JUNE 28 2015 Focus on charter takes The Freedom Charter is ......Fort Hare University, “ZK”, as...
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1 7 D i s p a t c h e s independent JUNE 28 2015 THE SUNDAY ‘I WONDER whether the time has not come for the ANC to consider the question of convening a national convention, a congress of the people, representing all the people of this country irrespective of race or colour to draw up a freedom charter for the democratic South Africa of the future,” Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews said on August 15, 1953. A professor of anthropology at Fort Hare University, “ZK”, as he was affectionately known, was speaking to the Cape ANC, as its president, at its annual conference in Cradock. There had been mention of a need to call a “convention” to discuss the thorny issues of the time, but none championed the idea as ZK did. The ANC adopted the idea three months later at its national confer- ence in Queenstown. In mid-1954, following a request from the then-president of the ANC, Albert Luthuli, ZK drafted a memo- randum on the contents of such a charter. A committee, the National Action Council, was set up to oversee prepa- rations for the congress. It included members of the South African Indi- an Congress, South African Coloured People’s Organisation and the South African Congress of Democrats (for whites). However, ZK was not a member of the committee, nor was he at the con- gress, held in Kliptown on June 25 and 26, 1955. He was then acting prin- cipal of Fort Hare University, a role that left no time for activism. Despite being absent from the historic event at which the Freedom Charter was adopted 60 years ago, ZK had set in motion an idea that would have a catalytic effect on the way his- tory unfolded. The charter was essentially a political document intended to mobilise multiracial opposition to apartheid with the aim of shaping a different future. This inspirational objective was captured in ZK’s memorandum as follows: “From such a congress ought to come a declaration which will inspire all the peoples of South Africa with the fresh hope for the future, which will turn the minds of the people away from the sterile and negative struggles of the past and the present to a positive programme of freedom in our lifetime.” In other words, the charter was a testimony of its time, but also artic- ulated a vision of a different future. It was inevitably contentious. Officialdom denounced it as trea- sonous, while Africanists in the ANC decried it as a betrayal of the strug- gle for national liberation. Matthews, whose son Joe was among those charged with treason alongside him, was bewildered by the accusation. He was a law-abiding man, whose name affirmed his deep Christian faith. His grand-father, Keodirelang, had adopted the names “Zachariah Matthews” after convert- ing to Christianity. ZK not only had his grandfather’s names, but fol- lowed his Christian path. The char- ter’s assertion of equality, among other principles, was an affirmation of his humanity. But the apartheid court latched on to such words and phrases as “action” and “going over into the offensive”, taking them as a call to violence. A gentle and a civilised man, ZK dismissed the charge of treason in a way only a professor could: “The only explanation I can find for this alarm over such innocent metaphor- ical expression is that, owing to our bilingualism in South Africa, we are becoming less and less able to follow the idiomatic English usage.” His white accusers were just not learned men! Matthews and his fellow accused were acquitted. To the self-defined “Africanist” faction in the ANC, the charter was further proof that the liberation movement had veered off the course of African nationalism. The Afri- canists found it particularly intoler- able that it envisioned the granting of ownership of land and citizenry irrespective of descent. They said it would not achieve the freedom it pur- ported to pursue, and promptly renamed it the “Kliptown Charter”. In December 1955, The Africanist described in an editorial the calami- ty it thought had befallen the ANC: “We emerged at a time when confu- sion, worst confounded, reigned supreme in ANC ranks. “Without fear or favour we have energetically laboured to clear the stinking mess left to us as a legacy by the opportunistic leadership that served, loyally, interests other than those of Africa. We have relentlessly waged a struggle to restore and maintain the independence of the African National Congress, whose potential has been reduced by a superfluous multiplicity of pacts with insignificant organisations. “We boldly championed the course of the ANC men and women whose opinion… was being deliber- ately stifled to placate lackeys, flunkeys and functionaries of non- African minorities.” After failing to win the leadership of the Transvaal ANC at the Novem- ber 1958 