Latest news with #RivoniaTrialists
IOL News
a day ago
- Politics
- IOL News
Madiba's legacy: Time to reclaim the soul of the struggle
ANC president Nelson Mandela smiles on April 27, 1994, as he casts his vote at the John Langalibalele Dube's Ohlange High School in Inanda, near Durban. We were once a society celebrated for the moral imagination of our negotiated settlement, hailed as a Rainbow Nation that chose dialogue over destruction, political patience over military confrontation. That fragile consensus has disintegrated, says the writer. Image: AFP Zamikhaya Maseti As the world paused to observe Mandela Day this week on July 18, 2025, we are reminded that this day, solemnly declared by the United Nations in 2009, stands not as a decorative event on the calendar but as a global summons to political and ethical conscience. Mandela Day was never meant to be reduced to a moment of philanthropy. It is a moral provocation. It demands reflection, honesty, and action from all of us, particularly those who profess to walk in the shadows of the long and unfinished journey that began long before 1994. On February 11, 1990, President Nelson Mandela emerged from Victor Verster Prison with his fist raised high in the air, a gesture that immediately entered the symbolic archive of revolutionary imagery. It was not a sign of triumphalism. It was a signal. A political message carved into the conscience of this country and the watching world. That image did not mark the end of the struggle. It marked its transformation. It did not signify closure. It announced a continuation. It called upon the oppressed and the marginalised, the landless and the working poor, to pick up where he and his fellow Rivonia Trialists had left off. The prison gates had opened, yes, but the gates of justice remained locked for millions. He did not emerge bitter after twenty-seven years of carceral humiliation. He came out with the integrity of purpose intact, preaching reconciliation, peace, and coexistence. The reconciliation was meant to be just, it was meant to be transformative, and it was meant to be rooted in redress. This year's Mandela Day finds South Africa at a historical crossroads. It coincides with the build-up to what may become a defining moment in the life of our post-Apartheid democratic project, the much-anticipated National Dialogue, now just a month away. In a previous reflection, I described the National Dialogue as a conversation we did not know we truly needed. It is now apparent that we are a society adrift, lacking a common moral vocabulary and torn apart by deepening social fragmentation. In the context of Mandela Day, we must be courageous enough to pose the most uncomfortable but essential questions. Have we remained faithful to the founding ethos of our democratic transition? Have we honoured Mandela's radical legacy, or have we betrayed it? We were once a society celebrated for the moral imagination of our negotiated settlement, hailed as a Rainbow Nation that chose dialogue over destruction, political patience over military confrontation. That fragile consensus has disintegrated. Today, we speak less like a Nation and more like a federation of bitter factions divided by race, class, geography, and ideology. The dream of non-racialism has withered into suspicion. The national unity once imagined in the fervour of 1994 has been replaced with racial scapegoating and retreat. This is not the country Mandela sacrificed his freedom for. This is not the inheritance his fellow Rivonia Trialists hoped to bequeath to future generations. Mandela Day must not be reduced to cooking for communities or painting classroom walls. These gestures are not inherently wrong, but they are dangerously insufficient. They become symbolic bandages on wounds that require political surgery. We need to elevate Mandela Day beyond gestures. It must become a platform to interrogate structural injustice, economic exclusion, and the social distance that continues to define our post-1994 reality. The uncomfortable truth is that we have regressed. The South African Nation, post-February 11, 1990, defined by an ethos of Rainbowism, has collapsed into a contest of parallel grievances. The original project of inclusive nation-building has been corroded by policies that, while well-intentioned on paper, have had contradictory consequences in practice. The Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy, for instance, while aimed at redressing apartheid-era dispossession, has inadvertently alienated certain sections of the Black majority (Africans, People of Colour, People of Indian origin, and the Khoisan People). When I refer to Black people, I do so in the tradition of the liberation movement as a historically defined social category forged through a collective struggle against colonialism, land dispossession, and Apartheid. That Black unity, painstakingly built in the trenches of resistance, is today fraying at the seams. We are witnessing a tragic reversal, a