We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people.” – Freedom Charter’s preamble and proposed alternative ‘constitution’ by compatriots opposed to apartheid and cherished the basis of universal franchise we enjoy today; “the people shall govern.” The 26th of June 2020 will mark 65 years since the African National Congress (ANC) led all patriots and peace-loving South Africans under the banner of the Congress of the People to adopt the Freedom Charter in Kliptown, Johannesburg
This day since 1955, in a typical tradition of progressive movements to take their own history very seriously, would be known and celebrated as Freedom Charter Day. This was one of the most popular anti-apartheid campaigns, uniting a non-racial front of African National Congress, the South African Indian Congress, the South African Colored People’s Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions known as Congress Alliance. It was on this day when this glorious a document was adopted.
This document meant a shift of paradigm with a new national consciousness emerging, one that appreciated the democratic means of expression for all as a new form by which to wage popular struggles. The Congress of the People was nothing short of a defiance campaign against narrow racialised nationalism as obtaining at the time. Congress Alliance was to be the only truly legitimate organizer and coordinator of the will of the people in the face of fascism and through the Freedom Charter the vision of a truly free, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa would be laid out for attainment and consolidation.
To this day, the Freedom Charter as an expression of the noble aspirations as set out 65 years ago, remains for all progressive forces of country a complete freedom lodestar. This is a document that the ANC went on to adopt as its basic policy framework guide from which all policies derive as we continue seeking the accomplishment of the historic mission of a complete liberation where far more urgently than ever, our people black and white must share in the wealth of the country.
More telling to this commitment was when after nearly 51 years, a democratic South Africa adopted its new constitution on 8 May 1996 and its preamble was to echo the Freedom Charter: “We, the people of South Africa, recognize the injustices of our past; Honor those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land; Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.”
The ANC has over the years, guided by the Freedom Charter, continued to work harder towards the realization of its vision. As we celebrate the progress political freedom has brought and the political restoration of our dignity, our sole focus should be to rise to the challenge of accelerating service delivery and building a South Africa that we want, a South Africa of our hearts desire, our heart’s desire as captured in the Freedom Charter.
While millions of lives have been transformed, the ANC acknowledges that eradicating legacies of colonial-apartheid as manifest in a racialized poverty, landlessness, inequality, and gender disparity will require concerted efforts by all South Africans. Anything less than this amounts to a betrayal of the pledge we made during our liberation struggle that: our objective cannot be considered accomplished until all our people are able to share in their country’s wealth.
Whereas, for the great majority of ANC members and sympathizers, the Freedom Charter grew to have iconic status it also led to many arrests, great sacrifices, lives lost, and some destroyed. Throughout the three decades during which the ANC was banned it was circulated clandestinely as an inspirational and aspirational document. It was widely used to attract supporters and mobilize people to back the ANC and the liberation struggle.
It was adopted by a range of social movements ranging from student movements (such as Cosas and Sasco ), the South African National Civics Association (Sanco), trade union movements (Cosatu) and professional associations such as the National Democratic Lawyers Association (Nadel).
After the unbanning of liberation movements in 1990, the ANC elaborated the three-page Freedom Charter into a 50-page Ready to Govern volume. The 1994 election manifesto included a 100-page Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), which further enlarged the charter. The Freedom Charter is therefore our compass and lodestar as we navigate our way towards a better South Africa. It represents the hopes and aspirations of all progressive and freedom-loving people of South Africa.
Driving into any South African city, town, or village today one’s first sight is usually of some of the more than two million houses built by the state and transferred to the people as freehold property. The more recent developments boast solar heaters on their roofs. This is the most physical and visible evidence of the Freedom Charter’s achievements: there shall be houses, security and comfort.
University enrolments have also doubled, and numbers risen higher thanks to massive increases in state bursaries. There can, however, be no excuse for schools still lacking working libraries and laboratories, with some in the most rural of areas still yet not having eradicated the bucket system. We must work harder that the doors of learning and culture must be opened.
Together, we continue to consolidate on the gains and must continue to make a solemn pledge to defend and advance the ideals of the Freedom Charter until all our people are able to taste the fruits of freedom.
