Foreword
Since its inception in 1912, the African National Congress has always stood for a peaceful settlement of the fundamental political problems facing South Africa. It has also consistently sought to unify all the oppressed people (African, coloured and Indian) and democratic Whites in South Africa, with the view to mobilizing them in the struggle against apartheid. In the mid-fifties, the ANC felt that the time had come to draw up a charter or freedom, which would embody the hopes and aspirations of all our people, and their vision of the type of South Africa they wanted.
These are the essential elements that made up the essence of the 1954/55 campaign for the Congress of the People. This campaign culminated in the adoption on the 26 June 1955 of the Freedom Charter—a blueprint for the democratic South Africa of the future. The contents of this historic document remain as relevant today as they were relevant 40 years ago.
The turmoil and suffering which our country has undergone during the past four decades would have been avoided had the powers of those times been receptive and sensitive to the message and the content of the Freedom Charter. Instead, the Government reacted by arresting 156 leaders for high treason on the ground that the Freedom Charter was a treasonable document. Having banned the Charter at one stage it is only now that some National Party leaders acknowledge its true value.
The Congress of the People was an historic event, which fully deserves to take its rightful place in the history of the struggle for liberation in general, and in South African history in particular. Ismail Vadi's very exhaustive study of the COP does precisely that. Not only is his work a tribute to the major role-players of the time but also to all those who have made the necessary sacrifices in the cause of freedom.
VIII Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter Campaign
Coming as it does on the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Charter, Vadi's history of the Congress of the People is timely and most welcome.
I must commend him on a magnificent effort and I strongly recommend that the book be widely read.
Walter Sisulu |