conference, the Africanists broke away to form the Pan African- ist Congress in 1959. Today the arguments have changed, but the contention remains. The past 21 years of freedom, accord- ing to charterists, have shown South Africa is on course to realise the objectives of the charter. Critics say just the opposite, that the “Kliptown Charter” prefigured a betrayal of the revolution. In their appraisal, “Reflections on the Freedom Charter”, Mandla Seleoane and Ben Mokoena are, in some ways, dismissive of its contem- porary relevance, while understand- ing the context that gave rise to it. They highlight the obvious points – for instance, that education is not accessible to all and that wealth and land have not been restored to their rightful owners. This is fair criti- cism. It’s worth emphasising that a con- textual understanding of the charter is a lot more helpful than a literal interpretation. Because it was adopted in 1955, it goes without saying that some of the things it envisaged would be unachievable 60 years later. The world has changed and the dominant economic thinking is different. Nationalising private capital would not be as easy today as it was in 1955. Recent revelations about the con- duct of private capital, however, underline the absolute importance of the role of the state in the economy. An AU panel headed by former pres- ident Thabo Mbeki found that tril- lions of dollars have left the conti- nent illegally. Africa has lost out in investment and revenue. A leak by a whistle-blower at the European bank, HSBC, claimed that 2 000 South African entities had off- shore accounts, some to evade tax. In 2007, the accounts held a combined R20 billion. It has also been reported that more capital is leaving the country than is being invested internally. The economy’s revival ultimately rests with the state. A discussion of the Freedom Charter is a satisfying custom. The emphasis now, however, should be on the cohesiveness of the political elite and whether it has its priorities straight. ■ Ndletyana is head of the politi- cal economy faculty at the Mapun- gubwe Institute for Strategic Reflec- tion (Mistra). Focus on charter takes eyes off political elite The emphasis in our time should be on the country’s leadership and its priorities, writes M c e b i s i N d l e t y a n a O N THIS weekend 60 years ago, as ANC comrades we cheered the headlines of our progressive weekly paper, the New Age, when it announced, “All Roads Lead to Kliptown”. Kliptown was the venue chosen to launch the Freedom Charter in 1955. June 26 was specifically chosen to coincide with the Stay Away strike of 1950. This strike was called by the ANC alliance to protest the killing of workers during the May Day demon- strations and strikes organised by the SA Communist Party (SACP) to protest the Suppression of Commu- nism Act. But the road to Kliptown began long before June 1955. It began with the adoption of the pro- gramme of action in 1949 by the ANC at its annual conference. This was a critical moment since it sought to change the method of struggle of the ANC and transform the organisation into a mass-based militant movement. The ANC tested its strength in the successful strike of 1950. This enabled it to launch the Defiance Campaign in 1952, together with the South African Indian Congress. The Defiance Campaign tested the popularity and militancy of the masses and their support for the ANC. More than 8 000 volunteers defied unjust laws and were sent to prison. The success of the campaign opened up a new and more militant phase in our struggle for liberation. This phase of the struggle required the movement to outline clearly the type of society it wished to create when taking power. Taking power meant the creation of a new democratic order which needed to be defined carefully in the context of a changing world. This was the era of anti-colonial struggles and the decolonisation of Asia and later Africa. It is for this reason that Professor ZK Matthews called for the drafting of the Free- dom Charter to define our new democratic society. In the tradition of the congress movement and its increased reliance on popular mobilisation, it was decided that the process leading to the Freedom Charter should be people-driven. This resulted in the establishment of an organ called the Congress of the People (COP), which sought to involve the broad- est section of our society in the cam- paign for the Freedom Charter. At the beginning the Liberal Par- ty of Alan Paton attended a meeting of the congress but later withdrew because they were uncomfortable with the mass-based character of the campaign. During that time I was an activist in the Greyville area of Durban and belonged to a branch of the Natal Indian Congress. We formed a COP committee in our area. I was fortunate to be elect- ed by my branch to be a delegate to the Congress of the People in Klip- town, where the final draft