On an early morning in March, the stone paths of Constitution Hill carried a different kind of weight. Walking from Park Station, I trekked through the CBD of Braamfontein, Johannesburg, reflecting on the history of the place, and contemplating on where it is now. People were commuting to work, by taxi or by foot – a daily routine of traveling to urban metros for work that echoes the persisting effects of older systems shaped by the migrant labour policies of the apartheid regime.
As you walk up the hill, a wall comes into view, lined with the words “We the People…” – the opening sentiment of South Africa’s Constitution, adopted in May 1996, almost exactly 30 years ago. Following each line, passersby are invited to write their hopes for the country. Except, many of these do not read like what should be – distant aspirations. “Free education”. “Service delivery”. “Jobs”. Standing there, it becomes difficult not to reflect on how these words sit alongside the promises embedded in that very document and what that distance might mean.
Human Rights Day, observed annually on 21 March, was officially declared on 8 May 1996 in honour of the Sharpeville Massacre. On that day in 1960, thousands of people gathered in Sharpeville to protest the apartheid pass laws that controlled and restricted the movement of Black South Africans. The police opened fire on the peaceful protesters, massacring the crowd of people, most shot while fleeing. This event was one of many that drew international attention to the brutality of Apartheid and left an imprint on South Africa’s moral and political memory.
The Human Rights Festival took place at Constitution Hill, which was once a prison complex known as Old Fort Hill and now serves as a museum of South Africa’s turbulent past. It also serves as a host to the Constitutional Court as, perhaps, a glimpse into a restorative future. Setting foot in this historical monument, this layering of history is striking and inescapable. The site seems to hold both the memory of injustice and the aspiration of justice without fully reconciling the tension between the two.
This festival site, once a site of confinement, opened itself up again, drawing on this atmosphere rather than discarding it. The space was filled with songs, drums, and voices that insisted on being heard. The 2026 Human Rights Festival unfolded as a living gathering of remembrance, memorial, and defiant passion for change. The main stage pulsed with culturally infused performances from the seas of Palestine to our home South Africa. The “1000 Drums for Solidarity” was a focal point that drew audience members in. This was not just something to watch; it was also something to participate in and contribute to in an artful expression of the heavy weight of our past, present, and hope for the future. It reframed the idea of “human rights”. Often thought of as documents and political discourse, here it felt tangible and alive. Surrounding the performances were endless rows of human rights organisations. Pamphlets, books, posters, and personal stories offered insight into ongoing struggles: access to basic services, gender-based violence, migration, inequality. It presented these seemingly basic demands as fragments of a larger, unfinished picture.
I cannot offer you one single message that was defined by the festival. Instead, what remained with was a series of encounters: a drum shared with a stranger, a poem that unsettled me, a shocking statistic I read in passing, a conversation that lingered longer than I expected. This formed a series of questions that seemed to follow me across the Hill: How well do we know our history, and how far have we come? Perhaps the festival is not an attempt to resolve this, but to simply create the space for each person to sit with it and perhaps carry it beyond the Hill. I hope you attend the festival next year or choose to read about our history, whether in learning or in remembrance, to form your own reflections and decide for yourself what, if anything, comes next.
