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The Freedom Charter still unites
South Africans
Next Wednesday,
June 26, we will celebrate the 47th anniversary of the adoption of the
Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People. On that day, the Deputy
President, Jacob Zuma, will turn the sod on a site in Kliptown, Johannesburg,
in a ceremony preparatory to the construction of a memorial to the Congress
of the People that adopted the Charter.
Though clearly a product of its times, the Freedom Charter
remains to this day a point of reference as we work to build a new South
Africa. There are a number of reasons for the endurance and continued
relevance of the Freedom Charter.
One of these is that it was truly a product of popular
participation. It was drawn up on the basis of demands presented by people
throughout the country. The Congress of the People itself, which adopted
the final draft, was attended by delegates drawn from all our racial groups
and from both urban and rural areas. In a real sense, it was the precursor
to the democratically elected parliament, which, today, is our supreme
lawmaker.
Because the Charter was so intensely expressive of the
voice of the people, it could not but be a durable statement about the
kind of South Africa that the millions of our people want to see.
The second reason for its longevity is the fact that
the matters it addressed remain the same issues with which we have to
contend as we strive to build our new democracy. These range from our
general perspective about our country, such as the statement that South
Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, to more detailed
proposals about specific areas of our national life.
As a movement for national liberation, it might have
been sufficient for us merely to demand an end to white minority domination
and national oppression. Nevertheless, for many decades it had become
clear that this liberation movement was not merely a protest and resistance
movement. It stood out as an alternative power to white minority power.
As such an alternative power, our liberation movement
had to develop and present its own view about the kind of South Africa
it wished our people to build. In this regard, the Freedom Charter was
not the first document of its kind to emerge from our movement.
At its annual conference in 1943 the ANC adopted the
document "African's Claims in South Africa", drawn up in response to the
Atlantic Charter, the predecessor to the UN Charter. Even a cursory reading
of this almost 60-year-old document will show the continuity of both the
aspirations of our people and their loyalty to a particular world-view.
When Dr A.B. Xuma sought a meeting with Jan Smuts to
discuss the document, Smuts said he was "not prepared to discuss proposals
which are wildly impracticable". Indeed, viewed from the point of view
of a regime that sought to perpetuate white minority domination, the proposals
in the "African's Claims" were wildly impracticable because they stood
in direct opposition to racist rule.
Reading the African Claims today, one is struck by the
clear relationship between this document, the Freedom Charter and the
Constitution of democratic South Africa. Once again, this emphasises the
relevance of the Freedom Charter to what we are working to achieve today.
Of importance as well is the composition of the 28-person
Committee that was convened to draft the African Claims. It included such
patriots as AB Xuma, Pixley Seme, James Calata, Moses Kotane, R.G. Baloyi,
Gana Makabeni, Z.K. Matthews, Govan Mbeki, Thomas Mapikela, S.M. Molema,
J.S. Moroka, M.T. Moerane, Edwin Mofutsanyane, Don Mtimkulu, Selby Ngcobo,
R.V. Selope-Thema, Z.S. Mahabane and R.T. Bokwe.
This leadership covered the period from the foundation
of the ANC 90 years ago in 1912, to the seventh year of our emancipation,
2001, when Govan Mbeki passed away. For nine decades, it passed on from
generation to generation the same perspective about the future of our
country that informs our actions today.
This perspective defined both the nature of our liberation
movement and what it stood for. During its 90 years, this movement had
to fight to defend that perspective not only to advance its goals, but
also to protect its integrity and its distinct character and personality.
Because the leaders we have mentioned were not only
leaders of the ANC but also leaders of the African majority, the ideas
and policies of our movement became the ideas and policies of the African
majority. Accordingly, neither the white minority regimes, nor those who
broke away from the movement, were ever able to alienate the masses of
our people from the ANC.
This is yet another reason why the Freedom Charter remains
an essential part of the consciousness of our movement and people. This
movement and the masses it represents know no definition of our freedom
other than the definition that has been sustained through nine decades
of a difficult struggle.
