The Freedom Charter - Beacon for the Liberation Struggle
We are living in the presence of history. We are starting out with firm tread on the history of the liberation of our land and of all its people. This is the meaning and the message of the Congress of the People and of the Freedom Charter. Wherever men stand up to fight for any of the good things of life which make up freedom, they will, from now on, know that they fight with all who support the Charter... The COP is not the end, but the beginning of a stirring chapter in the history we make for ourselves, the beginning of the surging advance of our people towards freedom. Historians have made the error of seeing the Congress of the People as the end of the campaign for the Freedom Charter. They have tended to concentrate on more dramatic political events of the period, most notably the October 1955 and August 1956 women's protests against the introduction of passes to African females and the treason trial.
Consequently, they have neglected to focus on two important tasks that were undertaken by the Congress Alliance, viz., the popularisation of the Freedom Charter in the form of the One-Million Signature Campaign and the formal adoption of the document by the sponsoring organs of the COP. The former remained the responsibility of the NAC; the latter was an internal matter for each Congress. Both tasks were not without major problems, particularly for the ANC.
In its report to the Joint Executives of the Congresses, the NAC argued that "the most urgent task" of the Congress Alliance after June 1955 was to hold report back meetings in urban and rural areas where the COP and the Freedom Charter were to be discussed, and support for the latter secured through individual endorsement of the Charter. Such a popularisation effort, according to me NAC, would continue to stimulate the local COP committees and sustain contact at a mass level, and discussions on the demands of the Charter would lead to a raising of political consciousness of the masses.
The allocation of signature quotas to the various provinces were as follows:
The NAC called for a "spirit of healthy competitive mood between the various provinces" and emphasised mat efforts had to be made to obtain support for the Charter from "every organisation throughout the land". Finally, the NAC proposed the formation of a "standing committee of the joint executives" at national and provincial levels, which would coordinate the popularisation campaign and future joint campaigns of the Congress Alliance. A discussion paper aimed at Congress activists outlined the aims and objectives of me Million Signatures Campaign in the following way:
Despite the formulation of a dear plan of action by the NAC, the Million Signature Campaign was a failure mat was publicly acknowledged by the Congress Alliance. In total, not more than 100,000 signatures were collected, half of which came from the Transvaal. What follows, therefore, is only a brief description of the methods used to popularise the Charter in this province.
The main reason for the limited success of the popularisation campaign in the Transvaal was the early establishment of the Transvaal Consultative Committee. By July 1955, a series of public meetings had been held to popularise the Charter and discuss its contents at a mass level. Police recordings of these meetings indicate that rallies were held at the Luthuli Square (Jabavu) on 17 July, Dadoo Square (Moroka) on 28 August, No. 2 Square (Alexandra Township) on 10 July, in Moroka West on 4 March 1956 and in Alexandra on 8 April 1956. Speakers at these gatherings explained the clauses of the Charter and linked them to the oppressive urban living conditions of African people. At a newly formed ANC branch meeting in Daveyton, 200 members signed the Freedom Charter.
The Transvaal Consultative Committee had set aside 17-22 October 1955 as "Freedom Charter Meeting Week" where various Congress branches were called upon to hold "house meetings, public meetings in Squares and lunch-hour meetings" to popularise and explain the Freedom Charter.
Similarly, the Joint Executives of the Congresses had set aside me 3-4 December 1955 as National Days for the Freedom Charter Campaign. Public meetings were held intermittently in different urban areas in the Transvaal, building up to Area Conferences in the first week of June 1956 on the West Rand, Pretoria, Alexandra, Western Areas, South Western Region and Johannesburg Central. Finally, on 26 June 1956, a Freedom Day Rally was held at Kliptown to commemorate the adoption of the Freedom Charter.
Activists going house to and at factories also collected signatures. The November 1955 edition of Forward to Freedom reported that SACTU members and organisers were busy collecting signatures at factories, that activists in Alexandra had divided the area into blocks and were canvassing for signatures from house to house, and that 1000 and 300 signatures were collected in Germiston and Natalspruit respectively. Congress of Democrats branches in Bellevue, Hillbrow, Greenpark and Northern Areas had collected signatures at busy shopping centres and different blocks of flats. In addition, popularisation methods included the printing of the Charter in different languages, the chalking of demands on walls, the printing of Freedom Charter posters and the publication of regular issues of the Transvaal Consultative Committee's bulletin, toward to freedom. The Transvaal Indian Youth Congress offered a free trip to Cape Town for the first person who would collect 1,000 signatures.
