Hon House Chairperson and hon members, let me start by welcoming and saluting Mesdames Nonceba Molwelwe and Mahlomola Mabote, Chief Whips from Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, and their delegations. [Applause.]
We are sharing insights on co-operative governance in the legislative arm of the state and the doctrine of the separation of powers at municipal level and we are looking forward to further interactions, which should contribute to the turnaround strategy that the hon Sicelo Shiceka, the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, is developing.
Twenty-three years ago, on 21 October 1986, the African continent witnessed the coming into force of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, which was adopted on 27 June 1981 by member states of the Organisation of African Unity as a solemn undertaking to promote and safeguard freedom, justice and equality and human dignity in Africa.
The creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights will strengthen the hand and complement the mandate of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights established in terms of the charter. Moreover, the anticipated synergy and collaboration between the court and the commission should enhance the promotion and protection of peoples' rights and freedoms as enshrined in the charter. Today, as the peoples and nations of Africa celebrate African Human Rights Day, we must remember that everyone's human rights in the modern world were born out of selfless and protracted struggles for the recovery of human dignity and its inherent values of freedom, equality and justice for all. These human rights did not come to us like manna from heaven.
Our failure and/or neglect to recall the heroic struggles waged by the founding mothers and fathers of our democracy for the recovery of our human and peoples' rights opens the door for narrow and sometimes ridiculous interpretations of the concepts of law, justice and human rights.
The African concept of the rule of law cannot be divorced from the Pan- African ideal that gave birth to it. The African quest for freedom and justice manifested itself in the resistance of Africans and native Indians to slavery and in the slave rebellion which led to the liberation and creation of the state of Haiti and the defeat of the fascist Italian army by the Ethiopian forces at Aduwa in 1896. This quest for freedom led to the first Pan-African Conference in London from 23 July to 26 July 1900.
In his address to the nations of the world, W E B du Bois, the African American revolutionary intellectual, observed that:
In the metropolis of the modern world, in this the closing year of the nineteenth century, there has been assembled a congress of men and women of African blood, to deliberate solemnly upon the present situation and outlook of the darker races of mankind. The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, the question as to how far differences of race - which show themselves chiefly in the color of the skin and the texture of the hair - will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization. To be sure, the darker races are today the least advanced in culture according to European standards. This has not, however, always been the case in the past. And certainly the world's history, both ancient and modern, has given many instances of no despicable ability and capacity among the blackest races of men.
It is this glorious African past that inspired Dr Pixley ka Isaka Seme to call for the regeneration of Africa and the creation of a unique civilisation for Africans.
The Pan-African Conference in London had been attended by people of African descent from three continents. At this conference, strong attacks were made on the desire of the English capitalist to re-enslave the black man, especially in South Africa, and on the Boer atrocities against Africans in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902, also known as the South African War. In this war, Africans fought on both sides hoping that, in the event of victory, civil and political rights would be granted to them.
Instead, the racial ideology of Cecil John Rhodes and capitalist interests brought the Boers and Britons together to conclude the Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902, which legalised the colour bar foreseen by Du Bois in 1900. This colour bar found definite and emphatic expression in the South African Act of 1909 which established the racist and white supremacist Union of South Africa.
At the end of the first Pan-African Conference in 1900, delegates from this conference arrived and settled amongst coloured people here in Cape Town, strengthening the settlement of officials of the African Methodist Episcopal Church led by Bishop Coppin. The delegates from this conference, notably the Ghanaian-born journalist F Z S Peregrino and Henry Sylvester Williams took the message of Pan-African pride and political awareness into the interior of Southern Africa.
The Ethiopian Church of South Africa and the AME Church - the African Methodist Episcopal Church - also became the vehicle for Pan-Africanism, also known as Ethiopianism in Africa. Ethiopianism was the first national movement which linked African colonies and interior republics even before South Africa was united by British conquest.
This Pan-African or Ethiopian ideal inspired the formation of the African People's Organisation, APO, here in Cape Town, as well as native congresses which came together in 1912 to form the African National Congress for the defence of civil and political rights of African people.
The fundamental tenets of the Pan-African and Ethiopian movement were self- worth, self-reliance and freedom.
According to our icon, Nelson Mandela, the Ethiopian movement culminated in the formation of the ANC in 1912. "It is in this sense," said our icon, "that in the ANC we trace the seeds of the formation of our organisation to the Ethiopian movement of the 1890s."
