ANC Today --------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 4, No. 10, 12-18 March 2004 --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK: * Letter from the President: Our constitution reflects the values of the people * Fighting poverty: If we work together, we can halve poverty in ten years * Israel's barrier: A prison all the same --------------------------------------------------------------------- LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Our constitution reflects the values of the people During the run-up to the 1999 General Elections, some inside and outside our country tried the frighten the electorate against voting for the ANC by telling the outright untruth that we sought a two-thirds majority to enable us to change the Constitution. Some have resorted to the same tactic this time round, once more trying to win votes by telling lies. The ANC led the struggle for democracy in our country. Our members and supporters paid a heavy price to bring about this outcome. We are the principal architects of our country's constitutional order, which guarantees our people democracy and human rights. We based our contribution to the constitution-making process on long established positions of our movement, some of them going back a number of decades. These reflected both our experience of oppression and the lessons we drew from struggles for liberation in other parts of the world. Consequently, the ANC will never treat the issue of constitution making, including amendments of the present Constitution, as a matter that should fall victim to short-term political considerations. Precisely because we played a central and decisive role in drafting and adopting this Constitution, we have an obligation to be its principal defender. The 48th National Conference of the ANC held in 1991 adopted a Declaration that visualised a transition period "during which the masses of the people will take an active part in the formulation of the basic law of the land". The Declaration confirmed our commitment to the convening of "a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of one-person, one-vote on a non-racial voters ' role". The later document 'Ready to Govern' adopted at the May 1992 National Conference repeated the positions decided at the 48th National Conference. Discussing the issue of "a democratic constitution for South Africa" it said: "Sovereignty vests in the people of South Africa. Their will shall be expressed by their democratically elected representatives in periodic free and fair elections. These elected representatives will adopt a constitution which shall be the highest law of the land guaranteeing their basic rights." During the late 1980s, as we prepared for the eventuality of a negotiated resolution of the conflict then afflicting our country, we put forward the proposal for the convening of a Constituent Assembly to draft and adopt the new Constitution. This was because we held firmly to the view that this fundamental law should derive from our people as a whole, the principal repository of our sovereignty. As we all know, our first democratic constitution adopted in 1993, was called an Interim Constitution. This was not because there was anything wrong or anti- democratic in any of its provisions. It was because it was drafted by a non- elected body, the negotiating parties at the multi-party talks, and adopted by the apartheid parliament. For this reason, the national parliament elected in 1994 had to serve as the Constituent/Constitutional Assembly to ensure that we fulfilled the requirement that our fundamental law should derive from the people. To facilitate the direct involvement of the masses of our people in the constitution-making process, the Constitutional Assembly did everything possible to encourage the people to submit proposals to the constitution-makers. With regard to the issue of public participation, Hassen Ebrahim, Executive Director of the Constitutional Assembly, has written in his book, 'The Soul of a Nation', that "The challenge was to find ways to enter into effective dialogue and consultation with a population of more than 40 million people". Among other things, he says that during the subsequent sectoral hearings, "596 organisations were consulted", 1,7 million submissions were received, and "just over 11,000 were substantive". Seven hundred and seventeen organisations and 20,549 people attended participatory public meetings, which were attended by more than 200 Members of the Constitutional Assembly. Ebrahim writes: "These (public meetings) also served to highlight the point that constitutions are about basic values affecting society and should be understood by even the least educated. It was a humbling experience to realise that constitutional debates and issues are not only the domain of the intellectual elite, but that they belong to everyone." We can therefore say confidently that our Constitution truly reflects the sovereign will of our people. This includes the value system, the basic values affecting society mentioned by Ebrahim, according to which our citizens define themselves as human beings, as well as determine what their country should be, beyond the more direct issue of the institutions provided for in the Constitution. These considerations make it obligatory that the matter of any major or fundamental alteration of the Constitution should be approached with the greatest caution and circumspection. Such changes would also require that we continue to respect the concept and practice that "sovereignty vests in the people of South Africa". As was the case in 1999, the ANC has no intention to initiate changes to our Constitution, after the April elections. None of the policy and programmatic initiatives for the next five years contained in our Election Manifesto necessitates any