Deputy Chair, Deputy Ministers and hon members, I am honoured to address our nation on the eve of the historic day of 27 April, the day that echoes the triumph of freedom over oppression and, yes, even the triumph of good over evil. I am equally honoured to debate and celebrate this important day on our national calendar in the city that saw the arrival of the first colonisers of our country in 1652, which is the Cape of Good Hope, as it used to be called by the colonisers.
It is here in this beautiful land of our forefathers where the struggle for liberation was fought by generations of heroes and heroines - fearless cadres, brave students, determined workers and powerful men and women who were convinced that it was their mission to bring us our freedom. Fear of death would not stop them. This movement gained strength as new generations joined them. Their only purpose was that the next generation would live to taste the fruits of freedom. For this reason martyrs like Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu, when he was facing the gallows, bade farewell to the nation with these words: "Tell my people that I love them ... and my blood shall water the tree of liberty and freedom."
On this special day we should celebrate our maturing constitutional democracy whose seed we planted on 27 April 1994. This nation has indeed trudged a tortuous journey from a divided, embittered past to a democratic society based on equality, equity, dignity and respect for human rights.
It is important to recall some of the events prior to the adoption of our universally envied Constitution. Despite the signing of the National Peace Accord in September 1991, increasing levels of political violence almost derailed the negotiations on a number of occasions. To credit the politicians involved, they stuck to the process. You will remember that the now defunct National Party government's efforts to negotiate a solution were sanctioned by the overwhelming support it obtained in a lily-white referendum on political change held in March 1992, while the ANC's efforts were boosted from time to time by campaigns of rolling mass action.
The all-party negotiations formally began with the convening of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, Codesa, on 20 December 1991 and ended two agonising years later, with the adoption of the interim Constitution by the tricameral Parliament on 22 December 1993.
At Codesa, the parties agreed on a two-stage transition, which the Constitutional Court succinctly described as follows:
Instead of an outright transmission of power from the old order to the new, there would be a programmed two-stage transition. An interim government, established and functioning under an interim constitution agreed to by the negotiating parties, would govern the country on a coalition basis while a final constitution was being drafted. A national legislature, elected (directly or indirectly) by universal adult suffrage, would double as the constitution-making body and would draft the new constitution within a given time.
To cut a long story short, we now know that the interim Constitution was formally adopted as an Act of the predemocratic tricameral Parliament, ensuring the legal continuity of the South African state. After the 1994 elections, the new Parliament and a Government of National Unity were established and began to function in accordance with the interim Constitution, which came into force on 27 April 1994.
The interim Constitution was a transitional constitution. One of its principal purposes was to set out the procedures and modalities for the negotiations and drafting of a final constitution. Once the 1996 Constitution was adopted, the interim Constitution was repealed and it fell away.
We need to remind ourselves of these important historical events in our country as we celebrate 18 years of freedom in our lifetime during the ANC's centenary year. In fact, the 1996 Constitution completed South Africa's constitutional revolution. Whereas the interim Constitution was not the product of a democratically elected body, the 1996 Constitution was drafted and adopted by an elected Constitutional Assembly. The Constitutional Assembly was, in effect, the Parliament that had been elected in the 1994 elections, under a different name. According to section 68(1) of the interim Constitution, the Constitutional Assembly consisted of the National Assembly and the Senate, sitting jointly. The final text of the Constitution had to be adopted by a two-thirds majority of the Assembly. In the final analysis, the actual majority voting in favour of the Constitution was 86%. We now also know that the Constitutional Assembly made concerted efforts to involve the public in the constitution-writing exercise and to avoid the charge that had been levelled at the interim Constitution, namely that it was an "elite pact".
I am aware that the appropriate theme under which we are celebrating this Freedom Day, namely "Working together to build unity and prosperity for all", urges us to remember the basic principles that underlie the constitutional order. These are constitutionalism, the rule of law, democracy and accountability, the separation of powers with checks and balances, co-operative governance and the devolution of power. Some of the principles are expressly entrenched in the text of the Constitution, particularly in section 1, which lists, inter alia, human dignity, equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms, nonracialism and nonsexism, democracy, supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law as the values on which the state is founded. Indeed, other principles are implicit in the text.
It is worth noting that the celebration of 18 years of freedom in our country coincides with the reality that the ANC will be converging in the not-too-distant future, when it will be holding its national policy conference. I had the opportunity to peruse several policy documents, in particular the one titled "Social Transformation", which says in its introduction, under subsection 1(3), that in the current phase of the national democratic revolution, the ANC, as the leader of the motive forces of social transformation, agreed that we must intensify work in the five pillars of social transformation, namely the state; the economy; organisational work; ideological struggle; and international work.
This document poses a critical question to which we as the movement need to respond. It is this: What progress has been made in transforming society, the state and the economy in addressing issues of class, gender and race? The document proceeds to assert that in response to this broad question, it urges us to take a medium- to long-term approach to the challenges we face on the road to the South African dream, which is a nation that is prosperous, nonracial, nonsexist, united and, indeed, democratic. This is the South African dream that we must grapple with, as His Excellency, Jacob Zuma, the President of the Republic of South Africa, correctly invited us to do during the state of the nation address on 9 February 2012, when he said:
We have outlined a busy infrastructure implementation programme for now until 2014 and beyond.
I would like to appeal to all our people to join hands as they always do, as we deal decisively with the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. Nobody will do this for us, it is in our hands. And we are all equal to the task.
Allow me to conclude with words of wisdom taken from the biography of O R Tambo, the father of our selfless struggle for freedom, when he said to all of us:
... it is no longer enough for us to repeat the tired slogans. We should, therefore, carefully re-evaluate the advisability of insisting on the retention of sanctions, given the new developments in the country and abroad. ... If peaceful negotiations will result in the formation of a united, democratic, nonracial and nonsexist South Africa we are not only willing but ready to enter into such negotiations. Consequently, the ANC has suspended the armed struggle in order to give peace a chance as well as indicate our serious concern for the future of the country and all its citizens.
It is fitting for this august House today, as we celebrate our Freedom Day, that we should take positive lessons from these words of wisdom of O R Tambo, which led to the situation that I have tried to describe above - the drafting and adoption of the new Constitution. No, we have not betrayed O R Tambo and Nelson Mandela, nor many other stalwarts of our liberation struggle, because we have done well as a country in only 18 years of freedom.
We now know that many more South Africans still need water, electricity, sanitation, jobs and other basic necessities. That is why we must continue without fail to work together to expand access to services and reverse the legacy of apartheid and colonial oppression. Therefore the theme "Working together to build unity and prosperity for all" inspires us. I thank you for your undivided attention. [Applause.]