In an article published in the newspaper "Imvo
Zabantsundu" on October 24, 1911, reporting on progress towards the
convening of the South African Native Congress on January 8, 1912, one
of its founders, Pixley ka Isaka Seme said: "(I) write on the simple
subject of Native Union, for after all, this is what the Congress shall
be. There is today among all races and men a general desire for progress,
and for co-operation, because co-operation will facilitate and secure
that progress...The greatest success shall come when man shall have learned
to cooperate, not only with his own kith and kin but with all peoples
and with all life...
"The demon of racialism"must be buried and
forgotten; it has shed among us sufficient blood! We are one people. These
divisions, these jealousies, are the cause of all our woes and of all
our backwardness and ignorance today"
"We shall have to come together to bury forever
the greatest block to our security, happiness, progress and prosperity
as a people. We shall have to come together truly, as we are, the children
of one household to discuss our home problems and the solution of them."
In this article, Pixley Seme also said: "I am
pleased to say that we have been greatly encouraged by the support which
we have received from all the great sections of our country. Today this
movement is known, and in a great measure is openly supported by nearly
all the leaders and the greater Chiefs of at least three Provinces and
all the Protectorates."
From its foundation, therefore, the ANC was a parliament
of the African people of Southern Africa. It was the voice of the people,
without "the excessive display of political partisanship", as
was advised by one of the African kings who became one of the patrons
of the South African Native Congress.
The ANC carries all these traditions as it begins the
decade at whose end it will celebrate its centenary. As it has done before,
it will surely defeat the contemporary efforts:
- falsely to define it in ethnic terms;
- to resurrect the demons of racialism and tribalism;
- to transform our movement into other than a parliament of the people;
- to push it into an excessive display of political partisanship;
- to use it as an instrument for personal enrichment;
- to detach from it the masses of our people who know no definition
of freedom separate from the definition given by their national movement.
The values contained in the Freedom Charter
stand in direct opposition to everything that would divide the people,
creating the situation against which Pixley Seme argued when he said "these
divisions, these jealousies, are the cause of all our woes and of all
our backwardness and ignorance today.
In the face of the most determined implementation by
the apartheid regime of policies based on the racial and ethnic division
of the people of South Africa, our movement defended the principles contained
in the Freedom Charter. It kept before the people the vision stated in
the Freedom Charter that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black
and white.
Consistently, the secret services of the white minority
regime did their best to divide and destroy our movement by trying to
provoke racial and ethnic tensions within the movement. Because they could
not base their political and ideological offensive against the movement
on facts, they resorted to dirty tricks and a sustained campaign of disinformation
to achieve their objectives.
Even more serious, to sustain their campaign of so-called
"black-on-black" violence, these services once more invented
and encouraged ethnic divisions among our people, seeking to resurrect
the demon that Pixley Seme had said "must be buried and forgotten;
it has shed among us sufficient blood!" Once again, even as thousands
of people died, the apartheid regime failed to divide the masses of our
people on racial or ethnic grounds.
It is interesting that once again some in our society
are trying to resurrect this demon. Once more, because the truth is not
on their side, they have to resort to a campaign of disinformation to
divide and defeat our movement, to halt the birth of a new South Africa
based on the perspectives contained in the Freedom Charter. Old habits
die hard.
This also comes on the eve of the launch of the African
Union and the important meeting between the Steering Committee of NEPAD
and the G8, which initiatives seek to take our Continent further along
the road to its reconstruction and development.
Of the African Union, formed during the year of the
90th anniversary of the ANC, it can truly be said that it seeks to live
up to the outlook presented to our people more than 90 years ago by Pixley
Seme when he said "there is today among all races and men a general
desire for progress, and for co-operation, because co-operation will facilitate
and secure that progress".
Our country has sought to bring into this process of
African Cooperation for Progress the vision and the values contained in
the Freedom Charter. We are convinced that we share this vision and value
system with the overwhelming majority of the African masses everywhere
on our Continent. As they become deeply entrenched among these millions,
they will guarantee that we will succeed to turn the 21st into an African
Century.
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