After an entire year the Million Signatures Campaign was a dismal failure. The National Consultative Committee noted that me campaign was "a very ambitious scheme" and that "neither the adequate popularisation of the Charter nor the building of the organisation had been achieved through the campaign." It eventually recommended that the form of the campaign "be wound up and new methods of popularising the Charter (be) adopted"—one that would link the Charter more directly to the local issues affecting the people."
What explains the failure of the Million Signatures Campaign? The National Consultative Committee (NCC) cited organisational weaknesses as the primary reason for the failure. A major problem was the long delay in constituting the Provincial Consultative Committees in Natal and the Cape. The only explanation given by the NCC was mat the constituent organs in the provinces had simply failed to provide the names of their representatives who were to serve on the provincial arms of the Consultative Committees. In addition, the NCC repeatedly lamented the fact that as a coordinating body it lacked the organisational and financial resources to spearhead the popularisation campaign at grassroots level rendering it more of a "talking shop" that was handing out instructions and directions to branches of national organisations, which the latter failed to implement. The following is an extract from a report filed by an information garnering group on a national tour on behalf of the NCC:
It is quite dear that very little work has been done by the regions by way of implementing the directive of the NCC, particularly with regard to the One Million Signature Campaign for the Freedom Charter, even though the regions have received directives about this campaign. It is, however, apparent from observations mat the following were the reasons for this state of affairs:
This view is corroborated by an activist of the time who felt that apart from the popularisation campaign being overshadowed by events which were of more immediate importance such as Anti-pass protests of women and the treason arrests and trial, it was a little bit of an artificial campaign that was more of a formality and which didn't arouse the same kind of enthusiasm as the CoP. This failure on the part of the Congress Alliance its leadership and rank and file to link the Freedom Charter to the immediate and direct experiences of oppression and exploitation of Black people and integrate it with their day-today struggles underplayed the long-term significance of the document. As another leadership element noted, "It took a long time to tell the people that the Freedom Charter was an important political document; it wasn't just another resolution. For many, life continued to go on unchanged. Its political significance wasn't fully appreciate, as they (the people) couldn't immediately see the prospect of its implementation, as is the case currently."
Then there were those, particularly in the ANC, who argued that in view of the controversy surrounding the consents of the Freedom Charter, the popularisation process should be halted until the Charter had been formally accepted or rejected by the organisation at its Annual Conference. This meant that in areas where the Africanist were vocal, as in Natal, parts of Transvaal and Eastern Cape, the campaign was not implemented at all. These differences were felt at the leadership level in provinces and nationally.
Some members argued that because the Freedom Charter has not been accepted by the Conference it was wrong constitutionally and procedurally to popularise the Charter and to accept it as Congress policy. Others felt that while it might be so people have already been asked to sign the Charter and popularise it, and that the meeting of the Joint Executive Committee of the Congresses established the National Consultative Committee whose task, among other things, was to draw up plans for the popularisation of the Freedom Charter. It was, therefore, difficult for the ANC to be indifferent to the Freedom Charter. It was finally decided that the areas that have been carrying out the campaign for the Charter should continue to do so ..."
This explains, for instance. Professor Matthews' refusal to sign the Freedom Charter prior to its ratification by the ANC's highest policy-making organ, the Annual National Conference. Reggie Vandeyar, from the TIC, offered the following explanation for the failure of the campaign:
Criticisms about the contents of the Charter came from three sources, viz., Africanists, "African-liberals" such as Jordan Ngubane, and loyal ANC leaders and activists, mainly from Natal. Each 'grouping' criticised me Charter for very different political reasons, but it was the Africanists who were most outspoken. Gilbert Marcus has noted that the Africanists who rejected cooperation with the whites, coloureds and Indians were not in favour of adopting the Charter as official ANC policy. They rejected the Freedom Charter, "insisting mat it contained foreign ideas' of no use to Africans. To them/ the Charter was merely a device by which the other Congresses could lead Africans by the nose. They objected to equality being accorded to other ethnic groups, opposed the economic clauses and impugned the motives of the charterists, who, they said, were diluting African Nationalism."
