It is becoming increasingly fashionable in these times of economic and political hardship for people to blame their circumstances on perceived flaws in South Africa’s constitution. This is a profound mistake.
The document, signed into law in 1996, was the fruit of a journey that began in December 1991, in the wake of states of emergency and government repression. It involved South Africans of all creeds, classes and colours, and the final, promulgated act includes sentiments that were as valid and beautiful then as they are today.
We, the people of South Africa, recognise the injustices of our past; honour those who suffered for freedom and justice in our land; respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
It is one of the world's best and most progressive constitutions. It opens with the vision of a better life for all; black and white, rich and poor; all who live in it.
There is no more noble an ideal. But the question is: what has the ANC done to implement this? It is the simplest thing in the world to blame the constitution for the ills that beset us 32 years after we began negotiations for a free South Africa.
The problem is that our leaders are corrupt. The constitution is not. It does not describe corruption. Instead, it speaks about good government, the need to build houses, schools and clinics.
It addresses the land question. People are cross because they have not received land, yet they see it is available. A lot of land that is lying fallow does not have to be expropriated because it belongs to the state, and could be given to the people.
The question is, why has this not happened? Why haven’t schools or clinics or houses been built? Why are there still pit toilets?
None of this is the fault of the constitution, it is the fault of a government that has been elected time and again to address the matter, under the constitution's guidance.
It is nonsense to say Nelson Mandela sold out to the apartheid regime to pave the way for a peaceful transition to a democratic settlement. I know because I was a soldier and a lawyer.
I went into exile and was trained in the same East German institution — at the same time — as Vladimir Putin; the Stasi school in Berlin. Oliver Tambo asked me if I wanted to go to Zimbabwe to practise law.
I said: “Mr President, I didn’t leave my country to make money, I left the country to continue the fight. It will be a great disappointment to the people I left at home if they hear I’m making money. I’m a soldier. I’m your soldier.”
We need to speak out against corruption, not merely — and blindly — against the ANC, but at the corrupt individuals who use the party to further their agendas
I ended up being the Umkhonto we Sizwe commander for Mozambique. When the time came to negotiate, I answered my movement’s call and returned to South Africa.
We carried the day on the ANC’s national executive committee because we believed negotiations were the new terrain of struggle: apartheid president FW de Klerk was not going to be removed by an amateur uprising, which it would have been, because the liberation movement was too weak. I knew this because I was a military commander.
Like those who blame the constitution for their situation today, there are those who believe the ANC could have taken over the country by force and that our soldiers were denied the opportunity, sold out by others in the ANC leadership.
That is ludicrous. Mandela sent me to speak to my military commander, Chris Hani, to get him to return from the Transkei. Chris was my commissar and I worked with him every day. We respected each other. I defended Comrade Chris and advised him when he was accused of getting self-defence units to rob banks. I was instructed to lead the investigation when he was assassinated. He was my leader unto death.
Those who misread our past, who make the claims they do, do so under the benefit of the very freedom we won for them. People who argue the way they do don’t know the pain of suffering or struggle.
They are not thinking politically or strategically, or even historically accurately. The reality, whether they like it or not, is that all wars eventually end, even in Ukraine. And when they do, they end around the table.
We have to get back to basics and the precepts of the constitution because we have betrayed this document. BEE is one of the biggest sins; it is a disaster that created superstars out of individuals who benefited, but did nothing for the rest.
I am an attorney, the product of my own skills; there was no BEE when I opened shops, started a construction business and ran farms. BEE was never intended to benefit the few, the politically connected, which is why I prefer the term community empowerment. When a mining company, for example, mines an area, it must invest in the community, building roads, clinics and schools.
As South Africans we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves. We have betrayed the constitution because we don’t live according to it, we distort it for our own aims and we need to confront this.
We need to speak out against corruption, not merely — and blindly — against the ANC, but at the corrupt individuals who use the party to further their agendas. We will not solve this problem by generalising, we have to rid this country of corrupt people. We cannot build schools or roads because the money that is being set aside to create them is being stolen.
I have the greatest faith in our youth. In 1968 the Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah gave us the wonderful book The Beautyful Ones Are Not Born, dealing with the aftermath of Ghana’s independence.
In 1976 I said the beautiful ones are born, because the youth then gave us hope where there was none. They have done so consistently in the post-liberation era, challenging, disrupting and holding the leadership to account.
The youth must never allow their futures to be raped by the corrupt. They must choose the right leaders, they must hold them to account, they must correct things. If they do so, I will always support them.
• Phosa is a former freedom fighter, activist, political leader and provincial premier. He is an attorney, a businessman and an international consultant. An award-winning poet in Afrikaans and English, he is writing two books on South Africa’s history, including the road to democracy and the evolution of the country's constitution.
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