balkanisation of the oppressed into fragmented groupings, each speaking a different political grammar, each wounded by a different historical wound. Instead of deepening national unity, certain policies have created perceptions of intra-Black competition, fuelling resentment, bitterness, and ultimately disunity. We must confront the ideological implications of this drift. The emergence of what I call the Lumpen Bourgeoisie, a predatory class in itself, lacking revolutionary consciousness, obsessed with accumulation and proximity to power, stands in stark contrast to the National Bourgeoisie, a class for itself with a progressive mission, national vision, and clarity of purpose. The former is transactional and extractive. The latter, at least in theory, is meant to be developmental and historically conscious. The BEE unintentionally fostered the rise of the former while neglecting the ideological nurturing of the latter. This is not an attack on BEE per se. It is a call for its recalibration, for its redistributive potential to be realigned with the historic aspirations of the Freedom Charter and the social compact imagined at the birth of our democracy. Policies must not only transfer wealth, but they must build productive capacity, foster unity among the oppressed, and dismantle systemic privilege at its root. Equally important is the role of White South Africans in the post-1994 Nation. We cannot build a united country if significant sections of the population continue to self-isolate and insulate themselves from national challenges. The recent episode involving forty-nine self-exiled White farmers who left South Africa under the illusion of genocide and were caught in the geopolitical crossfire of a now-fractured Trump-Musk alliance is telling. It reveals the continued racial distrust, the misinformation industry, and the alienation of White South Africans from the collective destiny of this country. It also reveals a troubling reality that we are once again singing from two hymn books, one Black, the other White. These wounds will not heal through sentimentality. They require political honesty, institutional courage, and leadership with historical memory. That is why the National Dialogue is important. It must be a space where these contradictions are surfaced without fear. The Dialogue must ask why Mandela's Rainbow Nation has faded. The reconstruction of national unity cannot be subcontracted to slogans. It must be lived, nurtured, and constantly renewed. Mandela Day offers us a moment to recommit to the work of Nation-Building. It invites every South African, Black or White, rich or poor, urban or rural, to become an active participant in the unfinished struggle for a just and equal society. We all have a role to play in bridging the fissures of mistrust and despair. Mandela Day must be a call to civic renewal, to ethical leadership, and deep, principled reconciliation. Not the reconciliation of forgetfulness, but the reconciliation of truth, justice, and inclusion. In the name of Mandela, we must confront the fractures, realign our compass, and rebuild a Nation worthy of his legacy. * Zamikhaya Maseti is a Political Economy Analyst with a Magister Philosophiae (M. PHIL) in South African Politics and Political Economy from the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE), now known as the Nelson Mandela University (NMU). ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
IOL News
26-06-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Reflecting on 70 years of the Freedom Charter: a journey towards equality
A copy of The Freedom Charter, signed in 1960 by, among others, Chief Albert Luthuli. Image: Cara Viereckl/African News Agency(ANA) SEVENTY years ago, on June 26, 1955, the Freedom Charter was adopted at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. It followed Professor ZK Matthews' suggestion in 1953 to hold a "national convention" to formulate "a Freedom Charter for the democratic South Africa of the future". While not produced by the ANC, it was closely associated with the ANC. People from different walks of life were asked what kind of South Africa they wished to live in, as an alternative to the horrors of apartheid. Their responses were stitched together to create the Freedom Charter. After 1960, with the banning of the African National Congress (ANC) and other political movements and the suppression of protest, the Freedom Charter went out of view. It reappeared when resistance to apartheid began to grow again. In 1980, the Sunday Post published the Freedom Charter and an article on its history. The 1981 Anti-Republic Day movement that protested the racist white republic promoted the Freedom Charter as the basis for a democratic people's republic. The preamble of the Freedom Charter written on the holding cell that the Rivonia Trialists were kept at the Palace of Justice. Image: Masi Losi/African News Agency (ANA) Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad Loading On