More specifically, in a leaflet distributed in his personal capacity, Hezekiel Ndaba, presumably of the Africanist faction, criticised the statement in me Charter which stated that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it. Black and White." He argued that South Africa historically belonged to Africans, and not Whites, "but now (through the Charter) it has been practically made safe for Whites alone, through conquest and trickery." Secondly, he refused to be bluffed by the assertion that "We, the people of South Africa, black and white together—equals, countrymen and brothers—adopt this Charter." Ndaba's polemic called for a falsification of the idea that blacks and whites were equals. He further questioned the "motives for the immediate adoption of the Charter" and the need for unity that was "imposed from the top". He finally recommended that "a document of such magnitude needs sufficient time, even years, for the people to study, and deliberate on, before the nation could be asked to accept it." In a similar vein, other Africanist spokesmen, such as Leballo, claimed that the Freedom Charter "contradicted the constitution of the ANC" and that it was "drawn in Russia." Dr. Tsele stated at the ANC's Annual Conference that the "land belongs to Africans only and other race groups being helpers in the struggle cannot claim ownership."
Luthuli, anticipating such criticisms from the Africanists, responded in a message for the ANC's Annual Conference (1956) by reiterating his broader definition of African Nationalism which included all those, irrespective of their race, who supported the ANC. Luthuli's message made the point of an "all-inclusive Africans Nationalism which... embraced all people... regardless of their racial or geographical origin who resided in Africa and paid their undivided loyalty and allegiance to Africa."
Dr. Conco expressed a similar view in an article entitled "The Struggle for Liberation":
Liberals, both black and white, found the Freedom Charter objectionable on the grounds that it had a socialistic orientation, and they suspected that the former members of the Communist Party had a major hand in its drafting. Their anti-communism, like that of the Africanists, led them to reject the document. They charged that it was "deliberately vague" in order to accustom the Africans to the idea of nationalisation that was embodied in the economic clauses of the Charter. Jordan Ngubane, who later became a member of the Liberal Party, claimed that the Charter's purpose was to "condition the African people for the purpose of accepting communism via the back door." The Drum, reporting on the differing ideological tendencies within the ANC in mis period, stated that "the leftists have staked a very strong claim for a Marxist basis... so much so that ... there was introduced into me Freedom Charter the principle of nationalisation—something which commits the ANC as one of the sponsors of the Congress of the People to a new economic principle." It goes on to insinuate that "Leftists" pressed for the Million Signature Campaign so that the Freedom Charter would become ANC policy by fait accompli before its adoption at me National Conference.
Recognising that liberals and Africanists alike, in their criticisms of the Chapter, were really aiming at former members of the CPSA and others in the Indian Congress and COD, the latter submitted a lengthy message of support to the 43rd Annual Conference of the ANC in which these issues were openly addressed. The SACOD argued that:
The Freedom Charter lays down the basis for democratic government of the people, by the people. It aims at the destruction of everything that is responsible for the present system of racial oppression, cheap labour and semi-colonialism.... The Freedom Charter is the people's objective in their struggle for freedom as expressed in the thousands of demands sent in by the people.... As such it covers the whole field of government and human relations.
The most constructive criticisms of the Charter had come from Luthuli and his colleagues in the Natal ANC. Their difficulty with the contents were carefully tabulated in a resolution adopted at the Provincial ANC Conference in October 1955. The resolution urged the ANC to critically scrutinise the Charter before formal ratification. It specifically called upon the national organisation to review the section on equal rights for all national groups as it tended to over-emphasise "racial distinctiveness and suggested a phrase that would emphasise the building of one united nation." It added that some sections were "padded" with unnecessary detail, for example, specifying a forty-hour week and the kinds of assistance to be given to farmers.
