The death of Adriaan Vlok, the minister of Law and Order in the apartheid era, is a grim reminder of our painful past. His death, at 85, is a painful and hurtful mirror into our hideous and sordid past.
Using torture as a political weapon is an affront to any civilisation. The International Committee of The Red Cross defines torture as the infliction of severe pain or suffering, cruel or inhuman treatment for no specific purpose.
What brand of brutal inhumanity could ever possess the killers of over 100 so deeply that they could murder so many human beings without any compunction?
They were a special breed of beasts programmed and trained to obliterate any form of dissent. We must loudly proclaim “NEVER AGAIN!”
Our hard-won democracy must never, ever allow torture as a political weapon. No fewer than 100 activists were murdered by the apartheid security establishment.
Never were the people of our land so united, so brave, so strong, so worthy of freedom, so certain of freedom, that they poured out their treasured lives in helping us attain freedom and liberty. They unshackled our chains and rescued us from bondage.
We must remain vigilant to retain our rights and our freedom. It is truly priceless. Our freedom was not free and is not free. Thousands of brave souls gave their lives in the Struggle against apartheid, which was a crime against humanity.
Freedom has been attended along the long and hard struggle with a train of martyrs. Liberty has her martyrs now, and with her martyrs, liberty is safe.
Although we shall never never bow, never before the shrine of intolerance, we will forgive our enemies, but we will never forget their names.
We shall never again lack loyalty, never again think lightly of our sacred freedom. Never again will we yield our rights to despots. Never again will we allow racism to take control of our destiny.
We are free men now and intend to remain so. Eternal vigilance is the price of safeguarding our freedom.
Our victory over apartheid is meaningless if innocent people are killed every day by violent criminals. We fought a brutal war to attain our priceless freedom, only to live under siege as crime engulfs us and corruption impoverishes us and abject poverty reduces the country to a begging bowl.
Our freedom is in peril as we slide from crisis to crisis. We totter on the brink of complete collapse as governance fades into anarchy. Our industrial infrastructure is shattered beyond repair as we cope with darkness from dusk to dawn.
A reminder to us all, from the lessons of The Vlok era, that power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, we must hold the powers of today accountable if they usurp our hard-worn liberty.
* Farouk Araie, Johannesburg.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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