Hon Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, hon Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members, it is a difficult week indeed for the nation as we mourn and celebrate the passing away of Minister Collins Chabane and the two VIP protectors, Sergeant Sekele and Lentsoane, who died in the course of duty on 15 March 2015. A spear has fallen and it is our task to take the baton and run with it in pursuit of the transformation agenda that hon Chabane championed. Comrade Collins "Animal" Chabane was a true servant of the people, a revolutionary and a great man in his own way. May their souls rest in eternal peace.
Every time I ascend this podium to make a contribution to any debate on behalf of the ANC, I feel very honoured and I do so, consciously, on behalf of the millions of people who have voted the ANC into power. Equally, I do so for those who have perished for the cause of our struggle for liberation in order for us to be where we are today. [Applause.]
It is an undisputed fact that the ANC, as a liberation movement has since its inception fought for the liberation of our people who had been oppressed and exploited under colonialism and apartheid.
In South Africa, the subjugation of human rights of the nonwhites, in particular Blacks and Indians, existed long before the institutionalisation of gross violations of human rights as promulgated in apartheid socioeconomic and political legislation and policies from 1948 onwards. In their paper, a contribution to the publication Reflections on Democracy and Human Rights: A Decade of the South African Constitution, by the South African Human Rights Commission, Landsberg and McKay alluded to the fact that South Africa had four centuries of oppression, which started in the 17th century.
By the way, the wars of resistance were fought long before the formation of the ANC in 1912, by the SA Native National Congress, SANNC. These wars were a response to several pieces of legislation passed from 1856 onwards, which sought to subjugate the rights of nonwhites.
The SANNC was a black liberation movement formed to fight against further oppression resulting from the Union government's segregation policies. These policies were meant to control the blacks, famously known as the natives, and the supremacy of the whites - the Afrikaners and English.
The formation of the ANC witnessed the end of an era and the beginning of another, when our people saw the struggle for liberation not as particular tribes or ethnic groupings. They were to use the ANC as a political instrument at their disposal in their fight for freedom, based on their practical and painful experiences. The promulgation of the Natives Land Act of 1913, and subsequent Acts which were passed in the main to disinherit the indigenous people of South Africa of their land, intensified the need for black people to fight for their human rights.
Through the engagement with the colonial and apartheid regimes at various stages, ANC policy development evolved naturally. That saw the development of the 1923 Bill of Rights, the African Claims of 1943, the Women's Charter in 1956, and most importantly, the Freedom Charter in 1955. There were other similar policy documents, for example, the Harare Declaration.
These documents, developed by the ANC during the struggle for liberation, underline and confirm South African's long-standing and systematic development of policies affirming human rights; and these largely contributed to and informed the Constitution of the Republic at the dawn of freedom.
Hon Deputy Chairperson, allow me briefly to discuss each milestone outlined by the movement led by the visionary and collective leadership of the ANC. Firstly, in 1923, the SA Native National Congress assembled at its annual convention on 24 May. This was the representative organisation of Africans from all the then four provinces of the Union of South Africa. The convention adopted the African Bill of Rights, and the first and fundamental right was, and I quote:
1) That the Bantu inhabitants of the Union have, as human beings, the indisputable right to a place of abode in this land of their fathers.
2) That all Africans have, as the sons of this soil, the God-given right to unrestricted ownership of land in this, the land of their birth.
These were but some of the progressive resolutions of the 1923 annual conference, which confirms the ANC's long history as a human rights-based organisation.
Secondly, the Africans' Claims of 1943 was a result of the ANC annual conference resolution in December 1942 to request its president, Dr A B Xuma, to appoint a committee to study the Atlantic Charter and draft a bill of rights for presentation to the peace conference at the end of the Second World War. Accordingly an Atlantic Charter Committee was established, consisting of prominent African professionals and intellectuals, and Prof Z K Mathews was elected as its chairman. The committee's report was adopted by the ANC at its annual conference on 16 December 1943.
The ANC in 1943 had already accepted women as members of the organisation, and in the same year the ANC Women's League was formed. In 1947 the ANC signed an agreement with the Natal and other Indian congresses, in what became known as the Three Doctors' Pact, which saw the deepening of relations between them.
The Formation of Defiance against Unjust Laws, launched jointly by the ANC and the South African Indian Congress, was one of the nonviolent and passive resistance campaigns. Resistance to the pass laws intensified during the 1950s.
Thirdly, the Women's Charter was adopted at the founding conference of the Federation of SA Women, Fedsaw, in Johannesburg on 17 April 1954. The charter, in terms of a single society, declared that:
We women do not form a society separate from the men. There is only one society, and it is made up of women and men. As women we share the problems and anxieties of our men, and join hands with them to remove social evils and obstacles to progress.
The charter called for the enfranchisement of men and women of all races; equality of opportunity in employment; equal pay for equal work; equal rights in relation to property, marriage and children; and the removal of all laws and customs that deny women such equality.
On 9 August 1956, Fedsaw organised a march of approximately 20 000 to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the pass laws. This was one of the organisation's most important campaigns.
Fourthly, the Congress of the People adopted the Freedom Charter on 26 June 1955, in Kliptown, Johannesburg. The President of the ANC declared 1960 the Year of the Pass. The Freedom Charter became the common programme enshrining the hopes and aspirations of all the progressive people of South Africa.
If we look at our history, one can make the observation that our people have been their own liberators. Our generation should continue to advance and deepen the culture of human rights and let the masses of our people be the masters of their own destiny. We call on all our people to actively defend human rights.
The delegates to the Congress of the People, where the Freedom Charter was adopted - whites, Africans, coloureds, Indians and all our people from various corners of the country - all agreed that all they wanted to see happen was enshrined in this Freedom Charter.
Nonracialism was then cemented. Nonracialism is not merely the absence of racism but much more than that. I thank you.