Finally, it suggested that the courts should be impartial and not necessarily "representative of all racial groups." In his autobiography, Luthuli claims that "mere were principles in the Charter which had not previously been part of Congress". He, therefore, had sent a message to the Special Conference of the ANC on 31 March - 1 April 1956 to "discuss very carefully such things as, for instance, the principle of nationalisation," although he in principle was not opposed to a form of "limited nationalisation". Despite these misgivings, Luthuli emphasised the historical validity of the Freedom Charter. "The Freedom Charter is open to criticism," he wrote later. "It is by no means a perfect document. But its motive must be understood, as must me deep yearning for security and human dignity from which it springs.'
These debates on the Freedom Charter were officially resolved at the Special ANC Conference held over Easter in 1956 at the Orlando Communal Hall. Beginning with the controversy about the accreditation of delegates, the Freedom Charter was finally adopted as ANC policy "in the midst of disruption and scuffling between ANC loyalists and Africanists." Africanists claimed that the Conference had been packed with non-delegates and that the Charter was undemocratically railroaded as ANC policy. New Age reported that only 16 Africanists voted against me Charter of the 224 delegates mat attended.'
Formal ratification of the Freedom Charter by the ANC did not bring an end to the conflict between me minority Africanists faction and the loyal "charteists". As is well known, the Africanists were eventually to break away from the ANC in 1959 and establish me Pan African Congress on the basis of narrow African nationalism. However, several months after the Special Conference, Mandela analysed the question of nationalisation and monopolisation in Liberation, unofficially the theoretical journal of the Congress movement. Mandela made the following statement on the principle of non-racialism and the characterisation of the Charter
For the first time in the history of our country the democratic forces, irrespective of race, ideological conviction, party affiliation or religious belief, have renounced and discarded racialism in all its ramifications, dearly defined their aims and objects and united in a common programme of action. The Charter is more than a mere list of demands for democratic reforms. It is a revolutionary document precisely because the changes it envisages cannot be won without breaking up the economic and political set-up of present South Africa. ....
Whilst the Charter prod aims democratic changes of a far-reaching nature, it is by no means a blueprint for a sodalist state but a programme of the unification of various dasses and groupings amongst the people on a democratic basis.... Its declaration "The People Shall Govern!" visualises the transfer of power not to any single social but to all the people of this country, be they workers, peasants, professional, men, or petty-bourgeoisie.
With regards to the economic clauses of the Freedom Charter, Mandela argued:
For the first time in the history of the country the Non-European bourgeoisie will have the opportunity to own in their own name and right mills and factories, and trade and private enterprise will boom and flourish as never before. To destroy these monopolies means the termination of the exploitation of vast sections of the populace by mining kings and land barons and mere will be a general rise in the living standards of the people. It is precisely because the Charter offers immense opportunities for an overall improvement in the material conditions of all classes and groups that it attracts such wide support."
The debate on these crucial issues continued well after the formal adoption of the Charter as can be seen from the following comment that appeared in New Age:
Some are concerned that this solution (economic clause of the Charter) is an advance of what should be the programme of a national liberatory struggle and that it might commit the national movement to socialist aims. Whatever one's views might be as to the desirability of establishing a socialist system in South Africa the immediate aim of the liberatory movement is not and cannot be the establishment of socialism...
In any event, socialism and the nationalisation of the basic wealth of country are not synonymous terms.... The Charter does not advocate the abolition of private enterprise, nor is it suggested that all industries be nationalised or that all trade be controlled by the state."
The Freedom Charter is not a socialist programme, nor does it envisage the creation of a bourgeois-democratic state. It is essentially a "national democratic programme that was very far-reaching given me historical period in which it was compiled." Lionel Bernstein has emphasised that the Charter did not originate from a "dear-cut socialist outlook; instead, it emerged from a libertarian outlook that recognised that the full implementation of its demands was just not possible when one section of the population monopolised economic and political power." Lalloo Chiba has characterised the Charter as a "transitional document"—a political programme aiming at the creation of a national democratic state which lies somewhere between a bourgeois democracy and a socialist state.
