February 11 is truly an auspicious day. After nearly three weeks of nonviolent pro-democracy protests, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned today, bringing a peaceful end to his repressive 30-year reign. The announcement has led to jubilant celebrations throughout Cairo and sent a powerful message to oppressive rulers across the globe. 

This is not the first time such transformative events have happened on February 11 — it was on this day in 1990 that anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela walked out of the Victor Verster Prison in South Africa as a free man. On that day, after 27 years of unjust imprisonment, Mandela delivered a speech to his jubilant supporters that began with these simple words: "I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy, and freedom for all." He closed his speech by reiterating his cherished belief in "the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.'"

Today, I hope Nelson Mandela, now in his nineties and in faltering health, is smiling as he watches the live streaming video from Egypt on this auspicious anniversary. 

UUA President William G. Sinkford

Reverend William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, embarked this week on a pilgrimage to visit six African countries. His 19-day sojourn features stops in South Africa and Kenya, where he will be meeting with UUSC partners. He will also be visiting Uganda, Senegal, Ghana, and Nigeria.

The goals of Sinkord's journey include learning from the experience and wisdom of leaders in South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation work (including Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu) and learning from the leaders of social justice and human rights movements, such as UUSC partners the Coalition Against Water Privatisation (CAWP) and the Rock Women Group and KENASVIT. Other goals include renewing ties with Unitarian Universalists in Africa and bearing witness to one of the centers of Atlantic Slave Trade, Île de Gorée (in Senegal).

Sinkford is scheduled to meet with CAWP and their members on November 12 - 13. His meeting with the Rock Women Group is set for November 16 and his meeting with KENASVIT for the following day. On or around those dates, staff of UUSC's Environmental Justice and Economic Justice Programs will be posting blogs commenting on Sinkford's visits. Please be sure to visit UUSC's website!

The UUA has created a website featuring a wide menu of resources on Sinkford's trip, including background on the places and people he's visiting, a blog to which Sinkford is posting frequent reports, and an invitation for constituents to submit questions they'd like Sinkford to ask of Archbishop Tutu and other leaders.

I was up until midnight last night reading a landmark decision from the High Court of South Africa. The case, which our partner the Coalition Against Water Privatisation (CAWP) helped local residents bring to court, affirms water as a fundamental human rights that the South African government must respect, protect, and fulfill. I found the decision inspiring and hopeful at a time when human rights around the world are under threat.

In his decision, Judge Tsoka declared South Africa's prepaid-water-meter system to be unconstitutional because it denies residents access to water by physically shutting off supplies each month when a household’s free basic allotment runs out. He required Johannesburg Water, the municipal water utility, to increase the amount of free basic water per month to 50 liters per person per day, the amount set by the World Health Organization to be the minimum to live a life of dignity.

What I found amazing was that the judge took a further step than most other progressive South African judgments by saying that the human right to water does, indeed, include a “minimum core” responsibility to be met by the state. This idea of a “minimum core,” established in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, has been debated in South African courts. Previous opinions showed discomfort at setting a minimum standard that the state must meet because of a potential-lack-of-resources argument. But Judge Tsoka took a brave step forward by declaring that 25 liters per person per day was a national minimum, but 50 liters per person per day was required for a dignified life, another right in the South African constitution.

Law, and especially international human rights law, is built like a house. Each case is a brick that supports the overall structure and defines the various aspects of the legal framework. The South Africa water case will be a cornerstone in the development of the human right to water. It affirms that international human rights law can, indeed, have teeth. So far, as demonstrated in the South African High Court, it seems that human rights law is most effective when its principles are enshrined in national constitutions.

UUSC has partnered with CAWP for two years. We will continue to support their struggle to advance the rights of all South Africans to safe, sufficient, affordable, and accessible water. We are hopeful that this will be one of many more important victories won by our partners to promote and defend the human right to water.

After six years without water, the people of Kwamasiza Hostel, a huge low-income housing block in the Vaal region of South Africa, finally got their water back. The news came from our partner the Coalition Against Water Privatisation (CAWP), after their year-long campaign for water rights finally led the municipality to take action.

CAWP had written a letter in January 2008 to the municipality's water provider, Metsi a Lekoa, concerning water and sanitation problems at Kwamasiza Hostel. Instead of sending a customary written response, as so often happens, the municipality actually went ahead and reopened the local water valve, which was closed in September 2001 during an attempted forced eviction of local residents.

Patricia Jones and I traveled to South Africa in November 2007 to visit the community. There, a community organizer, Elliott Nsundu, told us about the day that police, military, and private security were called in and used tear gas and rubber bullets against local residents to clear them out. Refusing to leave, community members fought back. They had no where else to go.

Eventually, the police and military attack was repelled, and the community stayed in Kwamasiza. But as the police left, they cut off all basic services to the community, including water, sanitation, and electricity. Thousands of people living in the 10-story building block were forced to use the surrounding fields for their sanitation needs and buy water from a water-supply truck that came through once a week.

In this case, it's important to remember that restricted access to water and housing evictions have a different tone in South Africa, with its recent history of apartheid and the new national constitution that protects the right to water and the right to housing. This progressive legal framework has enabled South African citizens not only to fight for what is morally right, but to fight for what is legally entitled to them.

In Phiri (pronounced "piree), Soweto, the community is waging a battle against prepaid water meters in the High Court of South Africa.

Now, with their water services reinstated, the Kwamasiza community can begin to live their lives again with the dignity, health, and safety all people deserve.

Elliott Nsundu is the Coalition Against Water Privatization's local task force leader for the Kwa-Masiza Hostel in Vaal, Zone 20 -- an unofficial settlement 45 minutes outside of Johannesburg. There is no running water, sanitation, or electricity in Kwa-Masiza. Many of the residents are "retrenched" workers (laid off) from EastCo and Metal Works factory, who are suffering from work-related illnesses, particularly from the chemicals used in the factory.

Elliott spoke to us: "Twenty four hours without water -- for many days. How many hours in a year? Water trucks come by once per week -- you can only have 40 liters." Elliott and the community members who met with us told about their struggle to keep living at Kwa-Masiza. Originally it was a "hostel" organized as temporary housing, but with well-built buildings and a large park-like area surrounding the compound. The buildings are not shacks -- they are two to three stories high, built out of cement, have windows, and were built in the 1960s. But the utility services were shut off, and police were sent in to forcibly evict the residents. Many of the flats show the effects of this action -- broken windows, doors. The community resisted and have stayed.

The property changed hands from the government to private owners, who insisted that the residents pay 300 Rand per bed (many of the flats have three to four beds) per month to stay -- even without any utilities. The average salary is 800 rand per month (300 rand is approximately $43.) They refuse to pay until the conditions change. Elliott wants people in the United States to know how difficult it is, how dangerous for children, for the residents, for their health. There is no privacy for sanitation.

Says Elliott: "Hope? We have lost hope -- but we are still prepared to fight. We are slowly losing our trust in this government." It makes you think about the definition of hope -- if a person can continue to work day in and out to better the community, and others, despite police attacks and very difficult living conditions as Elliot does -- isn't that hope? Maybe it's stronger stuff than hope. Whatever it is, Elliott has it and South Africa will be better place because of people like him.