It is a pleasure for me to address this inaugural conference of the Centre for Unity in Diversity.
The Centre’s goal is to promote the vision of unity in diversity that is articulated in the preamble to the Constitution. The time for such a Centre is ripe – because the concept of South Africa as a multicultural country in which all our communities enjoy equal respect and dignity is under growing pressure.
On Friday, 26 August 2016, the FW de Klerk Foundation is hosting a conference in Johannesburg to launch its Centre for Unity in Diversity (CUD). The Centre’s name is derived from the reference in the Preamble to the Constitution that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
The CUD will operate alongside the Foundation’s existing Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR). Its aims include promoting the constitutional rights of South Africa’s communities to preserve and develop their cultural, religious and linguistic identities within the framework of national unity, and promoting harmonious non-racial relations between all who live in South Africa.
The FW de Klerk Foundation is delighted to be able to contribute R529 650 towards the work of the National Institute for the Deaf (NID). On Friday, 12 August, the Foundation hosted a handover ceremony with former President FW de Klerk and Mr Deon de Villiers (head of the NID) at the Foundation’s offices.
This particular donation will help to fund a groundbreaking project – the development of a digital South African Sign Language (SASL) Dictionary. This Dictionary stands to benefit 234 655 SASL users (according to Stats SA 2011 Census), as well as anyone wanting to learn SASL. The Dictionary will feature all SASL variations used at schools for the Deaf across the country, along with the relevant English term. This will allow users to look up different signs, see how the sign appears in a SASL sentence with SASL grammar, and see the corresponding English word with English grammar structure.
The renaming of streets and places must be handled with the greatest sensitivity. All South Africans should feel that they and their cultures are fully represented in street and place names. The Constitution declares that South Africa belongs to us all, united in our diversity.
The recent Constitutional Court judgment in City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality v AfriForum regarding the renaming of streets in Pretoria shows how important it is for all sides to deal with contentious issues arising from our deeply divided past with the greatest sensitivity. The judgment has implications that far transcend the question of geographic place names.
On Wednesday, 3 August, South Africans will cast their votes in the nation’s fourth democratic local government elections. Political rights are enshrined in the Bill of Rights, while the nation’s founding values include “universal adult suffrage, a national common voter’s roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness”.
The reported incidents of election-related violence and destruction of property cast doubt as to the degree with which the local government elections can be said to be free and fair. Already, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has reported that in the run-up to the August 3 elections, there have been about 50 politically-related killings, predominantly in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga. The Institute for Security Studies (ISS), in a similar vein, notes that political killings are as a result of local conflicts and rivalries.
Mandela Day provides an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the life and service of former President Nelson Mandela. In keeping with the call to ‘take action’ and help change lives for the better, staff of the FW de Klerk Foundation and its Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) will donate their time to two very worthy organisations. Staff will participate in hands-on projects at Autism Western Cape, and Iris House Children’s Hospice – organisations that make a meaningful, daily difference in the lives of children with disabilities.
The FW de Klerk Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms Rhoda Kadalie as Deputy Chairperson of its Board of Trustees. Ms Kadalie, who joined the Board in October 2014, was unanimously elected as the Board’s Deputy Chairperson at a Board meeting held on 11 July 2016. With her extensive experience as an academic, as well as her ongoing work related to the advancement of human rights and the achievement of equality, the Board believes Ms Kadalie will add great value to the work of the Foundation.
The medical profession is amongst the most altruistic of career paths. There is a commonplace understanding that becoming a doctor involves dedicating one’s life to the passion for saving the lives of others. The true extent of the dedication required is however a lesser known reality. Public health care practitioners face rigorous working hours rendered unlawfully exploitive in most other sectors. Young medical graduates bear the bulk of this burden, obliged to deal with these despotic working conditions in their two-year internship and further year of mandatory community service in order to complete their qualification.
The University of Pretoria’s (UP) new language policy does not pass constitutional muster and leaves the university open to legal challenges.
In terms of the Higher Education Act, section 27(2), a university has the right and responsibility to determine its language policy, subject to the national policy of the Minister of Higher Education. In this regard, the national policy describes Afrikaans as medium of instruction as a “national asset”. The Ministry “acknowledges that Afrikaans as a language of scholarship and science is a national resource…(and) fully supports the retention of Afrikaans as a medium of academic expression and communication in higher education, and is committed to ensuring that the capacity of Afrikaans to function as such a medium is not eroded” (par 15.4). There are therefore no legal impediments from government’s side on the UP accepting Afrikaans (and any other language) as a language of instruction.