The degree to which it lies closer to one or me other state form will depend entirely on the balance of class and national forces at the moment of transition, when political power is transferred to the people as a whole through negotiations or seized by them by force. Steve Tshwete has introduced the notion of the Charter being a document of "minimum and maximum demands", "maximum for me progressive bourgeoisie, a component in the struggle, and minimum for the working class. In other words, the bourgeoisie will not strive for more than is contained in the Charter, while the working class will have sufficient cause to aspire beyond its demands."
For the purposes of this study, however, it is vital to analyse the Charter within me historical context in which it was born rather than in relation to criticisms, as from Africanists, for example, or from current political debates regarding the development of a socialist project in South Africa. This, therefore, requires an analysis of the social, economic and political realities of the mid-1950s, that is, the objective material context in which demands flowed in to me Committees responsible for drafting the Freedom Charter.
The preamble of the Charter declares that South Africa belongs to all who live in it and that no government can claim authority unless it is based on me will of the people. This embodies two fundamental historical principles mat have characterised ANC policy towards people who have come as settlers or indentured labourers in past centuries. Firstly, as a representative political organ of the indigenous people, it had come to accept without reservation that "all me people who have made South Africa and have helped build it up, are components of its multinational population, and will be in a democratic South Africa one people inhabiting their common home." Secondly, the ANC had accepted another cardinal democratic principle that any future government should be fully representative of its entire people, and that it would not be dominated by a particular racial group.
The first clause of me Charter—The people shall govern— stemmed from an awareness that me Union Parliament was racially exclusive; that from the 153 European MPs, 150 were elected by European voters and me three others by African male voters in the Cape Province only, and that the four Senators representing Blacks were elected indirectly by Africans in the four provinces. Similarly, with the passing of the Separate Representation of Voters Act, coloureds were removed from the common voters' roll and placed on a separate voters' roll, and four Europeans were to be elected to Parliament by coloured voters—one in each province.
The Bantu Authorities Act had provided for the establishment of ethnic, advisory, tribal authorities consisting of chiefs and headmen in the Reserves with no real power to tackle major issues such as land shortage. Likewise, Advisory Boards though elected by residents in locations and consisting of African members and a white chairman (often the local superintendent), lacked the power to address the basic needs and grievances of urban blacks. The Congresses held me view that "Parliament did not represent me South African people—it is controlled by the white farmers, mine-owners and factory bosses... (and mat) the laws which are passed by Parliament are aiming at keeping political power in the hands of these people and preventing non-Europeans from gaining democratic rights and a decent life." Against this background the Charter declares:
The clause—All national groups shall have equal rights— originated from a recognition that the Afrikaners and Englishmen were, and still are privileged by virtue of race, that their languages have official status in all institutions of state, in schools and in the administration, and that their cultures are officially promoted and developed. Through a variety of institutional measures the cultures of the African, Indian and coloured peoples have either been stunted in their development or perverted to promote ethnicity and social differentiation. On the contrary, the Freedom Charter asserts that democratic government of me people shall ensure that all national groups (not to be confused with the notion of nations) have equal rights; that there shall be equal status in the organs of government, in courts and in schools in so far as their national rights are concerned; that they shall have equal rights to use their own languages and to develop their customs and cultures; and, that all shall be protected against insults to their race and identity."
The third clause—The people shall share in me country's wealth—emerged from an understanding, particularly from SACTU members and officials, that the wealth of the country was not equitably distributed. This is how Ben Turok , introducing mis clause at the Congress of the People, addressed this question:
Mr Chairman and Friends, it is not only the Gold Mines mat are a curse to South Africa, it is also the monopoly industry, it is also the big factories throughout the country, it is also the factories that you find outside Johannesburg, inside Johannesburg, in Cape Town, in Port Elizabeth and in every big town. Wherever you find big factories you find many workers, and where you find many workers you find low wages, and where you find low wages you find a fat boss, a rich boss, a boss who oppresses you. Billy Nair added:
The Congress Alliance had observed that profits made in South African industries were being appropriated by British, American and local (Afrikaner and English) investors and capitalists. The Congresses argued that "this investment of American money affects our political life as well as our economy.... It means mat they take away our riches from us... For example, in 1947, the gold mines paid out 15 million pounds in dividends to owners. Of this, 8 million pounds went to-owners outside South Africa. In other words, we have lost 8 million pounds which was made by our workers." As far as me Congress Alliance was concerned, this exploitation of the economic resources was being facilitated by an oppressive political system. "Afrikaner nationalism, with its oppressive laws, assists big business to exploit the working people... to a maximum degree... This is a grave injustice, and can only be corrected if the people as a whole become the owners of the mines, the large factories and me farms.... It will end the cheap labour system and make sure mat every worker benefits from the work he does."
