I have, like many other black South Africans, come out of a period of the most awful repression and injustice when we suffered under the pernicious system of apartheid, which has been rightly condemned as a crime against humanity. In all that period of apartheid's ghastly oppression, we were made to suffer for something we could do nothing about—our race. Apartheid claimed that what imbued anyone with worth was actually a biological irrelevance—the colour of one's skin and, since by definition, not all possessed this prized attribute, as it was not a universal phenomenon; there were those, the elite, the select, who would enjoy all sorts of rights and privileges and all others would be consigned to the outer darkness.

During this awful time struggling against apartheid, we were inspired by the noble sentiments contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In many ways, the Declaration became a subversive instrument available to overturn injustice, oppression, racism and unfair discrimination. It told us what our oppressors were at great pains to deny—that we had fundamental, inalienable rights that were not in the gift of some benevolent earthly ruler who could grant or withhold them as the whim moved him. No, these rights were God-given, there simply and solely because we were human beings. They were universal—everyone, just everyone whoever they might be, whether rich or poor, learned or ignorant, beautiful or ugly, black or white, man or woman, by the fact of being a human being had these rights. As a Christian, I would add that each person was of infinite value because everyone had been created in the image of God. Each one was a God carrier and to treat any such person as if they were less than this was blasphemous, a spitting in the face of God.

I know we were inspired in our fight against apartheid to struggle for a dispensation that would see the Universal Declaration come into its own, when human rights would be cultivated, upheld and revered. And that has come in the new democratic dispensation that has seen a Nelson Mandela installed as South Africa's first democratically elected President. The Universal Declaration has been an inspiration that has helped to subvert injustice and oppression. It has helped to open our eyes to the intrinsic and infinite worth of every single person.

But it has also served as a bearer of ideals, a setter of standards according to which Governments can be judged. It has established ideals after which we must forever be straining and against which emerging and long-established regimes can be measured. And when they fall short, as they alas so frequently do, then the Declaration can be held up before them to inspire them to greater efforts, urging them to become more caring, more gentle, more compassionate, more people-friendly.

We, who have suffered under injustice where the most fundamental rights were flagrantly violated, give thanks for the existence of this Universal Declaration of Human Rights for serving to inspire us, to be subversive of that injustice and oppression. We must all, everywhere, commit ourselves to work for an ordering of society where the contents of the Declaration are embodied and also to remain forever vigilant against a violation of those rights.

May the day come when people everywhere will enjoy the rights enshrined in the Declaration, when war will be no more, and universal peace and justice will prevail. When the lion will lie with the lamb and we will have beaten our swords into ploughshares and hunger, poverty and ignorance will have been eradicated and children can play safely and happily again.

Is this just Utopia? No, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says it is attainable and, after all, the world defeated apartheid and now South Africa is a democracy.

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