The influence of the Pan-African ideal on the ANC found expression in the description of this glorious movement as a Pan-African organisation in its 1919 constitution.
The teachings of Marcus Garvey during the interwar years and the 1935 invasion of Ethiopia by fascist Italy gave impetus to the spirit of Pan- Africanism. Pan-African leaders Sol Tshekisho Plaatje, Kwame Nkrumah and Mnandi Azikiwe - the first President of Nigeria - were profoundly influenced by Marcus Garvey, the author of the slogan "Africa for Africans" - "Mayibuye iAfrica".
More specifically, these leaders were impacted upon by the Harlem Renaissance, which was inspired by the teachings of Marcus Garvey. The Harlem Renaissance drew attention to the glories of ancient Africa to validate African achievements.
Under the influence of the Harlem Renaissance, Azikiwe wrote a book in 1937 entitled Renascent Africa, which was another landmark in the gradual recovery of a history that had been forcibly denied and therefore forgotten during the same period when massive exploitation of the continent's human and natural resources went hand in hand with a refusal to honour and respect its cultural achievements.
Azikiwe, who had studied in the United States of America when the Harlem Renaissance was in full swing, and who later became the Federal Republic of Nigeria's first President, refused to accept that Africa's future had been blighted forever by the impact of European colonialism. According to him, the wellbeing of Africa depended firstly on reactivating a spiritual balance through respect for others; secondly, on the achievement of social regeneration through the triumph of democracy; thirdly, on mental emancipation through a rejection of racism; and fourthly, on striving for economic prosperity through self-determination.
William Nkomo, one of the founders of the ANC Youth League, told a women's conference in the 1930s that Africans are not a subhuman race and that they too desire the right to self-determination. During World War II, the defence of the right to self-determination and human rights of peoples and nations became the grounds upon which the war by the Allied forces was justified. However, the Atlantic Charter that guaranteed these rights in the event of victory denied Africans these rights, despite the fact that they fought on the side of the Allied forces. This act of naked racism forced Kwame Nkrumah to declare that, after the war, Africans would demand nothing less that the right to self- determination and human rights.
Even before the end of the war, the ANC national conference held on 16 December 1943 adopted the Africans' Claims in South Africa in response to the Atlantic Charter. This was the first home-grown human and people's rights charter on the African continent.
The African Claims document preceded the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human and Peoples' rights in Africa received impetus from the Freedom Charter and the Bandung Conference resolutions of 1955.
At the 1958 Pan-African Conference held in Akra, Ghana, the right to self- determination and human rights of African peoples and nations became the principal driving force. African jurists realised that the Bill of Rights incorporated in the constitutions of newly independent African countries sought to preserve minority rights to land, natural resources and privileges. Thus, in 1961, the African Commission of Jurists developed the concept of the rule of law in the African context. The adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights stemmed from the home-grown African concept of law and justice. It represents a movement away from liberal concepts of human rights which place the individual above collective or people's rights. In the African context, with its legacy of apartheid, colonialism and exploitation, the liberal concept of human rights entrenches class, gender and racial divides and impedes social and economic transformation.
As we celebrate this Africa Human Rights Day, we must recall the words of President Jacob Zuma who told us in the state of the nation address that we could only recover the humanity of all South Africans through the creation of decent jobs and the provision of quality education and health care services.
Here, the President made it abundantly clear that the realisation of the socioeconomic rights of the historically disadvantaged black communities who lived in shacks and other degrading and dehumanising conditions was extremely urgent.
In his address to the judges, the President also called for the Africanisation of the law to embody the philosophy of ubuntu and its underlying values of human, social and international solidarity. Many of the English and Roman Dutch common laws and their underlying legal philosophies negate the humanity of black people and need urgent transformation.
It is hoped that this Parliament will develop a transformation agenda in line with the 10 strategic priorities of President Jacob Zuma's administration which have been adopted by this Parliament.
Let us take this opportunity to congratulate Justice Ngcobo on his appointment as the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court and to call on him to lead the Africanisation of the law and transformation of our criminal justice system to make it accessible to the poor and downtrodden.
We have the fullest confidence in Chief Justice Ngcobo and his colleagues and have no doubt that they will move our courts away from the liberal interpretations of the concepts of law, justice and human rights which negate the humanity of the majority of South Africans, impede the realisation of the socioeconomic rights of black people and seek to make South Africa an outpost of Europe on the southern tip of the continent. Thank you. [Applause.]