of the Freedom Charter was to be adopted. As a person of Indian origin, I could not travel to the then Trans- vaal without acquiring a six-week permit. As an activist there was no way I would have been able to get a permit. The chairman of our branch, Comrade Ismail Gangat, was also heading to the Congress. He planned to travel with a coloured comrade called Middleton. Ismail suggested I travel with him and if we were stopped at the border, Middleton would say I was his nephew as coloureds did not need a permit for inter-provincial travel. Fortunately for us we were not stopped. Kliptown was buzzing with excitement and expectation. Dele- gates poured into an open ground which was fenced to accommodate at least 3 000 people. We sang free- dom songs and danced. The occa- sion was also marked by the award- ing of the Order of Isitwalandwe to Chief Albert Luthuli, Dr Yusuf Dadoo and Father Trevor Huddle- ston. The clauses of the Freedom Charter were read out and people commented on them. On the second day, the police raided and circled the venue. The names and documents of each delegate were seized by the police. Since I had no permit, a com- rade gave me a false address in the Indian area of Joburg. The police kept asking me for a Transvaal document and I told them I neglected to bring my documents with me. Luckily I was allowed to leave and returned safely to Durban. The Congress Alliance featured prominently in the campaign and at the Congress of the People. The symbol of the Congress was a wheel with four spokes represent- ing the four members of the alliance – the South African Indian Con- gress, the Coloured People’s Con- gress, the Congress of Democrats and the South African Congress of Trade Unions. The centre of the wheel represented the ANC as the leader of the alliance. The Freedom Charter was subse- quently adopted by all the organisa- tions that constituted the Congress Alliance at their respective confer- ences. A year later we were official- ly informed that the Congress of the People had been disbanded. We were told they did not want a repetition of what happened at the All-African Convention in the 1930s, which transformed itself into a political organisation. The Congress of the People and the adoption of the Freedom Char- ter was a historic event. For the first time in South African history, peo- ple of all national groups and all classes expressed their views on what a free democratic South Africa should look like. The people rejected all forms of racism and said South Africa belonged to all those who lived in it. Freedom and democratic values expressed in 1955 shaped the strate- gic outlook and vision of the ANC and defined its non-racial struggle. It was this commitment by the ANC that made our movement recognised and supported by people in the country and all over the world. The struggle to create a bet- ter life for all, as envisioned in the Freedom Charter, continues today. ■ Ebrahim is parliamentary counsellor to President Jacob Zuma. E b r a h i m E b r a h i m All roads led to Kliptown on day of the Freedom Charter Q u o t e s We are going after (President Jacob) Zuma everywhere we find him. Unfortunately we don’t get to meet him anywhere, we meet him in Parliament. But if I happen to meet him in a public toilet, I’ll ask him “when are you going to pay back the money?”Everywhere we meet Zuma, he must be asked the question when is he paying back the money. Ultimately, this man must step down. Not only that. He must be arrested and rot in jail. – E F F l e a d e r J u l i u s M a l e m a The police are worried about the things I say.Why are they not making the people who were in the house talk? I lost my son and all I want is for his killers to be arrested. I have been threatened with death and they do not feel sorry for me. They (the police) must blame the witnesses and not me. – F a t h e r o f s l a i n S e n z o M e y i w a , S a m M e y i w a I am happy that for the first time we are led by a blind person.That shows this country is moving forward.These professors and doctor, they believe in Hlaudi. Make no mistake. – S A B C c h i e f o p e r a t i n g o f f i c e r , H l a u d i M o t s o e n e n g SHINING LIGHTS: E b r a h i m E b r a h i m , R e g g i e V a n d e y a r , H e n r y ‘ S q u i r e ’ M a k g o t h i a n d V i j a y P a d a y a c h e e . B e h i n d t h e m a r e J u s t i c e A l b i e S a c h s a n d V a n e s s a S e p t e m b e r . The Freedom Charter is as relevant today as it was 60 years ago A LL SOUTH Africans should celebrate the 60th anni- versary of the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People in Kliptown on June 26, 1955, with great pride. It was not only a milestone in our own struggle against apartheid, but a model for people around the world who are struggling for liberation from injustice and tyranny. The Freedom Charter not only laid out a programme to eliminate