As Muslims across the country celebrate Eid on Saturday, a call has gone out to have Eid- ul-Fitr declared a paid public holiday for all South Africans.
The Al Jama-ah party has asked the government to take steps to make this a legal reality.
And, the Commission for the Promotion of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities is proposing three existing public holidays be dropped - December 26, Easter Monday and December 16 - and that three days in a calendar year be designated as “holy days”, allowing individuals to determine when they will take these paid holidays.
Al Jama-ah party leader Ganief Hendricks recalled yesterday that when Nelson Mandela met the Muslim community in District Six on Heritage Day in 1994, five months after becoming president, he told them he believed there should be a paid public holiday for all South Africans on Eid-ul-Fitr, and promised to raise the issue with his new cabinet.
But Hendricks said 21 years later many Muslim South Africans are still being forced to take a day of annual leave to celebrate Eid with their families. “It is our equivalent of Christmas, and when it is a working day, Muslims find it difficult to get the day off.
“Fortunately Eid falls on a Saturday this year, so many more Muslims will be able to spend the full day with their families and attend the Eid prayer.”
The commission has received a plethora of complaints from religious communities over the past three years concerning the issue of paid religious holidays.
It has held hearings on the issue and various religious figures have made representations.
South Africa’s religious diversity has meant that many religions want equal treatment.
Representatives from the Muslim, Hindu, Bahai, Rastafarians and African religions have been particularly vocal.
Many countries have adopted a range of paid religious public holidays to create balance, such as Singapore, which has seven.
Commission chairwoman Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva has said: “We have looked at a number of different countries that have similar religious diversity as South Africa, and examined how they have handled the issue of paid public holidays.
“Having heard the various representations from religious communities, we have decided to go for a flexible approach, which would allow everyone to make an individual choice on when to take religious holidays.”
According to Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, the commission recommends that the Day of Goodwill (December 26), Easter Monday and December 16 should go, and three other days be designated as “holy days”.
People “will determine when they will take these paid holidays”.
“These days will then be negotiated with their employers. The commission recommends that public holidays for Christmas Day and Good Friday should remain.”
The commission intends to discuss its recommendations with the relevant portfolio committees in Parliament between now and the end of the year.
The committees include Home Affairs, Labour and Co-operative Governance - and there will also be meeting with the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac). The commission hopes its recommendations will be implemented.
Moulana Bam, secretary-general of the Jamiatul Ulama (Council of Muslim Theologians), said: “The first prize would (be) a paid public holiday for Eid, but given (that) our lunar calendar makes it difficult to predict the exact day on which Eid falls, we can look at other solutions.”
The fact that South Africa has a commission for the protection of cultural and religious rights, and has spent time trying to determine a fair solution to this issue, is a testament to our free society. Madiba would have been proud.
* Shannon Ebrahim is Independent Media’s foreign editor.