ARTICLE: TRAMPLING INTOLERANCE – WHY 16 NOVEMBER IS IMPORTANT
2017-11-16
The UN declared 1995 the year of Tolerance.
The UN declared 1995 the year of Tolerance.
For many South Africans, the daily news cycle feels like more of the same: body blows to the economy, bailouts to state-owned enterprises despite a revenue undershoot, and a governing party at war with itself, taking the rest of the country hostage in the process.
This most famous line in John Donne’s 1624 oeuvre, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, best sum up what may have been an ideal following the transition to democracy in South Africa in 1994.
The eight Foundations’ National Dialogue Initiative (NFDI) was successfully launched on 5 May in Johannesburg. The vast majority of the 300 people – from all walks of life and racial groups – who attended and participated in the group discussions, viewed it as successful. It was indeed a historic initiative and the spirit was one of shared and straightforward talk about our common future. The agenda of the future dialogues was determined by group discussions whereby topics that will be discussed nationwide over the next two years were identified. The next step is to have launch events at a provincial level.
The NFDI launch resulted in two coincidental reactions.
First, 40 EFF members (mostly young people), fuelled by a Tweet from one of their leaders that dialogue with FW de Klerk and his Foundation was unacceptable, stormed in after lunch after breaking through security. Initially they stood around because the NFDI was just dividing into small groups. The EFF members even accepted an invitation to form their own group and put their issues on the agenda. However, when they realised that their leader’s Tweet did not command cooperation and dialogue but rather, disruption, they refused to give feedback on their discussion.
As South Africans mourn the death of a great leader in Ahmed Kathrada, the broadest consensus on both social media and the mainstream, was one that expressed bereavement for a towering man who had lived through the worst of times and the best of times but died a sad man. Why was this so, we ask? Ahmed Kathrada’s poignant letter to the President summed up his and the views of millions of South Africans. We expected more, we expected better and are now bereft.
It was a poignant start to the Centre for Unity in Diversity’s Roundtable Series – held on 28 March in Cape Town – to pause and reflect on a great man’s legacy as we gathered to reflect on our first theme for the year, “Social Cohesion in Contemporary South Africa”. The Roundtable Series is crafted to stimulate discussion and debate on core issues that flow from the constitutional premise, “United in our Diversity”, captured in the Preamble.
“This Court and the country as a whole are now confronted with a situation where the executive admitted that it is unable to perform its constitutional and statutory responsibilities to provide social assistance to its people. And in the deepest and most humiliating irony it places its hopes in a private corporate entity to get out of this situation”
– Justice Johan Froneman, the Black Sash pronunciation, March 17, 2017
“The problem is that Hlaudi on went a campaign to appoint freelancers on a permanent basis. Now we are left with an exorbitant wage bill… They do not know what to do with all these people, because they do not have the skills to be moved to critical areas such as television and sales”
– Unknown senior SABC employee, Rapport, March 19, 2017
The killing of 69 unarmed people in Sharpeville, South Africa, protesting apartheid pass laws on 21 March 1960, stirred the conscience of the world and saw the United Nations General Assembly adopt a Resolution to declare the day International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 1966. ‘Sharpeville Day’ also became the origin for the post-1994 government of South Africa’s Human Rights Day, declared a public holiday.
While definitions of racism and racial discrimination are varied, at the heart of the matter is prejudice that is embedded in race, colour, ethnicity and often the combination of these. The UN, in its International Convention on All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965), defines it thus, “the term ‘racial discrimination’ shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, social, cultural or any other field of public life”.
In his State of the Nation (SONA) appearance, President Zuma said “we had stated our intention of using the Expropriation Act, 1975 (Act 63 of 1975) to pursue land reform and land redistribution, in line with the Constitution” (my emphasis).
In debating this, the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Gugile Nkwinti, on 14 February, said that the Government will undertake a pre-colonial audit of land ownership and “(o)nce the audit has been completed, a single law should be developed to address the issue of land restitution without compensation. The necessary constitutional amendments should be undertaken to effect this process”.
At the launch of Operation Phakisa’s agriculture, land reform and rural development leg on 24 February, Zuma asked the following rhetorical (and nonsensical) question: “How are we going to achieve all the goals mentioned in the State of the Nation Address and all the laws and policies that we are busy amending to enable faster land reform, including land expropriation without compensation as provided for in the Constitution” (my emphasis). On 3 March, in his official opening of National House of Traditional Leaders, the President repeated the Nkwinti statement almost verbatim. Land reform “in line with the Constitution” has quickly become “land restitution without compensation”.
The triumphant announcement of the 2016 matric results by the Minister and Department of Basic Education has subsequently been tempered as the harsh searchlight of reality has dawned.