colo- nialism and racism in South Africa, but also dealt with all the economic and social ills existing alongside apartheid. It gave us a stunning vision of a totally new kind of society, in which everyone shared in the country’s wealth and was treated equally and fairly. That is why it is still so relevant 60 years later.We have adopted a consti- tution and many laws which reflect clauses in the Freedom Charter and give better guarantees of social justice, human rights and equality than those of most other countries in the world. We have achieved the highest expansion of social grants in the world and one of the best records for provid- ing the poor with houses, electricity, running water and access to educa- tion and health services. But we still have to ask whether we have built a society in which: ● The people shall share in the country’s wealth; ● The national wealth of our coun- try, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; ● The mineral wealth shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; ● All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people; and ● The doors of learning and culture shall be opened for all. These surely have to be the corner- stones of the society envisaged in the Freedom Charter, but the sad reality is that in practice millions of South Africans are still denied, because the inequalities and injustices we inherit- ed from apartheid remain in place. Inequality has increased across the board. The Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, stands at 0.65, the highest in the world. Statistics SA shows from 1994 to 2010 the share of the gross domestic product (GDP) going to labour in wages, as opposed to capital in profits, fell 7 percent. A PwC report, Executive Directors’ Remuneration: Practices and Trends, July 2013, found the gap between the remuneration of the lowest-paid workers and chief executives of JSE- listed firms was more than 50 times. According to an Oxfam report, the two richest South Africans (Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer) owned wealth equal to the poorest 50 percent of the country – 26.5 million people. At least 54.3 percent of South Africans live in poverty and 14 million go to bed hungry every night. Inequalities in income and wealth are still racialised. At least 56 percent of whites earn more than R6 000 a month, while 81 percent of Africans earn less than R6 000 a month. The means of production remain concen- trated in white hands: almost all the top 20 paid directors in JSE-listed companies are white males. This is far cry from what the drafters of the Freedom Charter envisaged. And there is no sign things are getting better, with unemployment at an appalling 36.1 percent by the more realistic wider rate, including those who have given up looking for work. Economic growth in the first quar- ter of 2015 crawled at a miserable 1.3 percent, so the prospect of any early relief for the unemployed is dim. The yawning gulf between the extreme poverty of the majority and the excessive wealth of the minority lies behind the mushrooming of often violent service-delivery protests in the in poorer communities. We are sitting on a time bomb unless we get back to the principles of the Freedom Charter. All this is made worse by the scourge of corruption and the looting of public money by tenderpreneurs, corrupt politicians and officials and even some union leaders, who exploit the climate of “anything goes” to get rich quick at the expense of the work- ers, consumers and the economy. We face the biggest crisis since the birth of democracy in 1994, epito- mised by the statement of the Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, on the exces- sive R246 million Nkandla spend. The only way to fight back and truly celebrate the Freedom Charter is to work together to put our dream back on track and create a truly egali- tarian, united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa. The mass march against corrup- tion in Pretoria on August 19 must be the first step in this pursuit. ■ Vavi is former general secretary of Cosatu. Z w e l i n z i m a V a v i THE INSPIRATION: P r o f e s s o r Z K M a t t h e w s s e t i n m o t i o n t h e i d e a o f c a l l i n g ‘ a c o n g r e s s o f t h e p e o p l e ‘ i n 1 9 5 3 . There will never be an inch of racism that will happen under my watch. – G a u t e n g E d u c a t i o n M E C P a n y a z a L e s u f i
Transcript of JUNE 28 2015 Focus on charter takes The Freedom Charter is ......Fort Hare University, “ZK”, as...
17Dispatches independentJUNE 28 2015
THE SUNDAY
‘IWONDER whether thetime has not come for theANC to consider thequestion of convening anational convention, acongress of the people,
representing all the people of thiscountry irrespective of race orcolour to draw up a freedom charterfor the democratic South Africa ofthe future,” Zachariah KeodirelangMatthews said on August 15, 1953.
