to say that a human rights culture has been established or that human rights issues are at the top of the national agenda. In fact the transition to a human rights-based constitutional democracy is proving to be a challenging task. However, there have been significant efforts and achievements: political violence has diminished considerably,3 enabling free political activity in most parts of the country; the security forces are being restructured; important human rights legislation has been passed; and all human rights institutions provided for in both the Interim and Final Constitutions have finally been established. Nevertheless, significant obstacles remain, including the ongoing, though significantly reduced, political violence in KwaZulu-Natal, the slow Jeremy Sarkin, B.A., LL.B., Natal; LL.M., Harvard; LL.D., University of the Western Cape, is associate professor of law at the University of the Western Cape. He served as the national chairperson of the Human Rights Committee of South Africa from 1994-1996. He is an attorney of the High Court of South Africa, and an attorney at law in the state of New York, USA. 1. See Jeremy Sarkin & Howard Varney, Traditional Weapons, Cultural Expediency and the Political Conflict in South Africa: A Culture of Weapons and a Culture of Violence, 6 S. AFR. J. CRIM. JUST. 2 (1993). 2. See South Africa Gets Favourable Human Rights Report, CITIZEN, 8 Mar. 1996, at 19. 3. See, e.g., KZN Violence Plummets, CAPE TIMES, 19 Nov. 1996, at 1. Human Rights Quarterly 20 (1998) 628-665 © 1998 by The Johns Hopkins University Press