Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
A time to remember: 12.13am, Nov 18, 1993
Some key events from this week in history are reflected in the following reports taken from the archives of the Argus’s 160-year-old titles
OF ALL the dates that customarily mark the decisive shifts in post-apartheid South Africa’s trajectory in the 1990s, one of the most important is the least commemorated.
With good reason, the country celebrates the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, the first elections in 1994, the ratification of the constitution in 1996.
But the beginning of the beginning was the ratification of the interim constitution, the country’s first democratic blueprint, in the first minutes of November 18, 1993.
It was the moment at which then chair of the negotiations forum Pravin Gordhan remarked – in a phrase that hints almost at surprise at this juncture having been reached: “It seems we have crossed the Rubicon irrevocably.”
South Africans would have remembered the earlier Rubicon crossing- that- never- was, when, in 1985, former president PW Botha had defied optimistic expectations of far-reaching reforms and instead dug in his heels for a doomed defence of Fortress Apartheid.
Though the first few years of the 1990s were bloody beyond even the standards of the 1980s, the interim constitution helped South Africa turn the corner.
As a transitional instrument, it required the newly elected Parliament to also serve as a constituent assembly to adopt a final constitution, introduced an entrenched bill of rights, and created the Constitutional Court with broad powers of judicial review.
The bold headline of November 18, 1993 – “Now for the future” – said it all.
“Thirteen minutes after midnight, South Africa took a giant leap into a democratic non- racial future. Emotions welled as the toughly negotiated 14-chapter interim constitution – the country’s first democratic foundation of government – was ratified. When the weary but relieved negoti- ators finally left the chamber after 3.30am, more than two hard-fought years of political bargaining were brought to a close.”
Not everybody was party to the hoopla. The big challenge in late 1993 was to coax the so-called “Freedom Alliance” (the Afrikaner Volksfront, the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Ciskei and Bophuthatswana homeland governments and the Conservative Party) back into the transitional and constitutional process.
The PAC also refused to endorse the agreement, having rejected the concept of “power-sharing”. But there was hope this could be achieved.
“President De Klerk, who committed himself in a final speech at 3.15am to ‘broadening consensus’ to include the outsiders, is to meet the alliance leadership tomorrow.”
The report went on: “In his speech, ANC president Nelson Mandela urged all South Africans ‘to grasp the opportunities that democracy offers’ and delivered in Afrikaans a conciliatory appeal to the right wing to take their places ‘as part of the South African nation’.
“Ratification by sufficient consensus soon after midnight prompted chairman Pravin Gordhan to remark: ‘It seems we have crossed the Rubicon irrevocably.’
“The plenary session got under way in the glare of television lights just after 11pm – 8 ½ hours behind schedule.
“Negotiators were determined to stick to their deadline, prompting complaints from the PAC, the Democratic Party and the AVU that the government and ANC were sacrificing sound constitution-making for expedience in their unseemly haste to strike a deal.
“But there were significant compromises in the final hour, including a deal to defuse the controversy over the appointment of the Constitutional Court, breakthroughs on decision-making in the cabinet, provincial constitutions and a deadlock-breaking mechanism for the drafting of the final constitution.
“Rousing rhetoric marked the speeches of the leaders of the 21 negotiating parties. ‘We have reached the end of an era… we are at the beginning of a new era’, said Mr Mandela. ‘The democratic order gives to each and all of us the instruments to address problems constructively and through dialogue.
“’ Together we can build a society free of violence… grounded on friendship and our common humanity, a society founded on tolerance. That is the only road open to us. It is a road to a glorious future in this beautiful country of ours. Let us join hands and march into the future,’ said Mr Mandela.
“Mr De Klerk said: ‘South Africa will never be the same again. We stand on the thresh- old of a new era.’”
The Argus noted in an editorial headed “At last, it begins… birth of democracy”, that the “acceptance of the interim constitution has brought to an end, for all practical purposes, minority white domination in South Africa”.
It added: “ANC president Nelson Mandela noted wryly after agreement was reached that at the venerable age of 73, he now has the right to vote in the land of his birth for the first time. So does every adult citizen who is of sound mind and in good standing with the law, and that fact alone will bring changes and challenges on an unprecedented scale.”
The newspaper acknowledged that “being the product of negotiation between groups which could not be more disparate, the constitution cannot be expected to meet the expectations of all”, but showed “profoundly encouraging evidence of the broad agreement that is possible when people of goodwill set their minds to pursue a common goal”.
Not everybody thought so, of course. In that issue of the paper, a letter from M Titus of Kuilsriver (“We should show our disgust by boycotting the process”) spoke up for detractors in the Workers Organisation for Socialist Action, Azapo and the New Unity Movement when he wrote that the interim constitution was not drawn up by “all South Africans”, but only by those involved in “secret meetings and bosberade”.
“The rights of the masses are being bartered away and sold off by unscrupulous, self-appointed ‘leaders’ behind closed doors” in a process “not only remote but also without any input from those their ‘leaders’ claim to serve.”
He was convinced that “we should not waste our ‘faith’ on oppressors, collaborators and former members of the liberation movement who have made a pact with these devils”.
Many have since echoed these sentiments, yet there can be little doubt that, whatever the deficiencies in the detail, the deal of 1993 handed power over South Africa’s political destiny to the people.