ARTICLE: CONSTITUTIONAL EDUCATION THE KEY TO SOUTH AFRICAN TOLERANCE
2014-11-14
16 November is the United Nations’ International Day for Tolerance.
16 November is the United Nations’ International Day for Tolerance.
The current crisis in the Ukraine points to one of the central challenges of the new millennium: the need to ensure the peaceful coexistence of diverse ethnic, religious and linguistic communities within the same country.
In an article that he wrote for Rapport last Sunday, Frans Cronje of the Institute for Race Relations quite rightly warned South Africans to plan for all eventualities.
The central message of President Zuma’s second inaugural address is that, during the next five years, his new government will launch the “second phase of our transition from apartheid to a national democratic society.
According to media reports, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development is getting ready to introduce indigenous language courts “in an attempt to speed up justice” and “make courts more accessible”.
A pilot project for indigenous language courts was run in 2009, but was stopped after an assessment by the Department. The Department stated last month that it was reopening the project.
According to the Department, the objective is to introduce and promote the use of indigenous languages in a few courts, then to expand to other courts.
There are a few points that we should consider in the wake of last week’s election.
The first – and most positive – is that the fifth election of our new constitutional dispensation has helped to consolidate and entrench our constitutional democracy. The elections were free and fair and were, on the whole, managed in an exemplary fashion. All those involved – the 18.6 million voters who cast their ballots; the political parties that participated and the IEC – deserve our sincere congratulations.
World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of a UNESCO General Conference.
Since then every 3rd of May is an anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek and is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day. It is an opportunity to:
A core policy directive in the Department of Sport and Recreation’s 2013 White Paper on Sport and Recreation stated that “The racial composition of national teams should not be advocated, nor should National Federations be prescribed to on how they should select their teams. National teams should be selected on merit but transformation should be implemented at school/youth levels to prepare a broad basis of athletes for participation at higher levels in future”.
South Africans would do well to take note of President Zuma’s statement in Parliament yesterday regarding the ANC’s plans to “intensify the implementation of affirmative action policies in order to deepen reconciliation and social cohesion in our country.” The President did not grab these ideas from the air – they are a core element of the second phase of the ANC’s National Democratic Revolution.