constitutional amendments. Indeed, had we visualised any such amendment, we would not have hesitated to state this openly in the Manifesto. Contrary to our own positions, a number of the political parties that have proclaimed their main electoral objective as the weakening of the ANC, are interested that our Constitution should be amended. In all instances, the changes they desire would be fundamentally at variance with the value system that informs our Constitution. The ACDP is one of these parties. In its Manifesto, this Party says that it "believes in a constitutional state that promotes Christian moral values and as such rejects the concept of South Africa as a secular state". Thus the ACDP wants to take the country backwards towards the period of the apartheid years, when the then ruling National Party imposed Christianity as, to all intents and purposes, the state religion. This would reintroduce religious bigotry into our politics, entrench inequality in our society, and block the advance towards national unity and reconciliation in a diverse society, thus condemning all of us to increased tension and conflict. As we all worked on our Constitution in the manner we have described, we were fully aware of the damage caused to all our people by the injection of Christian fundamentalism into our country's politics. The apartheid system had justified the oppression of the majority through a crude distortion and vulgarisation of the Holy Scriptures. People who were indoctrinated into believing that they were fighting the anti- Christ were responsible for some of the worst crimes against liberation fighters. The same fanaticism had resulted in those exercising power despising and discriminating against other faiths, including African religions and beliefs, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. In addition, we knew of the abuse of Christianity by slave owners in the southern United States, during the period of slavery. We had seen the people of Northern Ireland at one another's throats, partly because of religious differences. We had also seen the former Yugoslavia tear itself apart in an orgy of bloodletting, in part driven by the refusal to accept a multi-faith society. Together with the masses of our people, we took the firm decision that the new South Africa must be built on the principle that God created all human beings in His image. We therefore rejected the view that there were some people who were superior to others, that one or more faiths was or were superior to others, and that religious belief should be used to define our democratic state. We took the view that all our people should be free to adopt any faith of their choice and that it would be fundamentally contrary to the very practice of democracy for the democratic state to prefer one faith against others. Accordingly, the new multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-faith non-racial and non-sexist South Africa had to be a secular state. But the ACDP makes bold to say that it wants a "state that promotes Christian moral values and as such rejects the concept of South Africa as a secular state". To bring this about would require a radical rewriting of our Constitution, fundamentally at variance with the basic values affecting society that inform our Constitution. The same holds true for another demand of the ACDP, that "in the case of certain offences, such as pre-meditated murder, the courts will be given the discretion to impose capital punishment". Interestingly, in this regard the ACDP has decided that the Commandment "Thou shall not kill" is irrelevant. The ACDP is joined in this by other parties such as the IFP, the FF Plus, and the leaders of the DA. Violence has characterised our country over the centuries. The process of colonisation claimed many lives. Many lives were lost as successive white minority regimes did everything to perpetuate unjust rule. By definition, the racist colonial and apartheid system constituted a sustained violent assault against the masses of our people, claiming many lives through hunger and deprivation. At the same time, by making millions of families disfunctional, destroying self- esteem among many of our people, and driving many into a situation of hopelessness, it encouraged the growth of crime, including murder and other crimes of violence against the person. Faced with all these realities, we decided that the time had come that we break what had become an entrenched social reality, of unacceptability high levels of violence among our people. One of the decisions we took was that the state itself must respect the Commandment - thou shall not kill! Accordingly, it must set an example for all our people that the taking of human life is impermissible. Our Bill of Rights therefore includes the provision that "Everyone has the right to life." This is further supported by the requirement that "Everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right.not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way." Because of these provisions, our Constitutional Court ruled that the death penalty would be in violation of the Bill of Rights. It would be in violation of the value system according to which we seek to educate all our people to value human life, while using all other available options to punish those who threaten or take the life of another. The ACDP wants yet another constitutional amendment. In its Manifesto it says "The sexual orientation clause in the National Constitution has resulted in the promotion of unacceptable alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality". It has therefore appropriated to itself the right to determine for each South African what constitutes an "acceptable lifestyle". This seeks to take us back to the time when the apartheid police had a responsibility to find and charge those