its 30th anniversary in 1985, it was widely promoted. Many anti-apartheid organisations adopted the Freedom Charter as their manifesto. The Freedom Charter responded to white minority rule, segregation, and the white monopoly of the land, mines and economy, of professional and well-paying jobs and of educational opportunities. It stated that South Africa belonged "to all who live in it, black and white", based "on the will of all the people". It declared that "the people shall govern", that "all national groups shall have equal rights" and all were to "enjoy equal human rights" and "be equal before the law". It called for everyone to "share in the country's wealth", for "the land (to) be shared among those who work it" and for all to have "work and security" and be treated equitably. There was a pledge to ensure "houses, security and comfort" and provide food security and health care. Recognising the importance of education and knowledge, there was a commitment to open "the doors of learning and of culture", ensure "free, compulsory, universal and equal" education for all and sport and recreation opportunities for everyone. Instead of apartheid's militarism, hostility to neighbouring countries and pariah status, the Freedom Charter sought "peace and friendship", "self-determination for all" and peaceful relations with other countries. Seventy years after the Freedom Charter was born and 30 years into democracy, South Africa is a very different and better society, especially for black and women South Africans. Unfortunately, despite strong support and the opportunity to fundamentally remake our country and achieve the Freedom Charter's goals, the ANC squandered the opportunity. Rather than the people governing, popular participation and a grassroots democracy, we have rule by elites focused on their interests and aloof from the people. ANC policies have done little to eliminate inequality and poverty, redistribute land, create decent jobs and ensure effective social services. We are a long way from everyone sharing in South Africa's wealth, the land being shared equitably and 'work and security' for all. Our "wealthiest 10% owns 85% of all household wealth"; the "wealthiest 0.1% own 25% of it". The "wealthiest 3 500 people own more than the most impoverished 32 million. Nowhere else do so few own so much. And there are few other places where that privilege is protected so fiercely to the detriment of the impoverished". Despite considerable investment in education, the children of the impoverished largely end up in the same position as their parents. There are probably less opportunities in black communities and for black youth to play sport today than under the non-racial sports movement of the 1980s. Chauvinists use identity politics to define who is a South African, African, and black in ever more narrow terms. By freezing identities along racial lines, they compromise building a non-racial society in which "race" eventually does not matter. In the international arena, South Africa has won admiration for its stand on the Israeli genocide in Palestine. But commitment to self-determination for all and "peace and friendship" has been inconsistent. We allow coal exports to Israel and are muted on some issues because of material interests. The Freedom Charter is a radical national-democratic manifesto. Neither a liberal reformist nor a socialist programme, it was a positive response to racial and national oppression. Its goal was a non-racial democracy and a unitary national democratic state. For some, the Freedom Charter represents their goals in full. If there has been some progress towards achieving those goal, there is some way to go to achieve what the ANC calls the "national democratic revolution". For others, the Freedom Charter represents their minimum goals. They seek to extend and deepen those goals to build a socialist South Africa that ends the rule by the wealthy and ensures greater equality. Manifestos are important but guarantee nothing. It is struggles waged by mass organisations, the conditions under which they occur, the nature of leadership, and whether there is working class leadership that determines the outcomes of freedom struggles. South Africa in 2025 is a shamefully unequal, unjust and unstable society. The impoverished grind out an existence, while the rich and middle classes flaunt their wealth and fortify themselves behind electric-fences and ubiquitous security companies. It cries out for a social movement with an ethical and capable leadership that is committed to sustainable economic development, eliminating inequality and impoverishment, ensuring fair and just treatment for all and promoting greater participation and democracy. Professor Saleem Badat Image: Supplied Saleem Badat is Research Professor in the Department of History at the University of Free State and the former vice-chancellor of the university currently called Rhodes. ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. THE POST