A professor of anthropology atFort Hare University, “ZK”, as he wasaffectionately known, was speakingto the Cape ANC, as its president, atits annual conference in Cradock.
There had been mention of aneed to call a “convention” to discussthe thorny issues of the time, butnone championed the idea as ZK did.
The ANC adopted the idea threemonths later at its national confer-ence in Queenstown.
In mid-1954, following a requestfrom the then-president of the ANC,Albert Luthuli, ZK drafted a memo-randum on the contents of such acharter.
A committee, the National ActionCouncil, was set up to oversee prepa-rations for the congress. It includedmembers of the South African Indi-an Congress, South AfricanColoured People’s Organisation andthe South African Congress ofDemocrats (for whites).
However, ZK was not a member ofthe committee, nor was he at the con-gress, held in Kliptown on June 25and 26, 1955. He was then acting prin-cipal of Fort Hare University, a rolethat left no time for activism.
Despite being absent from thehistoric event at which the FreedomCharter was adopted 60 years ago, ZKhad set in motion an idea that wouldhave a catalytic effect on the way his-tory unfolded.
The charter was essentially apolitical document intended tomobilise multiracial opposition toapartheid with the aim of shaping adifferent future.
This inspirational objective wascaptured in ZK’s memorandum asfollows: “From such a congressought to come a declaration whichwill inspire all the peoples of SouthAfrica with the fresh hope for thefuture, which will turn the minds ofthe people away from the sterile andnegative struggles of the past and thepresent to a positive programme offreedom in our lifetime.”
In other words, the charter was atestimony of its time, but also artic-ulated a vision of a different future.
It was inevitably contentious. Officialdom denounced it as trea-
sonous, while Africanists in the ANCdecried it as a betrayal of the strug-gle for national liberation.
Matthews, whose son Joe wasamong those charged with treasonalongside him, was bewildered bythe accusation. He was a law-abidingman, whose name affirmed his deepChristian faith. His grand-father,Keodirelang, had adopted the names“Zachariah Matthews” after convert-ing to Christianity. ZK not only hadhis grandfather’s names, but fol-lowed his Christian path. The char-ter’s assertion of equality, amongother principles, was an affirmationof his humanity.
But the apartheid court latchedon to such words and phrases as“action” and “going over into theoffensive”, taking them as a call toviolence.
A gentle and a civilised man, ZKdismissed the charge of treason in away only a professor could: “Theonly explanation I can find for thisalarm over such innocent metaphor-ical expression is that, owing to ourbilingualism in South Africa, we arebecoming less and less able to followthe idiomatic English usage.” Hiswhite accusers were just not learnedmen! Matthews and his fellowaccused were acquitted.
To the self-defined “Africanist”faction in the ANC, the charter wasfurther proof that the liberationmovement had veered off the courseof African nationalism. The Afri-canists found it particularly intoler-able that it envisioned the grantingof ownership of land and citizenryirrespective of descent. They said itwould not achieve the freedom it pur-ported to pursue, and promptlyrenamed it the “Kliptown Charter”.
In December 1955, The Africanistdescribed in an editorial the calami-ty it thought had befallen the ANC:“We emerged at a time when confu-sion, worst confounded, reignedsupreme in ANC ranks.
“Without fear or favour we haveenergetically laboured to clear thestinking mess left to us as a legacy bythe opportunistic leadership thatserved, loyally, interests other thanthose of Africa. We have relentlesslywaged a struggle to restore andmaintain the independence of theAfrican National Congress, whosepotential has been reduced by asuperfluous multiplicity of pactswith insignificant organisations.
“We boldly championed thecourse of the ANC men and womenwhose opinion… was being deliber-ately stifled to placate lackeys,
flunkeys and functionaries of non-African minorities.”
After failing to win the leadershipof the Transvaal ANC at the Novem-ber 1958 conference, the Africanistsbroke away to form the Pan African-ist Congress in 1959.
Today the arguments havechanged, but the contention remains.The past 21 years of freedom, accord-ing to charterists, have shown SouthAfrica is on course to realise theobjectives of the charter. Critics sayjust the opposite, that the “KliptownCharter” prefigured a betrayal ofthe revolution.
