Jacob Zuma, Deputy President, African National Congress
Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, 21 March 2005
Comrades and friends,
Here we stand in the courtyard of past humiliation; a place where thousands of African men were kept in deplorable conditions. Many were guilty of no greater crime than failing to produce a pass. Others found themselves here because they dared to stand up to a cruel state, which did not regard Africans as human beings, and therefore saw no reason to extend to them the rights which we all agree are inalienable.
But today, this courtyard has been transformed into a monument for human rights. Next to us, on the great wooden doors of the Constitutional Court are 27 panels, symbolising the 27 clauses of South Africa's Bill of Rights. Here, in the courtyard of number four prison, the memory of systematic injustice and humiliation still stands, reminding us of what a great achievement those 27 clauses are.
How did we get from the inhumanity of number four, to the doors of the constitutional court? Many have answered that this dramatic transition, which we can now re-live in a few short steps across the grounds of Constitution Hill, was a miracle.
Miraculously, a country destined to a permanent state of civil war, the violation of basic human rights and racist oppression, was transformed into a bastion of human rights, democracy and non-racialism to which the whole world now looks in envy.
Certainly, there is something miraculous in this outcome, and looking back as we stand here at Constitution Hill, it is hard to deny that divine intervention must have been at work.
But much more than this, our democracy is the result of years of untiring work by ordinary men and women. The work of building non-racialism, democracy and respect for human rights did not occur simply in the conference rooms of the negotiated settlement over a period of four years from 1990 - 1994.
The real story of our Constitution, and the human rights and respect for dignity that we enjoy today, is the story of millions of South Africans who worked tirelessly and without reward, over the course of nine decades, to mobilise, organise and educate their fellow South Africans of the correctness of these positions.
When we came to the negotiating table, all that remained was to ensure that we convert these aspirations into a constitutional reality. For the vast majority of our people, principles such as human rights, non-racialism and equality before the law, were simply non-negotiable. This was not an accident of history. It was the culmination of hard work and unflinching commitment on the part of our people. In the story of this long struggle to entrench human rights in the heart of our nation, the African National Congress played a leading role.
Comrades and Friends,
The ANC has declared 2005 as "the year of popular mobilisations to advance the vision of the Freedom Charter". The Freedom Charter is the best-known statement that our movement has made on the question of human rights. Just reviewing its clauses, shows how far we have come.
The Charter demanded "The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children". What a simple, straightforward and obviously correct principle. But at the time, this was regarded by the state as a revolutionary threat to its very existence.
Another clause reads: "All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad". Today it is hard to imagine a South Africa in which this right is not taken for granted.
But many of the rights and freedoms contained in the Charter are yet to be realised in practice. The proclamation of laws and Constitutions are an important part of realising our vision, but the day-to-day work of organising, educating and mobilising our people to realise these laws in practice must go on.
That is why our January 8th Statement, which outlined the ANCs programme for the year, called on our local structures to educate their communities about their rights, how these can be exercised, and what recourse they have if their rights have been violated. We have also called on our structures to conduct audits on the realisation of socio-economic rights within each community, and to develop strategies for ensuring that these rights are progressively achieved.
We have called on communities to mobilise against racism, sexism, xenophobia and other forms of discrimination. This involves both awareness-raising activities and practical action to prevent and combat discriminatory practices. Led by the ANCWL, we also need to mobilise South African women to work together towards changing the lives of women for the better.
All this serves to remind as that the painstaking day by day work of thousands of our people, acting as agents for change in their communities must continue if the panel's that adorn the Constitutional Court's entrance are indeed to be translated into a living reality experienced by all our people.
Comrades and Friends,
The Freedom Charter inspired millions to struggle for social justice and human rights. In a very literal sense, it was the precursor to the Constitution that we currently enjoy. For the liberation movement, the significance of the Charter was that for the first time we coherently outlined the nature of the society that we desired to construct. This would be a society at which human dignity was at the centre of social action.
But the ANC's contribution to human rights in South Africa goes even further back into our history. The first Bill of Rights to be adopted by our movement dates back to 1923.
The then President of the ANC, Rev Z.R. Mahabane told the national congress of our movement "The black man. is reduced to a position of utter voicelessness and votelessness, hopelessness, powerlessness, helplessness, defencelessness, homlessness, landlessness, a condition of deepest humiliation and absolute dependency".
In response, the ANC sought to advance both the political and social right of black people through the publication of 'The African Bill of Rights', which emerged as part of the congress resolutions of 1923. That document asserted "the Bantu inhabitants of the Union have, as human beings, the indisputable right to a place of abode in this land of their fathers."
Twenty years later, in 1943, the ANC adopted a full and detailed Bill of Rights in the form of the African Claims document. At a time when the world was united in a common struggle against the anti-human ideologies of nazism and fascism, the ANC was a pioneer in the development of a human rights discourse.
The African Claims document demanded the granting of full citizenship rights to black South Africans. But the document goes further to demand rights in relation to the distribution of land, education and health. To this end the document demanded "a substantial and immediate improvement in the economic position of the African" and "a drastic overhauling and reorganisation of the health services of the country with due emphasis on preventative medicine with all that implies in the modern public health sense".
In this respect, the ANC was decades in advance of debates on human rights by clearly advocating that social and economic rights must form part and parcel of the discourse on human rights. These so-called 'third generation' rights only commanded general acceptance half a century later. We are proud that our Constitution is one of the few in the world to include these rights.
Once again, we must assert that it is only through conscious activism on the part of our people that these rights can be translated into a living reality. We are confident that in the past ten years our people have acted in various formations to defend and advance this agenda. Therefore, we are confident that we are on course to fully realise the progressive features of our Constitutional dispensation over the next decades.
Comrades and Friends,
Our movement has embodies the most advanced articulation of the cause of human rights in South Africa. Today, as a government, we remain absolutely and steadfastly committed to the victories that we fought so hard to achieve. The government continues to face a number of challenges in the struggle to advance a human-rights culture.
I do not believe that any of the challenges we face are insurmountable. But it is critical that we realise that human rights cannot be proclaimed by government alone. What we require is the development of a culture of human rights, where every individual is accorded the dignity and respect that the Constitution envisages.
This means we must continue to act, every day, in every sphere of society to realise our common humanity. As the ANC we are proud that these traditions are long and deep in our movement. We are sure that members of our movement will continue to act to advance the people's cause, as they have done over nine decades.
We stand here today in the courtyard of past humiliation; which has been transformed into an enduring monument to human dignity. Of course, transforming the architecture of these buildings is much easier than transforming a society. This is especially so in a society that was taught, through words and deeds over many decades, that human rights are the preserve of an oppressive minority.
Fortunately, our words and deeds over decades, communicated exactly the opposite of the regimes anti-human ideology. We communicated the worth of each human being and asserted that we would fight to achieve this goal throughout our lives. To this we remain committed.
I thank you.