Against this background the Charter declares:
The clause that the land shall be shared among those who work it originated from the perception that fundamental pillar of white domination was the conquest and control of me land of me indigenous majority. Racial restrictions on land ownership and the unequal occupation of land, particularly in relation to me African majority, is me cornerstone of the policy of Apartheid and white supremacy. The Congress Alliance believed mat through its control of the land, me white minority in power exercises control not only over all those who are dependent on the land for their survival (in 1955, this group constituted one half of the total population) but also the production of food upon which the entire population is dependent "Land hunger" is also the principal reason for the "poverty or the African people which leaves them at the mercy of the bosses of the mines and factories, in town."
The Alliance further argued that the laws restricting ownership of land to Blacks were coupled with other laws, such as the Pass laws, which made "it impossible for a large/ permanent settlement of Africans in the towns to take place" which was essential for the "strengthening of the African working class with organisation arid experience." This process of land dispossession could be traced back a few centuries where "whites (had) managed, with their superior armed power, to conquer all areas occupied by the Africans." 42 Hence the Freedom Charter declares:
The fifth clause of the Freedom Charter—All shall be equal before the law—deals with the principles of a post-apartheid and judicial system. The Charter proclaims that no one be unfairly imprisoned, deported or restricted, that the shall be non-racial and representative of the people as a whole that any action that shall be taken against those who act contrary to the general interests of society or state shall have as its aim re-education, that the police and armed forces shall be non-racially organised and shall strive to protect and defend all; people that constitute the nation, and that all discriminatory laws shall be repealed.
These broad principles were developed from an understanding of the black people's bitter experience under a harsh and oppressive legal system. The Congress Alliance I that the entire legal system in South Africa—although based on Dutch and English law—was a product of an undemocratic socio-political order, and therefore could not be democratic and truly just in practice. "In a democratic society, the law will reflect me wishes of the people, and protect their welfare. In a society such as ours . . . where a minority enjoys economic, political and social baaskap over the majority, the law will reflect the wishes of me rulers, protects their interests, and be used to oppress the people." The Alliance noted that from 1910 to 1953, ninety-five racially discriminatory and oppressive laws covering virtually every sphere of social, economic and political life of blacks were passed by successive Union governments.
In addition, there was also gross inequality in me handling of cases by European court officials embodying within them the negative values of race superiority, thereby prejudicing the objectivity of the courts. Government officials, the police and soldiers "behave like little dictators", treating people harshly and acting without compassion and respect. Thus, the Congress Alliance concluded that "today South Africa is ruled on the basis of inequality and exploitation. The law serves to maintain baaskap and hence bears heavily on me vast majority of me people."
The essence of a Bill of Rights is embodied in the sixth clause of the Charter All shall enjoy human rights. Leaders of me Congress Alliance responded to me question "What are human rights?" In me following manner:
Surely it is mat me government is able to ban our meetings, to ban and deport our leaders, to make our organisations illegal, to raid our homes, to confiscate and ban our literature, to silence our speakers, to split and destroy our trade unions, to instruct us where to live and where not to live, to bind us with the chains of me pass laws, to educate our children for slavery, to deny us the right to strike or to protest by peaceful defiance under pain of the most savage and inhuman penalties... All such action is of the government conflict with the fundamental human rights and freedoms which have been accepted by me vast majority of the nations of the world . . . (and) have been expressed in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Thus the Charter declares:
The clause—there shall be work and security—makes a specific appeal to the workers of South Africa. In the 1950s workers were denied on racial grounds the basic rights of collective bargaining and strike actions, as were their right to form registered trade unions which would defend their interests and articulate their grievances and demands. Black workers were forced to belong to racially divided unions. The National government had the right to reserve specific jobs, as in the civil service and public sector, to whites exclusively. Moreover, black workers had to accept differential wage rates, which ensured mat they were the lowest paid workers in the South African economy. Coupled with the specific process of 'super-exploitation' in the urbanised areas, thousands of blacks were forced into migratory labour schemes leading to massive social upheaval and the breaking up of decent family life.
