"These freedoms we will fight for, side by side"

For about four decades during the years of struggle against the apartheid system, our movement observed June 26 as our Freedom Day. This was in tribute to that seminal document of the liberation movement, the Freedom Charter, which was adopted at the Kliptown Congress of the People on June 26, 1955.

The victory of the liberation struggle led to the holding of our first democratic elections on April 27, 1994, which is now our national Freedom Day. However, this does not diminish the importance of the Freedom Charter and the significance of June 26, which fell yesterday. This is particularly the case because the vision projected by the Freedom Charter continues to inform the work we are doing for the transformation of our country and continent.

Some of the most important statements in the Freedom Charter are contained in its Preamble, which begins with the words: "We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people."

The Preamble goes further to say: "We, the people of South Africa, black and white together, equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter; and we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won."

The Freedom Charter then ends with the stirring call: "Let all who love their people and their country now say, as we say here: these freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty."

Contained in the paragraphs we have cited are some of the ideas and concepts that define the very character of our movement. Because of their import with regard to the nature of our movement and its objectives, they also determine our strategy, tactics and actions.

The affirmation that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white", expresses our movement's commitment to a non-racial outcome of both our struggle and the process of reconstruction and development. It confirms our resolve to build a new South Africa characterised by its diverse population, made up of people of different colours and races.

When the Freedom Charter speaks of "black and white together, equals, countrymen and brothers", and of those "who love their people and their country", it communicates a message about our determination to build a new society of equals, free of discrimination, with all our citizens inspired by a spirit of national solidarity and a common patriotism.

When the Freedom Charter says "we the people of South Africa, black and white together.pledge ourselves to strive together" and that "these freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives", it makes the statement that all our people, black and white, have a common and shared responsibility to determine the future of a country that belongs to all of them.

Our country is the product of an unhappy history. For three-and-a-half centuries this history was characterised by a violent racial conflict, which resulted in the oppression of the majority and its exploitation for the benefit of the minority.

The settlement that resulted in the elections of April 27, 1994, closed this long and painful chapter in our history. It created the conditions for us to open a new page in the history of our country, to realise the vision contained in the Freedom Charter. We made this historic advance after a struggle through the centuries that claimed the lives of many of our people.

Our historical evolution through centuries of deadly conflict between a black majority and a white minority and the outcome of that conflict, suggest that our country should be characterised by deeply entrenched levels of racial tension and animosity.

It suggests that we should have an embittered majority driven by intense hatred and an uncontrollable desire for vengeance. It also suggests that we should have a fearful minority, ready to engage in a desperate defence against enraged hordes hungry for revenge. It suggests that, because of these two opposed camps, we are sitting on an unstable and powerful explosive mixture that would not need a powerful detonator to generate a most destructive explosion.

Furthermore, our country has the largest national white minority in the world. It is larger than the individual populations of a number of "white" /European countries. In terms of its size, it stands in a position relative to the African majority in our country, similar to that of the African-Americans compared to the white population of the United States.

However, these national minorities differ from each other in that in socio-economic terms, the white minority in our country enjoys a standard of living similar to that enjoyed by the white majority in the United States, while the black majority in our country shares levels of deprivation similar to those experienced by the African- American minority in the United States.

Almost everywhere on our continent, white settler communities in Africa left the continent as a consequence of the attainment of independence. This was as true of Algeria and Kenya as it was of Angola and Mozambique. Some of these, including those in Zimbabwe, migrated to South Africa, then a bastion of white minority rule, further to increase the size of both our national white minority and the numbers of those infused with racism.

Despite all these realities, at the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Johannesburg on June 26, 1955, representatives of the masses of our people, led by our movement, declared "for all our country and the world to know, that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white." They said that as a people, we should "fight side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty." They spoke of our people, black and white, living together as "equals, countrymen and brothers".

They could have spoken of "driving the white man to the sea", claiming our country as their exclusive patrimony.

They could have said the battle lines are clearly drawn, with the black people on one side, and the whites on the other, with no possibility that these would fight side by side for the same cause.

