STATEMENT: THE FW DE KLERK FOUNDATION REFERS MINISTER BLADE NZIMANDE’S COMMENTS ON AKADEMIA TO THE CRL COMMISSION
2015-07-08
The FW de Klerk Foundation has referred comments made by Minister Blade Nzimande on the impermissibility of single-medium Afrikaans universities to the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Commission).
In terms of section 185(1)(a) of the Constitution the Commission is obliged to “promote respect for the rights of cultural, religious and linguistic communities”; section 185(2) authorises the Commission “to monitor, investigate, research, educate, lobby, advise and report on any issue concerning the rights of cultural, religious and linguistic communities”.
The FW de Klerk Foundation shares the concerns of participants in a recent private round-table discussion – mentioned in Business Day – on the functioning of Parliament, which was hosted by the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC).
In an article in Tuesday’s Media24 publications Max du Preez states that Dylann Roof, accused of killing nine black worshippers in Charleston, S. Carolina, “shares apartheid’s ideology.” Du Preez goes on to say that Barend Strydom’s random killing of seven black South Africans in 1989 made him think “that his (Roof’s) identification with apartheid wasn’t so inappropriate after all.”
800 years ago, on 15 June 1215, in a plashy meadow beside the River Thames in England, an event took place that would deeply affect the constitutional future – not only of the English people – but of countries throughout the world, including South Africa. On that day King John was forced by his barons to sign the Magna Carta – a document that introduced for the first time the notion that kings – and by extension governments – are ultimately subject to the Rule of Law.
Every now and then it is necessary to summon up the fortitude to read what the SACP is saying to its own support base in the Alliance. It was in this spirit that I recently delved into the 3 100 word message of Jeremy Cronin, the SACP’s 1st Deputy General Secretary, to the National Union of Mineworkers 15th National Congress.
Niël Barnard’s autobiography, Secret Revolution, provides an interesting insight into the secret negotiations between Nelson Mandela and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in 1988/89 that helped prepare the way to the constitutional transformation of South Africa.