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Thoughts on our democracy

 1. The dawn of our democracy in 1994 marked a ‘doctrinal shift’ in how we understand the concept of liberation as the liberation movement has taught us.

2. The concept of liberation has for a long time meant the arrival of freedoms that included outright restitution and restoration of colonial losses by the oppressed

3. Our liberation was conceptualized to include a march to equality and an introduction of a regime that disallows unfettered regaining of erstwhile colonial gains that got accrued to the oppressor class

4. The CODESA settlement has unfortunately redefined the meaning and outcome of liberation. Liberation in CODESA was also about investment in the liberation of the former oppressor as a forward payment by the oppressed in order to gain ‘liberation’

5. Liberation for the oppressor required the oppressed to guarantee the gains of the oppressor accrued from the oppression years.

6. International treaties and instruments would in this context be chiseled into the settlement accord and be adjudicated upon by an independent judiciary.

7. These state of affairs recalibrated the liberation expectations realm of Black South Africans as would be beneficiaries of the liberation struggle

8.  The settlement introduced Constitutional Democracy and did away with Parliamentary Democracy.

9. The fundamental of majority rule got regulated by that of the rule of law and the independence of judicial bodies.

10. Parliamentary Democracy meant the will of ‘a’ or ‘the’ ‘Majority’ would prevail in the process of undoing conditions of ‘coloniality’ in order to create a ‘decoloniality’ condition for ‘the people’.

11. Constitutional Democracy means the same process would have to meet the ultimate test of being Constitutional before any liberation expectation could be translated to tangibles experiences in other ‘liberated’ contexts that served as models for what was believed to be true freedom. 

12. True freedom got redefined in law, true freedom meant all who live in RSA have an equal claim to it, including the freedom to wish for the past to return, true freedom meant anyone that could dominate any discourse has the right to direct all towards that direction for as long as it meets the minimum standards set by the Constitution.

13. A Constitutional Democracy is a new terrain that requires serious ideationalization by the liberation movement. It’s strategy and tactics needs recalibration to identify Constitutionalism as a pillar or spoke in the ANC wheel. 


TO BE CONTINUED ONE DAY

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