Issued by Daniela Ellerbeck on behalf of the FW de Klerk Foundation on 12/08/2025

Yesterday, the FW de Klerk Foundation addressed the G20 Interfaith Forum, being held in Cape Town, with Executive Director Christo van der Rheede speaking on the Challenges of Inequality: How Inequality is Understood, Challenges of Colonial and Political Legacies. Van der Rheede emphasised the need for communities to reflect on their ownership of the Constitution and Bill of Rights through active citizenship.

“In 1994, South Africa became a constitutional democracy with a Bill of Rights with the hope of leveraging the Constitution to bring a better life for all. What we have seen for the past 30 years is high levels of corruption, inequality, crime and civil disobedience. The big question is what went wrong. Part of the answer is that to a very large extent, communities have divorced themselves from their responsibilities: If democracy is only understood as voting every five years and leaving the rest up to politicians, it creates the very conditions that have led to South Africa’s current challenges.”

On the national dialogue, he stressed the importance of communities forging a social compact with the government and holding it accountable to the Constitution’s founding values of openness, responsiveness and accountability. “An empowered community that has knowledge of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, that understands its constitutional rights and obligations is the best guarantee to take SA forward.”