National
Democratic Revolution, Part 6a
The Freedom Charter as part of the NDR
This week we are looking at the Congress of
the People campaign that in 1953 followed the Defiance of Unjust Laws campaign,
which was in turn a consequence of the banning of the Communist Party of South
Africa in 1950; plus we are looking at the Freedom Charter.
The 1955 Kliptown Congress of the People,
where the Freedom Charter was adopted, was followed by a campaign of
conscientisation and positive endorsement of the Freedom Charter both by
individuals and by mass organisations. This was interrupted in 1956 by the
Treason Trial of most of the Congress Alliance leadership, which was not
concluded until 1961, a year after Sharpeville, and the banning of the ANC, in
the year of 1960.
In the previous post on this topic we
looked at the “Call to the Congress of the People”, taking it as a typical
tactical example of the conscious, deliberate, democratic formation of a
collective revolutionary Subject of History through well-designed organisation.
Taken all together, we can see the 1950s as
a time of focussed, concerted organising towards the NDR – a “process and not
an event”, as we used to say.
This leaves us with the Freedom Charter
itself. Nowadays it is often quoted as a bible, and without explicit reference
to the NDR.
The Freedom Charter does say that “all who
work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make
wage agreements with their employers”. But it does not specifically say that
political parties shall be free to organise. Nor does it say that women should
organise as women, or as working women.
Hence there
are two lessons coming out of the 1950s. One is the practical example of the
movement’s work throughout the decade; the other is the rights-based Charter
that was produced in the course of all the work.
This
sometimes disconnected contrast between action and prescription remains
characteristic of South African politics.
Picture:
Chief Albert Luthuli, President of the ANC in the 1950s
- The above is to introduce the original reading-text: Call to the Congress of the People; Freedom Charter.
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