The Freedom Charter guarantees the rights of workers to form and join trade unions of their choice, to democratically elect their leaders and to enter into specific agreements with employers. The state shall recognise the right of all to work and to draw full unemployment benefits, and it shall guarantee the right of all workers to receive equal pay for equal work, irrespective of race. More specifically, the Charter calls for a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual and sick leave and full maternity benefits for working mothers. The Charter recognises the right of domestic and farm workers and civil servants to unionisation and to participate fully and freely in political activity. It proclaims that child labour, the compound and tot systems of accommodation and remuneration for work, respectively, and the contract/migratory labour would be abolished by the democratic government of the people.
E. Mphahlele motivated me clause—The doors of learning and culture shall be opened at the Congress of the People, in his speech he made mention of the fact that he "was one of three men who condemned Bantu Education when it was still the Eiselen Report", and consequently "the three of us cannot teach anywhere in South Africa". He added that he had refused to teach his pupils that "Chaka was a murderer" and mat they were "inferior to white men." He narrated the following fable to the COP:
... I want to tell you a little tale. A snake went up the tree and found the nest of a dove. The dove had its little ones in the nest; the snake swallowed the little ones of me dove and the dove flew away. The mother dove began to cry... a musician was walking by. The musician, hearing me cry of the dove, started to compose a song to the tune of the weeping dove, and he did this in such a way that his music stirred all the other animals in the world that they came together and joined forces; they drove the snake out and killed it.... Today... we see in our country that music and dancing and many other things, can be the cause of Justice. These animals wanted justice and killed the snake. I am not asking you to kill the snake. I am saying this that if we all join together we will make the snake so afraid that he will hide in his hole and die there of hunger.
He concluded by saying that people should look forward to the day "when culture shall unify us . . . where we shall have one movement, we shall have absolutely no distinctions... our culture... will not be a culture of Indians, of the Africans, it will be the culture of the people of South Africa."
In the process of popularising the Charter, Congress leaders spoke about the unequal per capita expenditure on black education as compared to mat of whites. They noted that 89 per cent of the African population was "totally illiterate", that schooling for blacks was not compulsory, and that not more than 27 per cent of those who had been to school had passed standard six. They exposed the fact that university education was segregated, that there were no technical colleges for blacks, mat major cultural facilities were reserved for whites, that there was censorship over the arts, that all major public libraries would not admit blacks as members, that blacks were barred from international competition and that all major national sports events were closed to blacks, either as participants or spectators. In short, the purpose of education was to educate "African people for inferiority" and culture was manipulated to divide people and pervert the mind.
It is against this backdrop that the Freedom Charter proclaims:
Helen Joseph introduced the clause—There shall be houses, security and comfort. She began by saying that "want and worry haunt the lives of the people of South Africa." Blacks "did not have proper houses, they must live in shacks and shanties and pandokkies, they must be couped up in ghettoes and locations." They travel in "crowded, dangerous buses and trains" and the "children must play in the streets and gutters because they have no other place to play," She added that the "houses have no lighting; water is a gift of nature, but it is not brought to the houses; many families must share one tap, the women must walk to fetch water (and) the people must walk alone in the dark night to go to the latrines." She spoke about Ac poverty of blacks, the undernourished children, me diseases and the absence of proper hospitals for all people. She argued mat it was the responsibility of the state to care for the old, the blind, the cripple and all those who were unable to work. She ended by calling for the scrapping of the Group Areas Act and enforced residential segregation, so that people could choose where they wished to live."
Speakers reporting on the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter had to point out that "South Africa... ranks as one of the countries in the world with the worst housing problems due to rapid industrialisation and the failure of the United Party and Nationalist Governments to build houses for the people." South Africa would need 350,000 houses by 1962 to catch up with the backlog in housing. In cape- Town alone, 20,000 houses were needed for me coloured population alone in the mid-1950s, yet the City Council had only built 500. Therefore, "a coloured worker who gets married at 25 years old and applies for a Council house will only get it when he is 65."