In their appraisal, “Reflections onthe Freedom Charter”, MandlaSeleoane and Ben Mokoena are, insome ways, dismissive of its contem-porary relevance, while understand-ing the context that gave rise to it.They highlight the obvious points –for instance, that education is notaccessible to all and that wealth andland have not been restored to theirrightful owners. This is fair criti-cism.
It’s worth emphasising that a con-textual understanding of the charteris a lot more helpful than a literalinterpretation.
Because it was adopted in 1955, itgoes without saying that some of thethings it envisaged would beunachievable 60 years later. Theworld has changed and the dominanteconomic thinking is different.Nationalising private capital wouldnot be as easy today as it was in 1955.
Recent revelations about the con-duct of private capital, however,underline the absolute importance ofthe role of the state in the economy.An AU panel headed by former pres-ident Thabo Mbeki found that tril-lions of dollars have left the conti-nent illegally. Africa has lost out ininvestment and revenue.
A leak by a whistle-blower at theEuropean bank, HSBC, claimed that2 000 South African entities had off-shore accounts, some to evade tax. In2007, the accounts held a combinedR20 billion.
It has also been reported thatmore capital is leaving the countrythan is being invested internally.
The economy’s revival ultimatelyrests with the state. A discussion ofthe Freedom Charter is a satisfyingcustom. The emphasis now, however,should be on the cohesiveness of thepolitical elite and whether it has itspriorities straight.
■ Ndletyana is head of the politi-
cal economy faculty at the Mapun-
gubwe Institute for Strategic Reflec-
tion (Mistra).
Focus on charter takeseyes off political elite
The emphasis in our time should beon the country’s leadership and itspriorities,writes Mcebisi Ndletyana
ON THIS weekend 60years ago, as ANCcomrades we cheeredthe headlines of ourprogressive weeklypaper, the New Age,
when it announced, “All Roads Leadto Kliptown”.
Kliptown was the venue chosento launch the Freedom Charter in1955. June 26 was specifically chosento coincide with the Stay Awaystrike of 1950.
This strike was called by theANC alliance to protest the killing ofworkers during the May Day demon-strations and strikes organised bythe SA Communist Party (SACP) toprotest the Suppression of Commu-nism Act. But the road to Kliptownbegan long before June 1955. Itbegan with the adoption of the pro-gramme of action in 1949 by theANC at its annual conference.
This was a critical moment sinceit sought to change the method ofstruggle of the ANC and transformthe organisation into a mass-basedmilitant movement.
The ANC tested its strength inthe successful strike of 1950. Thisenabled it to launch the DefianceCampaign in 1952, together with theSouth African Indian Congress.
The Defiance Campaign tested
the popularity and militancy of themasses and their support for theANC. More than 8 000 volunteersdefied unjust laws and were sent toprison.
The success of the campaignopened up a new and more militantphase in our struggle for liberation.This phase of the struggle requiredthe movement to outline clearly thetype of society it wished to createwhen taking power.
Taking power meant the creationof a new democratic order whichneeded to be defined carefully in thecontext of a changing world.
This was the era of anti-colonial
struggles and the decolonisation ofAsia and later Africa. It is for thisreason that Professor ZK Matthewscalled for the drafting of the Free-dom Charter to define our newdemocratic society.
In the tradition of the congressmovement and its increasedreliance on popular mobilisation, itwas decided that the process leadingto the Freedom Charter should bepeople-driven. This resulted in theestablishment of an organ called theCongress of the People (COP),which sought to involve the broad-est section of our society in the cam-paign for the Freedom Charter.
At the beginning the Liberal Par-ty of Alan Paton attended a meetingof the congress but later withdrewbecause they were uncomfortablewith the mass-based character ofthe campaign.
During that time I was an activistin the Greyville area of Durban andbelonged to a branch of the NatalIndian Congress.
We formed a COP committee inour area. I was fortunate to be elect-ed by my branch to be a delegate tothe Congress of the People in Klip-town, where the final draft of theFreedom Charter was to be adopted.