They could have called for retribution against the white minority that had caused them enormous pain, rather than offer them "brotherhood".

And yet they did neither of these things, consciously and systematically choosing the alternative route contained in the Freedom Charter.

In the period since our liberation in 1994, our movement has done everything necessary to ensure that it does not betray the noble principles in the Freedom Charter that define its character. It has striven to help develop our country to reflect the vision contained in the Freedom Charter, so that it truly belongs to all our people, black and white, living together as equals, brothers and sisters who love all our people.

For this reason, and because of the prevalence among the formerly oppressed of a political tradition of non-racism and humanism, developed over a long period of time in difficult conditions, the explosive mixture we inherited from our past has not exploded. Everyday, in word and deed, our movement works to ensure that it is defused, permanently.

As we mark the 48th anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter by the Congress of the People, we are justly proud of what we have done to give effect to the commitments the then oppressed made when they adopted the Freedom Charter.

Without fear of contradiction, we can say that we have placed our country on the high road that will lead us to the destination defined by brotherhood, sisterhood and equality among our people, and a shared sense of common belonging, of which the people spoke at the Congress of the People on June 26, 1955.

At the same time, we have a duty to admit our failures. In this regard, we must concede that we have not yet fully achieved the objective reflected in the Freedom Charter, to mobilise all our people, black and white, so that they "fight side by side, throughout their lives", to achieve the outcomes spelt out in that Charter.

During the years of struggle against the apartheid regime, only a handful of our brave and honoured white compatriots fought side by side with the black oppressed, together to attain liberty from white minority domination. In the period since the victory of the democratic revolution, we have continued to confront the challenge to mobilise our white compatriots to fight side by side with their black brothers and sisters, for the reconstruction, development and transformation of our country, consistent with the objectives contained in the Freedom Charter.

It is centrally important that we make better and faster progress towards the accomplishment of this goal. The creation of the kind of society visualised in the Freedom Charter requires that all our people should be makers of history, that they should be their own liberators from the legacy of colonialism and apartheid.

The act of involvement in the struggle to realise the objectives spelt out in the Freedom Charter makes it possible for us to achieve the desired material changes in our society. Equally important, it serves to define all those involved in this struggle as part of the mass army for change of which the Freedom Charter spoke when it said "these freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty."

The processes in which we are engaged for the reconstruction and development of our society are intended to create a people-centred society, encompassing all our people regardless of race, colour, gender, class, ability and age. But we have also said that we require a people-driven process of change, once more encompassing all our people, regardless of race, colour, gender, class, ability and age.

The changes we all seek are aimed at eradicating the race and gender imbalances and inequalities we inherited from the past, which continue to characterise our society. This will help to end the racial divisions among our people generated by that past.

At the same time, it is through the involvement of all our people in the common effort to change their lives for the better, side by side, to eradicate the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, that the people themselves will learn to take responsibility for one another, regardless of race or gender. In this way, they will give concrete expression to the vision spelt out in the Freedom Charter, that we should live together as "equals, countrymen and brothers", who love their people and their country.

By uniting in action across the colour-line, for the transformation of our country, we will make a decisive contribution to the eradication of the ideas and practices of racism in our country, and bridging the divide between "them and us".

This requires that all of us should not be satisfied merely to proclaim our commitment to the vision of a non-racial democracy. It demands that we all engage in the practical effort to build this democracy. This is both in the interest of all our people and a central part of the historic mission of our movement. It is through action that each one of us wins the right to call ourselves non-racist.

Those disadvantaged by the past have no choice but to engage in action for the realisation of the goal of a better life for all, including pushing back the frontiers of poverty. Those who benefited from the colonial and apartheid past face the challenge not merely to be satisfied to enjoy what accrued to them, but to join in action for the upliftment of those who were exploited and discriminated against, in their name and for their benefit.

It is in this context that we have called for a people's contract to push back the frontiers of poverty, for the transformation of our country so that it truly belongs to all who live in it, black and white, as the Freedom Charter says. To remain loyal to the vision contained in the Charter, we have to ensure that we continue to act to involve all our citizens in that people's contract for a non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous future.