The lack of adequate and decent housing was a fundamental grievance of the working class in the 1940s and 1950s, with hundreds of thousand black workers living in makeshift homes in squatter camps, the limited, overcrowded freehold areas for urban blacks and single, male hostels and compounds. Yet, Congress leaders argued that the housing shortage was not an irresolvable social problem, provided that state spending and priorities shifted from the "modernisation" of the police and armed forces to addressing the needs of the black workers. "The increased national and class oppression in our country, means a direct cut in social services, including housing. ... In fact, the housing shortage could be overcome in a short time given peace and a people's government serving South Africa."
Thus me Freedom Charter declares:
Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished and laws, which break up families, shall be repealed. The tenth and final clause of the Freedom Charter proclaims that there shall be peace and friendship. In 1955, Southern African was not gripped by mounting regional conflicts and the African subcontinent was not aflame with wars. Yet, the Charter has committed a future, democratic South Africa to regional and international peace and friendship. It guarantees the sovereignty and safety of independent states and -promotes the rights of peoples of Southern Africa to national self-determination and independence. It further commits a post-apartheid South Africa to me settling of disputes by negotiation, thereby embracing fully and totally the ideals of the United Nations.
The Freedom Charter was the ultimate fruit of the labour undertaken during the campaign for the Congress of the People. In totality it reflect the very antithesis of the South African social order in the 1950s. It sprang from the concrete, objective experiences of hundreds of thousands of very ordinary people—workers, peasants, farm labourers, women, youth, students, professionals, merchants and businessmen, religious leaders, young and old—who lived under a miserably oppressive, brutally repressive and fundamentally exploitative social system. By directly canvassing the view and demands of such a large cross-section of the population, the drafters of the Freedom Charter had become sensitised to total life-experiences of a culturally diverse, oppressed and exploited majority, and had succeeded in giving meaning and substance to their aspirations embodied in concepts such as "freedom", "self-determination" and "justice."
More than that, the adoption of the Freedom Charter by the four sponsoring Congresses and the South African Congress of Trade Unions sign posted a significant ideological shift within the Congress movement. On the one hand, it signalled a final and constructive rejection of the key philosophical and strategic tenets of Africanism, resulting in the marginalisation and isolation of Africanists in the Congress Alliance. On the other hand, the Congresses had succeeded in developing a comprehensive and substantial understanding of the inter-linkages and mutual dependance of capitalist relations of production that were assuming an increasingly monopolistic form and patterns of oppression that were emerging from racially-exclusive system of government.
The Congress Alliance had come to recognise the parasitical function of American and British imperialism in the South African polity and economy, and how relations of power and domination permeated every sphere of social existence, such as in education, in the courts of law, in cultural life, and in social welfare and health services. There was now a dear understanding that the mere extension of formal political rights and civil liberties to blacks would be meaningless without the material basis for a high standard of social existence being laid. And in order for that to be accomplished, the key centres of political and economic power had to be dismantled, and the social order so restructured that the interests of the exploited and oppressed majority became paramount.
For all its brevity and consciousness, the Freedom Charter was, at one and the same time, a penetrating critique of South African society in the 1950s, and a simple vision of a new, restructured South African society that would be non-racial and democratic. It was, and may add, continues to be presently, a highly powerful and immensely relevant political programme for democratic reforms in South Africa. To simply state that it is a "visionary document" is to do grave injustice to the effort that was put into it in me form of the campaign for the Congress of the People and to its political significance both in the 1950s and today. Its true significance is superbly captured by a few comments made by Steve Tshwete during the "Thirty Years Celebrations" of the Freedom Charter in 1985.
All people's programmes anywhere in the world spring from a given objective reality. Once it has been hatched the particular programme cannot be detached from its historical incubator. For die Chapter was meant not only to project the ideal society, but also—and this is extremely important—to influence the situation in favour of the accomplishment of the ideal. If you take any programme from the Communist Manifesto of 1848 to the freedom Charter, one eye will always be focussed on the present and the other on the future. The Freedom Charter, to be of any relevance, had to influence the objective reality in South Africa. |