The past year has provided myriad opportunities to reflect on South Africa’s future. Many of us are still hung over from the euphoria of the celebrations of 2004. We also feel the increasing confidence that comes with growing up.
We no longer debate the merits of the African renaissance because we have found a way to declare unwavering allegiance to the continent with the same tongue with which we speak xenophobia. But this business of identity and belonging is always a contradictory, complicated and knotty affair, fraught with joyous discovery at the same time that it demands leaps of faith and courage. While we have spent the necessary time celebrating our transition to democracy, it is now urgent to think about what maturing democracy requires of us.
What does the future look like? What role can we play? How do we engage with the present to safeguard the noble victories of our past? Recent events invite us to probe these questions. Such moments of self-examination come to us in different guises, and staring them in the face, it seems foolhardy to proceed as though our future is poised to be exactly what we anticipated in 2004.
As a highly differentiated populace, we will choose different events to serve as a compass, but many of these demand the same levels of rigorous contemplation. Some of us will use the recent countrywide, eight-week conversation on collective values as a navigation tool. Perhaps somewhat troubled by the moralistic tone of this campaign, others might find the furore around the two Jacob Zuma trials and the future presidency a fitting drama on which to concentrate. For others still, the bizarre muted conversation on the sexual offences and same-sex marriage Bills might work as our true north.
All these moments of extreme discomfort are tied to the role of our much talked about founding document — the Constitution.
Last week, Mosibudi Mangena, the president of the Azanian People’s Organisation and a government minister, told a conference of his party: ”We should indicate what our view is on the question of same-sex marriages. More fundamentally, whether it is acceptable for the judiciary to determine issues of morality, norms, values and culture. Or do we believe that whatever the courts say is law and should be obeyed?” There have also been irresponsible calls for the amendment of the same Constitution to limit the rights of those who form partnerships with people of the same gender.
The hate speech articulated in these sentiments jars with the knowledge that the provisions and protections of the Constitution are written in blood. And, as navel-gazing as we sometimes are as citizens of this country, we would do well to learn from other societies about how to protect the freedoms we enjoy.
These same freedoms allow us to live in a society often touted as a shining example to the world. Yet there is a brutal price for complacency, and once the Constitution is conceived of as a mere conglomeration of puzzle pieces that can be moved around to reflect opportunistic and oppressive interests, the cracks that appear beneath our feet will widen to swallow us whole. The record of genocide on three continents as we moved towards our country’s freedom are enough to confirm this assessment.
The Constitution is a record of the spirit and core values of the society we want to defend, an invitation to think beyond narrow self-interest. And we would do well to be suspicious of the farce of consultation on the same-sex marriage Bill that suggests that a vulnerable ”minority” is safe to victimise, and that government consultation processes are appropriate stages for hate speech.
We cannot surrender our rights to contest unholy ground and to reject the conservative use of processes for the public to voice opinions and influence major political processes. Such ”small” concessions are a slippery slope, whether you feel that your preferred presidential candidate deserves the kind of support that justifies trampling on others’ freedoms or believe that sexual minority rights are up for debate.
Defending the spirit of Constitution means speaking up, whether or not we perceive ourselves to be in immediate personal danger. The poet-activist Audre Lorde often said ”your silence will not protect you”. Our future mandates our outrage at suggestions that a referendum is the appropriate channel to authorise government on sexual rights, reproductive rights or the death penalty. We need to play a more active role in the creation and questioning of a national culture rooted in supporting everybody’s right to full humanity and protection under the law. Indeed, our own humanity and safety are at stake when we choose to bite our tongues in the face of attempts to rubbish the freedoms and integrity enshrined in the Constitution.
And, as slippery slopes go, we can all become the minority that is safe to victimise and exile tomorrow unless we make it impossible to silence those that are weaker than we are.
Pumla Dineo Gqola is Extraordinary Associate Professor in Humanities at the University of the Western Cape