who had sexual relations across the colour-line. Our Bill of Rights also says "Everyone has the right to privacy.". Necessarily, the ACDP wants this amended as well. But the masses of our people have not forgotten what it meant to be denied the right to privacy, leaving them completely exposed to any intrusion or invasion decided upon by the apartheid state. The value system the new South Africa upholds requires that the state must be prohibited from behaviour that undermines human dignity or unreasonably limits the rights of the citizen to freedom of choice. This, too, is informed by previous experience, which gave the racist state full powers to limit this freedom. Both the IFP and the DA proclaim their attachment to federalism. While the DA expresses itself as being against the centralisation of power in the Presidency, whatever this means, the IFP says: "In the next parliament the IFP will continue to champion federalism and decentralisation of power between the three spheres of government.The present concentration of power in an autocratic threat which puts our democracy at risk." In our 1992 document, 'Ready to Govern', we said that the document was "structured so as to highlight the strong relationship between the creation of political democracy and social and economic transformation". Historically, political power had been used in our country to extend social and economic benefits to the white minority. In this process, a high degree of geographic national integration was achieved. This was only compromised by the deliberate apartheid interventions that sought to reduce this integration through a process of balkanisation intended to marginalise especially the African settlement areas. Any attempt to "unscramble" the country, pretending that it can be refashioned to meet some "federal" model would be absurd and dangerous. This had to be taken together with the central proposition we had advanced, that "The people shall govern". This meant that even as we insisted on maintaining the country as a "union", we had to find ways to ensure that the people had the greatest possibility to participate in the process of governance. This necessitated a balanced distribution of power among the various spheres of government. But this had also to be done without entrenching the racial and ethnic divisions that had been imposed on the country. Our Constitution was designed to achieve this balance. Among other things this served to ensure that the democratic state has the necessary power and means to address the socio-economic imbalances and disparities created by the apartheid system. Of critical importance in this regard is the value system that underlies the socio-economic clauses in the Bill of Rights, which represent the very opposite of the values that informed the colonial and apartheid system. The "federal" aspirations of the parties we have mentioned seek to weaken the interconnection between "the creation of political democracy and social and economic transformation". This would disperse political power in a way that would reduce the capacity of the democratic state effectively to address the challenge of social and economic transformation. The "federal" parties seek to achieve two objectives. One of these is to create more possibilities for them to exercise some political power, pretending that by this means they would be defeating "an enormous threat to the survival of democracy", as the DA puts it. The other is to ensure that the democratic state does as little as possible to change the social and economic reality we inherited from the apartheid system. This would seriously undermine the fundamental objectives contained in the Preamble to our Constitution that we must "Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on.social justice." and "improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person." The parties that loudly proclaim their opposition to the ANC are opposed to some of the fundamental values underlying and expressed in our Constitution. The ANC seeks no fundamental changes to the Constitution, precisely because our basic law reflects the value system espoused for decades by the masses and the struggle it led and leads. To the contrary, our opponents seek political power to ensure that our country changes course, developing on a basis opposed to the very value system for which so many sacrificed their lives. Nevertheless these parties have had the sense to admit openly that during the April Elections, the people will not give them the possibility to exercise this power. However, they comfort themselves with the thought that another day, and perhaps five years hence, the people will abandon their loyalty to the values for which they fought, and accept those they advance. Ithemba alibulali! Thabo Mbeki --------------------------------------------------------------------- FIGHTING POVERTY If we work together, we can halve poverty in ten years By working together, South Africans can indeed achieve the target of halving poverty by 2014. That is why the ANC's election manifesto calls for a people 's contract which brings all sections of society together in a collective effort to fight poverty. This national effort builds on a decade where progress has been made, steadily and surely, to push back the frontiers of poverty and progressively tackle the devastating legacy of apartheid. The lives of the poor have improved. Children in all parts of the country have access to better education with more than 95 percent enrolled in primary schools, and school feeding schemes in poor areas. Through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, financial assistance to those in need in universities and technikons has steadily increased. Thousands of new classrooms and school facilities have been built, largely in poor areas. The ANC-led