The past few weeks have been seriously troubling for those who still consider the Constitution and its promises to be the most effective cement with which to hold this country together.
Over this period we have witnessed a mob response to a person who was prepared to hold a powerful man accountable for his sexual conduct. We have heard a number of leaders pour scorn on parts of the Constitution — most prominently a trade union leader who dismissed criticism of Jacob Zuma’s sexual conduct by suggesting that this was no more than a response of “Christian morality”.
We then heard from the Congress of South African Trade Unions that the presidency has brought us close to a dictatorship, a claim that runs with the persistent, but unsubstantiated, allegation that there is a conspiracy to prevent Zuma from democratically becoming the next president of this country.
These disturbing developments all have to do with the relentless campaign for the presidency by Zuma and his supporters, but they cannot simply be dismissed as part of the political rough-and-tumble of ambition. All of these actions illustrate a paper-thin commitment to the values of the Constitution — whether the value be accountability in respect of actions of those who exercise public power, gender equality and its concomitant right of all to bodily integrity, or rational debate as opposed to wild and unsubstantiated allegations about dictatorship and conspiracy.
Then there are the allegations, some far more cogent than others, concerning the deployment of state resources for party political purposes, as well as the spectre of deeply rooted corruption, best personified by the revelations concerning Brett Kebble.
None of these issues is, of course, fatal to the constitutional structure of our society, but they do represent clear warning signs that when convenient, many of those in power — or perhaps even more those who wish to assume power — will bend the Constitution and its values to their political agenda.
Populist rhetoric about “alien” morality and the use of eccentric versions of indigenous culture to override constitutional principles are part of the armoury of ambitious politicians the world over. This kind of stuff is like a virus that, if unchecked, can destroy the constitutional structure painfully constructed over not just the last decade, but the entire period of struggle for the Freedom Charter.
Talking of the Freedom Charter, the failure to meet the distributional claims of that document constitutes an even bigger problem. Last week, the Human Rights Commission reported on the state of education, and delivery on the constitutional right to education. It found that poverty, HIV, and violence and abuse undermine the right of all children to a decent education of a kind that will afford them a fair chance in life.
Indeed, the commission concluded that the lived daily reality at school for many children is incongruous with the proclaimed policy of government. Those most in need are the ones who lack even the basic means and social power to speak out and claim their rights.
This report reflects on a society that has enjoyed 12 years of democracy; it is simply not good enough that we continue to subvert the life chances of so many children.
Failure to make the Constitution a lived reality weakens this very enterprise and renders a constitutional culture even more vulnerable to populist rhetoric. Take the security guards’ strike. Notwithstanding a Constitution that promises rights to workers and a social wage (of sorts), these workers continue to see delivery to the rich, but little to them. They might have recourse to a raft of constitutional rights but they eschew them. Why? Because they feel the new system fails them, so they rather take the law into their own hands.
Somehow the safety valve of the Constitution is powerless when this frustration is coupled with populist rhetoric — and both the potential of the rights workers now enjoy and the tradition of worker discipline built up over decades then count for naught.
All of these recent developments constitute a warning: if we fail to make our constitutional dreams an increasing lived reality, the long-term potential of this Constitution to hold all South Africans together, albeit in a rowdy and sometimes quarrelsome community, may well be jeopardised. A constitutional society is not built in a day; it is a journey undertaken by society. The past few weeks should wake us to the perils of that journey. Make the Constitution a lived reality — or suffer the consequences.