A SINGLE CITIZENSHIP IN ONE UNDIVIDED SOUTH AFRICA

A SINGLE CITIZENSHIP IN ONE UNDIVIDED SOUTH AFRICA

By Solly Moeng

Mandela is regarded as the father of South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy, but many of us know that had he still been with us, the old man would admonish us for focusing only on the role that he played, insisting that he is just one of the fathers of our democracy, not the only one. He would also point out that our democracy has mothers, unsung heroines of the road South Africa had to travel in order to overcome the treacherous pain of apartheid. He would be correct on both counts.

While he is only a part of a collective that has spanned generations and many decades, few will deny the unique, lasting impact of Mandela’s name on the global campaign to place a human rights spotlight on apartheid South Africa – as well as his role in isolating the state and pressurising it to end its system of racial segregation and oppression.

Mandela will forever be remembered as the guardian of South Africa’s post-apartheid Constitution and Bill of Rights. His tireless fight for human rights and social justice has already been recorded in volumes of journals, magazines, academic papers and books sitting in scores of public and private libraries, book stores, shelves, coffee tables around the world. Even the music world has honoured him with songs spanning various continents and many languages to celebrate the man that he was.

But what do we really mean when we refer to Nelson Mandela as the guardian of South Africa’s Constitution?

THE VOLATILE NEGOTIATIONS CLIMATE

Considering all the ill-informed, contemporary, revisionist commentary with regard to the role played by former President Nelson Mandela in the period leading up to, during and following the adoption of South Africa’s interim and final Constitutions, it is necessary to return to the socio-economic and political context that prevailed in South Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Many current-day commentators, especially those who are young and were not around during those early days, tend to neglect the determinant role of context on the decisions taken in those days. Some forget the key focus and aims of the multi-party negotiations that paved the way to our postapartheid constitutional dispensation, thus enabling South Africa to avoid an inevitable civil war. What can be said with absolute certainty, however, is that the environment in the country in the period leading to and during the early 1990s was very volatile. Many people lost their lives in hostels across South Africa, in townships adjacent to hostels, in commuter trains, their homes and other places where they were attacked by factions supporting rival political formations. It was de rigueur during that period to refer to the heightened levels of bloodshed as ‘black-on-black violence’. Things were, however, far more complex than that, as subsequent evidence pointed to a proxy war being fought by a third force that funded at least one of the factions. Many indications pointed to government security forces funding and aiding the mayhem.

ROELF MEYER

Roelof Petrus Meyer, commonly known as Roelf Meyer, led the National Party’s negotiations team during the multiparty talks to develop South Africa’s new Constitution. He worked closely with Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa (now South Africa’s President), who led the ANC’s team. Other political formations also had teams actively participating in the process to give shape to a new political dispensation for South Africa, each one with its own vision and informed by its own wishes of the form that the dispensation would take.

Together, Roelf Meyer and Cyril Ramaphosa became almost inseparable in the eyes of the media and the general public, as they became the twin faces of the negotiations process. But observers will recall that the process was never a smooth one or, as South Africans like to say, it was never “a walk in the park”.

“On several occasions,” recalls Meyer, “things happened in the country that could easily have derailed the multiparty process. For me, two of the most poignant moments were the assassination of SACP leader Chris Hani in April 1993, and the Boipatong massacre in June 1992, during which 45 people were gunned down by government security forces.

“On both occasions, Nelson Mandela showed the desperately needed leadership and successfully called for calm in environments that could easily have led to the end of multi-party negotiations and a sure descent into countrywide and possibly irretrievable mayhem. Those were some of the times when levels of trust were either very low or near depletion, and Mandela emerged over and over again as the man of the moment to save us all from sure hell.”

When asked what he considers to be the highlights of the processes in the making, finalisation and adoption of the final Constitution of the Republic of South Africa – Chris Hani’s assassination and the Boipatong massacres being the low points – Roelf Meyer points to the adoption of the Record of Understanding on 26 September 1992 and the adoption of the interim Constitution in November 1993.

Roelf Meyer listens to questions from members of the board of Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the hearings in Johannesburg.

“Once we had agreed on the process”, no doubt under the leadership of Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, “I knew that I was part of the making of history; and Nelson Mandela was a very present and fatherly presence from the start to the end of that process”, he said.

Accordingly, the signing of the Record of Understanding constituted the real settlement between the ANC and the NP, as it paved the way to negotiations for the interim Constitution. The second round of negotiations took place after the historic 1994 elections and led to the adoption of the final Constitution in 1996.

For his part, Trevor Manuel, the much-admired and long-standing postapartheid Finance Minister under Mandela, Mbeki and, partly, under Zuma, describes Mandela’s entire leadership style as “very consultative”.

“Beyond the three parties represented in the Government of National Unity,” Manuel said, “Madiba also spoke to trade union leaders and ‘the captains of industry’ repeatedly. As early as 1990, he convened and addressed a meeting of business leaders at the Carlton Hotel, and he worked with business and trade unions in the National Peace Accord.”

In terms of the onset of the secret talks while Mandela was still in prison, Meyer is of a firm view that the steps taken by Mandela to “test the waters” and see if a peaceful resolution would be possible constituted, in hindsight, a smart move.

“Though regarded with suspicion by some people, those secret talks were crucial because the different parties still considered each other as arch enemies at the time and there was no chance of either of them swallowing their pride to publicly ask for negotiations without first testing public opinion. No one could tell what the public’s reaction would be on either side of the divide. It’s too easy for those who analyse the situation today, with the benefit of hindsight and without considering the political context of the time, to accuse Nelson Mandela of betrayal.”

Cyril Ramaphosa, Nelson Mandela, Leon Wessels and Thabo Mbeki at the signing of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa in May 1996.

LEON WESSELS

Leon Wessels, Minister of Planning and Provincial Affairs during the interim period (1992–1993) following Mandela’s release from prison and leading to the 1994 democratic elections, and Deputy Chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly in the period leading to the adoption of the final constitution in 1996, also only had admiration for Nelson Mandela.

“How I had arrived at the negotiating table and what I had to do there was not important to me. What mattered to me was that I was there when negotiations started in December 1991 at Codesa 1 in Kempton Park. I was part of the process until Nelson Mandela signed the Constitution on 10 December 1996 in Sharpeville, Vereeniging. That was a journey I would not have missed for anything in the world. To be so close to the Constitution drafting process was the most pleasing experience of my political career,” he said. However, he also lamented the extent to which political players from the two sides of the divide arrived at the negotiating table with very little appreciation of one another’s historic pains, fears and, one could say, prejudices. In his view, “there were too few ANC leaders with an understanding of white fears. Black people, with a few exceptions, didn’t understand how gashed we felt after the war against the British Empire. We, in turn, didn’t have the faintest idea how gashed they had felt after that war. Both groups had been humiliated. Black and white nationalism had to travel long, separate roads before the democratic elections of 1994 paved the way for a single citizenship in one undivided South Africa.”

On 10 December 1996, at the signing ceremony, Mandela said: “Today, together as South Africans from all walks of life and from virtually every school of political thought, we reclaim the unity that the Vereeniging of nine decades ago sought to deny.”

Nelson Mandela and Umkhonto we Sizwe chief of staff Chris Hani.