government has worked to redistribute public resources to the poor. In 1994, social grants totaling R10-billion were distributed to 2,6-million recipients according to racial criteria. Today government equitably distributes R34-billion in social grants to more than 7-million beneficiaries. This includes the aged, young children in poor households, people with disabilities and others. Since 1994, R50 billion in assets has been transferred to the poor. This has been achieved through subsidised new houses accommodating 6 million people; through transfer of deeds in houses that people have occupied in townships; and through land reform and restitution. Today more than 70 percent of households have access to electricity, compared to 30 percent in 1996. From 60 percent in 1996, today more than 80 percent of households have access to clean running water. Hundreds of clinics have been constructed closer to where people live, providing primary health care to millions of poor South Africans. Together we have made progress in fighting tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, malaria and other chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension. Government expenditure on a comprehensive and holistic strategy against HIV and AIDS has increased a hundred-times, from R34 million to over R3,6 billion. Yet despite these achievements, much more still needs to be done. Millions still live in poverty, without adequate shelter, safe water or a sustainable source of energy. Many still suffer from disease and malnutrition. Millions are still without work and a reliable source of income. These are the challenges which the country faces as it begins its second decade of freedom. The fight against poverty requires the creation of an increasing number of job opportunities, alongside efforts to tackle the various forms of poverty that affect our people. That is why the ANC's programme for the next five years involves the provision of water and sanitation, electricity and telephone services to those who are not yet connected. The provision of these basic services and amenities will improve the lives of those who, despite the progress of the last ten years, have yet to have access to these important resources. The ANC will build more subsidised housing to further erode the apartheid backlog and meet the growing needs of the country's population. It will introduce medium density housing closer to places of work; and provide those who have as yet not received subsidised housing with serviced stands for more decent living. The extent of this challenge is shown by census statistics, which indicate that demand for housing is increasing as the average size of households decreases. The ANC will improve services in health facilities, which are staffed by adequate well-trained and caring staff. Additional funds will be made available in the budget to recruit and retain health personnel and improve infrastructure. To ensure that we turn the tide against AIDS, health promotion and nutrition will be enhanced, as will the provision of comprehensive care, management and treatment of HIV and AIDS. We will also speed up the extension of free health services to persons with disabilities. The ANC will continue the provision and maintenance of school facilities to ensure that all children have decent classrooms. We will work to further reduce the teacher-pupil ratio, and improve spending in favour of children and students from poor households. This will take place alongside continuing efforts to ensure cost is not a barrier to access to schooling, and the expansion of the school nutrition programme. Through the joint efforts of government, non-governmental organisations, faith- based organisations and community structures, we have been able to massively expand the number of poor people who have access to social grants. Over the next five years, the ANC will work with the people to ensure that all who are eligible for social grants, including poor children up to 14 years of age, receive these grants, and that the value of the grants increase at least at the rate of inflation. The implementation of a comprehensive social security system will also include improving the functioning of the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and ensuring that it covers as many workers as practicable. We will introduce a national health insurance system so that all citizens are covered by both the public and private health system which they can afford. Given the levels of unemployment and poverty in the country, the ability of some families to pay for services remains a significant problem. That is why the ANC will speed up the expansion of the programme to provide free basic water and electricity to more and more communities so that each family is ensured a basic minimum of these services each month. Government departments and agencies are playing a critical role in the fight against poverty, and therefore need to able to respond effectively to the needs of the poor. We will work to further improve services in government offices, through electronic means and by working with citizens to monitor those who work in these offices. In this way the principles of Batho Pele -putting people first - can be realised across the public service. MORE INFORMATION: ANC 2004 Elections website http://www.anc.org.za/elections/2004/index.