As a person of Indian origin, Icould not travel to the then Trans-
vaal without acquiring a six-weekpermit. As an activist there was noway I would have been able to get apermit.
The chairman of our branch,Comrade Ismail Gangat, was alsoheading to the Congress. He plannedto travel with a coloured comradecalled Middleton. Ismail suggested Itravel with him and if we were
stopped at the border, Middletonwould say I was his nephew ascoloureds did not need a permit forinter-provincial travel. Fortunatelyfor us we were not stopped.
Kliptown was buzzing withexcitement and expectation. Dele-gates poured into an open groundwhich was fenced to accommodateat least 3 000 people. We sang free-
dom songs and danced. The occa-sion was also marked by the award-ing of the Order of Isitwalandwe toChief Albert Luthuli, Dr YusufDadoo and Father Trevor Huddle-ston.
The clauses of the FreedomCharter were read out and peoplecommented on them. On the secondday, the police raided and circled thevenue. The names and documents ofeach delegate were seized by thepolice. Since I had no permit, a com-rade gave me a false address in theIndian area of Joburg.
The police kept asking me for aTransvaal document and I told themI neglected to bring my documentswith me. Luckily I was allowed toleave and returned safely to Durban.
The Congress Alliance featuredprominently in the campaign and atthe Congress of the People.
The symbol of the Congress wasa wheel with four spokes represent-ing the four members of the alliance– the South African Indian Con-gress, the Coloured People’s Con-gress, the Congress of Democratsand the South African Congress ofTrade Unions. The centre of thewheel represented the ANC as theleader of the alliance.
The Freedom Charter was subse-quently adopted by all the organisa-
tions that constituted the CongressAlliance at their respective confer-ences. A year later we were official-ly informed that the Congress of thePeople had been disbanded.
We were told they did not want arepetition of what happened at theAll-African Convention in the 1930s,which transformed itself into apolitical organisation.
The Congress of the People andthe adoption of the Freedom Char-ter was a historic event. For the firsttime in South African history, peo-ple of all national groups and allclasses expressed their views onwhat a free democratic South Africashould look like.
The people rejected all forms ofracism and said South Africabelonged to all those who lived in it.
Freedom and democratic valuesexpressed in 1955 shaped the strate-gic outlook and vision of the ANCand defined its non-racial struggle.
It was this commitment by theANC that made our movementrecognised and supported by peoplein the country and all over theworld. The struggle to create a bet-ter life for all, as envisioned in theFreedom Charter, continues today.
■ Ebrahim is parliamentary
counsellor to President Jacob Zuma.
Ebrahim Ebrahim
All roads led to Kliptown on day of the Freedom Charter
Qu
ote
s
We are going after (President Jacob) Zumaeverywhere we find him.Unfortunately we don’tget to meet him anywhere,we meet him inParliament.But if I happen to meet him in a publictoilet,I’ll ask him “when are you going to pay backthe money?”Everywhere we meet Zuma,he mustbe asked the question when is he paying back themoney.Ultimately,this man must step down.Notonly that.He must be arrested and rot in jail.– EFFleader Julius Malema
The police are worried about the things Isay.Why are they not making the peoplewho were in the house talk? I lost myson and all I want is for his killers to bearrested.I have been threatened withdeath and they do not feel sorry for me.They (the police) must blame thewitnesses and not me.– Father of slainSenzo Meyiwa, Sam Meyiwa
I am happy that for the first timewe are led by a blind person.Thatshows this country is movingforward.These professors anddoctor,they believe in Hlaudi.Make no mistake.– SABC chiefoperating officer, HlaudiMotsoeneng
SHINING LIGHTS: Ebrahim Ebrahim, Reggie Vandeyar,Henry ‘Squire’ Makgothi and Vijay Padayachee. Behindthem are Justice Albie Sachs and Vanessa September.