Indeed, as we take the next steps on a journey into the future together, it might be helpful to look back at where we have come from and what is it we in South Africa hoped to achieve creating one society. To that end consider this if you may, 1952 when work on the Freedom Charter began, many of us were not around, yet most of us grew up with a sense of acknowledgment that in some way, shape or form, this charter has influenced all levels of our society – on whichever side of the socio-economic and political divide one sits.
Not only was this felt locally but has also served to make the Charter drive felt and known in other countries, mobilizing thousands behind the anti-apartheid movement, and was to later to form the basis of our Constitution. It is within this very context of an omnipresent Charter that we are to consider all else present within our society, Novel Coved 19 pandemic in particular – and perhaps the most unprecedented disruption of our political programme since the democratic dispensation. And if we are to consider the right to health care as a basic human right as envisaged in the Freedom Charter then a call to all of us to unite behind this very basic human right as we focus on preventative healthcare would be as progressive and noble as the call for houses, security and comfort. Visionary then, necessary now.
A preventative health outlook will do much to avert a situation in the future where entire economies are shut down in an attempt of coping with illnesses that swamp ill-equipped healthcare systems. But while this pandemic has fundamentally changed many things in our country, and has caused untold hardships for many, it has created an opportunity for redress; a chance to redress the socio-economic imbalance. When societies would from time to time face crises points, it is not uncommon to see them go back and go deeper into their core values, those values foundational to that which holds them together, revitalizing their will to survive as they struggle to transcend the threat. Often to do all these things, one needs a framework, general moral principles and guiding values, ones that take into context a particular environment in which one finds oneself. That framework exists in the Freedom Charter. Visionary then, necessary now.
What is needed is to revisit the foundational tenets of the South African Freedom Charter, in this hour of need, revert back to those time tested values that we hold dear, through which we should model our recovery plan for a just, equitable and prosperous society where all would enjoy peace and freedom as envisaged in the People’s Charter. Compounded to this, the ANC faces a new threat that is not just health in nature, but a threat to its political program as encapsulated in the Freedom Charter and defined as the National Democratic Revolution whose victory was ushered in 1994. The ANC was able to overcome many threats for example the formation of the PAC, the ‘gang of eight or as the SACP termed them “The enemy hidden under the same colour”, the mutiny in Angola, the killing of Chris Hani and many more other threats. However, the current nature of the threat faced by the ANC is characterized by:
- A growing apathy towards the ANC as a leader of society and particularly of the broad democratic movement as expressed in the Congress of the People,
- A deficiency in the shared values and common principles that unites us as comrades of the ANC,
- The divisions and disunity within the people’s camp
- A radically changed political environment in the face of a Corona virus and COVID -19.
This is forcing our glorious movement to once again reflect with a view to adjust if it is to survive these new changed conditions which are not of our own choosing but imposed from without. However, in the words of a stalwart of our movement, the late Cde Walter Sisulu “in the history of mankind it is a law of life that problems arise when the conditions are there for their solution.” We therefore have to confront these challenges with the same vigour that drove the volunteers who selflessly went around the country collecting the people’s demands. This is because conditions for their solution is exists.
This year’s celebration of this glorious document comes at a time when we are once again forced to deal with the cancer of Gender Based Violence and senseless murder of women in our society.
For many women in our country, the clause that “all Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights”, “there Shall be Peace and Friendship” and “there shall be houses, security and comfort” ring hollow because of men who do not recognise the rights of women to live securely and comfortably and to live in peace.
It is our duty in living the ideals of the Freedom Charter to ensure that women in our society are made to feel that they too are included when we say South Africa belongs to all who live in it.
As the forces of reaction grow louder; as the fascism of right-wing politics seem to be flourishing; as the misogyny, racism and attacks on the rights of those who love differently echoes through the corridors of communities; as all of this and so much more fills the air we breathe with a noxious stench; may we the people resist! May we the people erect the barricades, may we the people look back to all those brave and courageous souls who stood upright and fought the battles of yesterday – and not give in to despondency, may we the people resist and in resisting may we send a clear and resounding message to the forces that choose to divide, not unite, engender narrow nationalism not fraternal internationalism, may our message to them be clear, concise and loud
No Pasaran!
May they be reminded that the Freedom Charter was and still is a charter for freedom. It was and still is an injunction for unity as it makes a call that “Let all people who love their people and their country now say, as we say here: These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty.””