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- ISRAEL'S BARRIER (VIEWPOINT: RONNIE KASRILS) A prison all the same Is it a wall? Is it a fence? Is it to keep out suicide bombers or to imprison those on the wrong side? Is it meant to mark the border between two states or is its purpose to annex additional land? Whatever one chooses to call the barrier Israel is constructing to enclose the West Bank, it is in some places an eight metre high concrete wall, and in others a four meter high steel fence. The Israeli government calls it an anti-terror security fence. The Palestinians refer to it as an Apartheid Wall. Israel's spokespersons are worried that images of the wall "trigger unfortunate memories of other more forbidding walls". Yet the Berlin Wall, at half the height of the monster slicing for 29 km through East Jerusalem, was a mere stripling by comparison. The Israeli's claim that only five percent of the barrier constructed to date is concrete. Well let us leave aside the wall in East Jerusalem, the 9km virtually enclosing the small town of Qalqilya, the concrete edifice with the watchtowers at Bat Hefer, Tulkarm and Matan and the wall yet to bear down on Bethlehem and virtually every West Bank urban settlement except Jericho. Let us turn to the sections that are made up of steel and wire. Hundreds of kilometres of razor-wire and electric fencing reinforced with ditches, watchtowers, electronic devices, mine-fields and military patrol roads will help make up the 730km barrier enclosing the West Bank. While the concrete sections of the wall might generate images of the Warsaw ghetto, the tracts of fencing certainly prompt disturbing thoughts of concentration camps. The plight of those caged behind the wire is made abundantly clear by large red signs in Hebrew and Arabic: "Mortal danger. Military zone. Any person who passes or damages this fence endangers his life." The real issue is not whether the barrier is razor wire, steel cage or concrete but its purpose and effect. To start with the barrier, unlike the Berlin Wall, has not been erected to demarcate a border. If it were it would follow the 'Green Line' which represents the July 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank. It is this border that has been internationally recognised and over which all negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have taken place. If the wall/fence followed the Green Line the Palestinian Authority has said it could be as formidable as necessary to ensure border security. What has caused such outrage, is that the barrier penetrates deep within the West Bank - anything from five to 25 kms - gobbling-up huge tracts of fertile land and destroying countless homes and businesses. It uproots precious olive and citrus trees and puts vital groundwater aquifers beyond reach. It cruelly isolates towns, villages and communities from one another. When the job is done the West Bank will have been reduced to almost half its present size. Not 22 percent, but 12 percent of historic Palestine. It will be split into numerous fragments and be separated from East Jerusalem. The illegal Jewish settlements will be consolidated and linked to Israel by the military by-pass roads, forbidden to Palestinians. A glorified Bantustan will remain - with the addition of walls, steel fences and watchtowers. The town of Qalqilya is already enclosed on three sides by the wall. With a steel fence on the remaining side and single checkpoint, its inhabitants call it a "chicken-coop". With Qalqilya's farmers cut off from their once fertile fields, the majority of shops closed down, several thousands citizens departed and 20,000 unemployed, this once prosperous market town faces ruin and extinction. It is clear then that what is being constructed is not a security fence. The barrier not only separates, impoverishes and imprisons people but annexes huge tracts of territory. This is yet another monstrous land grab by Israel following the wholesale theft of land and property in 1948/1967. In fact the most appropriate term for the barrier is Wall of Dispossession. It is pertinent to study Israel's land seizure strategy from the 1940s. First they declared many farms owned by Muslims and Christians "closed zones". Next, the Israeli Army banned the owners from entering or leaving their own villages, so they could not cultivate their own farms. The third step of the strategy was that Israel then used laws with names like 'Emergency Regulation (Cultivation of Waste Lands) Ordinance 1949', and 'Absentee Property Law 1950' to decree that Jewish settlers could take over all farm lands that were not being cultivated. Even before this last step is taken in the West Bank, where the fields at places such as Qalqilya have already withered, poverty and malnutrition is driving Palestinians off the land. Israel says that when the Palestinians put an end to terror they will tear down the fence and create industrial parks and joint ventures. Will they give the annexed land and destroyed olive groves back to the ruined farmers? More likely those industrial zones will operate like apartheid's border industries adjacent to the Bantustans, whose inhabitants were stripped of all but their labour power. What the Palestinians have suffered over the past six decades is akin to the violent loss of land and rights experienced by the indigenous people of South Africa over three centuries. From our own experience we know that the victims of colonialism and racism are always blamed for their own misfortune. This is exactly how Israel's spin doctors are seeking to justify their deeds. It is obvious that any examination of the facts exposes 'the fence' for the real purpose it serves. It is an apartheid wall of dispossession and a prison by any name. * Ronnie Kasrils is an ANC National Executive Committee member and Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry. --------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue of ANC Today is available from the ANC web site at: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2004/at10.htm To receive ANC Today free of charge by e-mail each week go to: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/subscribe.html To unsubscribe yourself from the ANC Today mailing list go to: http://lists.anc.org.za/mailman/listinfo/anctoday