The Freedom Charteris as relevant today as it was 60 years ago
ALL SOUTH Africans shouldcelebrate the 60th anni-versary of the FreedomCharter, adopted by theCongress of the People in
Kliptown on June 26, 1955, with greatpride. It was not only a milestone inour own struggle against apartheid,but a model for people around theworld who are struggling for liberationfrom injustice and tyranny.
The Freedom Charter not only laidout a programme to eliminate colo-nialism and racism in South Africa, butalso dealt with all the economic andsocial ills existing alongside apartheid.It gave us a stunning vision of a totallynew kind of society, in which everyoneshared in the country’s wealth andwas treated equally and fairly.
That is why it is still so relevant 60years later.We have adopted a consti-tution and many laws which reflectclauses in the Freedom Charter andgive better guarantees of social justice,human rights and equality than thoseof most other countries in the world.
We have achieved the highestexpansion of social grants in the worldand one of the best records for provid-ing the poor with houses, electricity,running water and access to educa-tion and health services.
But we still have to ask whether wehave built a society in which:
● The people shall share in thecountry’s wealth;
● The national wealth of our coun-try, the heritage of South Africans, shallbe restored to the people;
● The mineral wealth shall betransferred to the ownership of thepeople as a whole;
● All other industry and trade shallbe controlled to assist the wellbeing ofthe people; and
● The doors of learning andculture shall be opened for all.
These surely have to be the corner-stones of the society envisaged in theFreedom Charter, but the sad reality isthat in practice millions of SouthAfricans are still denied, because theinequalities and injustices we inherit-ed from apartheid remain in place.
Inequality has increased across theboard.The Gini coefficient, whichmeasures income inequality, stands at0.65, the highest in the world. StatisticsSA shows from 1994 to 2010 the shareof the gross domestic product (GDP)going to labour in wages, as opposedto capital in profits, fell 7 percent.
A PwC report, Executive Directors’Remuneration: Practices and Trends,July 2013, found the gap between theremuneration of the lowest-paidworkers and chief executives of JSE-listed firms was more than 50 times.
According to an Oxfam report,the two richest South Africans (JohannRupert and Nicky Oppenheimer)owned wealth equal to the poorest 50percent of the country – 26.5 million
people. At least 54.3 percent of SouthAfricans live in poverty and 14 milliongo to bed hungry every night.
Inequalities in income and wealthare still racialised. At least 56 percentof whites earn more than R6 000 amonth, while 81 percent of Africansearn less than R6 000 a month.Themeans of production remain concen-trated in white hands: almost all thetop 20 paid directors in JSE-listedcompanies are white males.This is farcry from what the drafters of theFreedom Charter envisaged.
And there is no sign things aregetting better, with unemployment atan appalling 36.1 percent by the morerealistic wider rate, including thosewho have given up looking for work.
Economic growth in the first quar-ter of 2015 crawled at a miserable 1.3 percent, so the prospect of anyearly relief for the unemployed is dim.
The yawning gulf between theextreme poverty of the majority andthe excessive wealth of the minoritylies behind the mushrooming of oftenviolent service-delivery protests in thein poorer communities.We are sittingon a time bomb unless we get back tothe principles of the Freedom Charter.
All this is made worse by thescourge of corruption and the lootingof public money by tenderpreneurs,corrupt politicians and officials andeven some union leaders, who exploitthe climate of “anything goes” to getrich quick at the expense of the work-ers, consumers and the economy.
We face the biggest crisis since thebirth of democracy in 1994, epito-mised by the statement of the Ministerof Police, Nathi Nhleko, on the exces-sive R246 million Nkandla spend.
The only way to fight back andtruly celebrate the Freedom Charter isto work together to put our dreamback on track and create a truly egali-tarian, united, democratic, non-racial,non-sexist and prosperous SouthAfrica.The mass march against corrup-tion in Pretoria on August 19 must be the first step in this pursuit.
■ Vavi is former general secretaryof Cosatu.
Zwelinzima Vavi
THE INSPIRATION: Professor ZK Matthews set in motionthe idea of calling ‘a congress of the people‘ in 1953.
There will never be aninch of racism that willhappen under mywatch.– Gauteng EducationMEC Panyaza Lesufi
