People’s participation in Constitution-making: the South African experience
South African freedom icon Nelson Mandela’s autobiography titled, ‘Long Walk to Freedom’, has this blurb on its cover page penned by the ‘Boston Sunday Globe’: ‘Should be read by every person alive.’ Indeed, any person of conscience is bound to benefit immensely by reading this historic autobiography which details the pivotal and courageous role Mandela played in liberating South Africa from the imprisoning clutches of apartheid.
It is a lucidly told story of the decades of undimming courage and determination on the part of Mandela, the African National Congress (ANC) and its progressive allies to liberate the totality of South Africa’s population, and not merely the blacks of the country, from the divisive and oppressive political system which was apartheid. As is known, Mandela’s inspiring leadership role in the liberation struggle incurred for him a nearly 30-year jail term, besides other forms of persecution at the hands of the then white rulers.
However, the South Africa of today is a far cry from the cast out and isolated country it used to be in the apartheid years. Since its emergence from apartheid, South Africa has won for itself the fame of being a dynamically-growing country in the African continent. Its success story is of such dimensions that it is a member of the prestigious BRICS group of countries, that brings together some of the most formidable economies of the world; to mention just one of South Africa’s present day achievements.
For the global South in general and Sri Lanka in particular the Nelson Mandela autobiography is of importance particularly on account of the light it sheds on the essentials in Constitution-making in multi-racial, strife-torn countries and on nation-making in its truest sense, besides focusing on the main characteristics that Nelson Mandela bodied-forth as a statesman of outstanding stature. That said, it needs to be mentioned that ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ is of profound interest to the knowledge-seeking reader from a multiplicity of other viewpoints as well.
At present in Sri Lanka, new Constitutions are very much in the news. Much could be learned from the South African experience if the Constitution-drafters of the island are in earnest when they speak of democratic Constitutions and are broad-minded enough to benefit from the wisdom South Africa distilled for itself in the course of its years-long Constitution-making process.
South Africa emerged from its harrowing apartheid experience in 1993 as a result of a long drawn out liberation struggle, which was often bloody, but Constitution-drafting by the ANC and its allies began in the country in the twenties. Even way back then, the Nelson Mandela autobiography reveals, the blacks and progressive sections of the country’s other communities, including the whites, Indians and Coloureds, futuristically conceived of a Constitution that would deliver ethnic and cultural equity in the true sense, besides rendering real the ‘one man one vote’ concept.
The South African experience in Constitution-making challenges Constitution-drafters of ethnic unrest-affected countries of the South, claiming democratic credentials, on several fronts. One of these is people’s participation in Constitution-making.
For Sri Lankans this concept ought to be quite unfamiliar and alien because they have never participated in drafting their Constitutions; that is, the supreme law on the basis of which they govern themselves. This function has been arrogated over the decades in Sri Lanka by mainly official bodies and committees appointed by political party leaders and their close ‘specialist’ supporters and allies. These groups have never reached out to the people directly for their views on how their country ought to be governed.
There is believed to be yet another draft Constitution in the hands of the current Sri Lankan rulers. Needless to say, public consultation never played a role in the drafting of this new ‘supreme law of the land’. Thus, has Sri Lanka qualified for ‘five-star democracy’ status over the decades.
However, for South Africa, people’s participation had been a must in Constitution-making for an apartheid-free South Africa. That is, Constitution-making for a liberated South Africa had been highly democratic and people-centric. ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ provides the details and it all began in the early decades of the last century, as mentioned, when the ANC and its allies in the anti-apartheid movement began to conceive of a free South Africa where equality would reign.
The anti-apartheid movement did not balk from going directly to the people all over South Africa and obtaining their views on what should form the content of their future Constitution. The people were asked to communicate their views in whichever way possible. At page 172 of ‘Long Walk to Freedom’, (Paperback edition, Back Bay Books), Mandela describes this process thus: “The call caught the imagination of the people. Suggestions came in from sports and cultural clubs, church groups, ratepayers’ associations, women’s organizations, schools, trade union branches. They came on serviettes, on paper torn from exercise books, on scraps of foolscap, on the backs of our own leaflets. It was humbling to see how the suggestions of ordinary people were often far ahead of the leaders’.”
If South Africa is today a comparatively politically stable and economically better-off country of the South, the reasons for such progress are easily ascertainable from the foregoing. Since it has been amenable to the views of its people on issues relating to governance, it has evolved into a state that is relatively people centric, broad-based and democratic.
While people’s participation in governance has been a highlight of South Africa’s post-apartheid history, it ought to be plain to see that the willingness of its political leadership, headed by the likes of Nelson Mandela, to fight against racism and other virulent forms of identity politics has enabled it grow into a major power in the African continent and beyond.
Currently, countries of the South, such as Sri Lanka, are badly in need of leaders who could bring healing to them in the form of ethnic and religious harmony. Mandela and his white counterparts of the nineties had the courage of their convictions to work towards the elimination of racism and its iniquities. For the South, such value-based based politics is imperative.
