'The Freedom Charter lies in ruins in democratic South Africa'

Kim Heller

In his address at the 1993 ANC national conference, Pallo Jordan said, "The ANC is not the master of the people. It is the servant of the people."

Today, the portraiture of the ANC as a devoted and dutiful servant to its citizenry has all but collapsed. The party of the people has abandoned its scripture. ANC leaders rule over South Africa as if they are remote landlords. Many avoid ordinary citizens as much as possible and visit poor communities in fancy motorcades when there is a calling to collect electoral votes.

Seventy years ago, in the dark days of apartheid, thousands of ordinary citizens gathered in Kliptown, Soweto, to adopt the Freedom Charter, a blueprint for a democratic and just South Africa. The ominous presence of armed policemen and the ever-present fear of political intimidation failed to subdue the revolutionary ring of "The People Shall Govern!" or the heady exuberance of grassroots activism.

The Freedom Charter was not an exclusive enclave or quick talk shop. It was not a political prank or political theatre, but the hard work of political purpose, collaboration, and community mobilisation. The Freedom Charter was the historical culmination of progressive organisations, leaders, and individuals united in a country-wide endeavour to re-imagine and co-author a better future. ANC leader Walter Sisulu described the Freedom Charter as the soul of the struggle for liberation and a symbol of the people's will, which cannot be muted.

In 1990, South Africa's first democratically elected President, Nelson Mandela, said, "The Charter is more than just a call to action. It is the foundation of our democratic Constitution." Although the principles of the Charter have been inscribed into the Constitution of democratic South Africa, these ideals have been neglected, if not vandalised.

The dire and despairing state of Kliptown is a living testimony to this. Shacks of misery and a tableau of poverty and joblessness mar the topography and serve as an everyday reminder of an incomplete liberation. Yearnings for a better tomorrow are now a ferment of discontentment, not only in Kliptown but across South Africa's poor and neglected communities.

The Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication, in the centre of Kliptown, is a bleak picture of dereliction. What should have been a proud monument to the Freedom Charter has become a crime scene—a tragic historical betrayal.

The Freedom Charter and the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) were expressions of democracy in action. Both were assertive and valiant acts of the power of the people in highly restrictive and perilous times. They were both strong covenants with ordinary people.

Today, in the open planes of democracy, conversations of national importance are more likely to take place in deluxe, air-conditioned boardrooms. VIP invitations and events have replaced volunteerism.

The proposed National Dialogue by Ramaphosa, estimated to cost R700 million, lacks the nation-building heart of the Freedom Charter initiative and its integrity of process. It lacks the spirit of volunteerism and grassroots involvement that underpinned the Freedom Charter and the birth of the UDF.

For now, the President's dialogue appears to be an excessively extravagant elite talk shop with poor reach into communities. EFF MP Sinawo Thambo spoke of the irresponsibility of the extravagant exercise. "While millions go hungry, the ANC splurges on dialogues that exclude the poor."

Economist Duma Gqubule reflected this week in Business Day about Ramaphosa's National Dialogue. 'The dialogue,' Gqubule writes, "will be like a distraction to pacify a restless, rebellious and polarised nation."

The Freedom Charter lies in ruins in democratic South Africa. Despite its broad and largely unthreatening liberal undercarriage and appeal, the Charter has not been enacted in democratic South Africa. This is yet another example of the ANC's systemic failure to deliver meaningful transformation.

This week, the ANC's national chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, was quick to defend the wins of the ANC, claiming that the majority of the Charters' promises have been implemented. However, despite some great strides, access to quality education remains uneven, wealth distribution has favoured elites, not citizens, and land justice is in permanent paralysis.

The ANC's calligraphy of today is poor governance, political expedience, and incomprehensible arrogance. Its inability to effectively implement meaningful radical policies has seen neo-liberalism score over nationalisation, and land justice being surrendered. Mandela's vision of education as the great equaliser remains a work in progress.

The ANC’s disconnect from grassroots constituencies will eventually lead to its demise. Its airbrushed talk shops are a world away from the daily struggles of ordinary South Africans. The persistent protests across disgruntled communities are a desperate plea for the government to listen - the last resort language of a powerless and voiceless citizenry.

The great nation builder and former editor-in-chief of Sowetan, Dr Aggrey Klaaste, wrote that leadership is not a privilege but a responsibility to serve. The ANC is failing to serve. The very notion of people's power has effectively been laid to rest at the feet of the ANC.

As we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, we should avoid finding comfort in easy-talk dialogue or the clamorous nostalgia of a more revolutionary time. Sentimentality does not help warm a child on the cold streets of Kliptown or soothe a jobless mother who wakes to yet another new dawn in the sorry shadow of freedom deferred.

The ANC may have well lost its soul. It has become the main protagonist in an epic saga of abandonment and betrayal of "We the People". This is nothing less than political sacrilege.

* Kim Heller is a political analyst and author of No White Lies: Black Politics and White Power in South Africa.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.