Comment: Election 2013 – where to, people?

It has been 569 days since the coup of 7 February 2012. We have walked a long way back in those five hundred odd days.

State-sponsored violence has returned with a vengeance, along with arbitrary arrests and detentions. Precious civil liberties – freedom of expression and freedom of assembly among others, have been scaled back to alarming levels. Basic human rights—freedom from arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and other state-sponsored violence – have been taken away.

Xenophobic nationalism coupled with radical religious ideologies has damaged not just our relations with each other but our relations with the rest of the globalised and inter-connected world of today. From a respected actor punching far above our weight in international relations, we have become a nation viewed as a ‘terrorist hotbed’ dominated by radical Islamist thought with little respect for universal human rights.