weekly newspaper.
A couple of weeks ago the Department of Home Affairs issued a Green Paper which sought submissions from the public on a number of marriage-related issues, including legally recognising polyandry. There was a lot of commotion on both the Twitter and actual streets. A considerable number of women saw this proposal as the way to equality and dismantling patriarchy in our society. But is it? I do not think so.
SA recognises polygyny, an already existing cultural and religious practice, by way of section 7(6) of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, 1998, which states that “a husband in a customary marriage who wishes to enter into a further customary marriage with another woman after the commencement of this Act must make an application to the court to approve a written contract which will regulate the future matrimonial property system of his marriages”.
weekly newspaper.
According to the speakers, in resolving the injustices of our past, the Preamble mistakenly looks to healing rather than redistributive justice.
I understand our collective fatigue with healing as we have unfortunately come to associate it with a docile people and define it as one-sided forgiveness by black people, with no true atonement and recompense by white people for their crimes. Seen in the shadow of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) then yes, healing should today be greeted with suspicion. However, the Preamble was drafted and adopted before the conclusion of the TRC, which was expected to be reparative. If we were writing the Preamble today knowing what we now know, I would understand their scorn for the words chosen.
No serious conversation can be had about South Africa’s Constitution if it is divorced from the history of how it came to be, the process through which it was drafted, and by whom. By avoiding history, we are avoiding complexity and by avoiding complexity we are avoiding reality.
First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
I keep having a recurring memory of the first time I felt terror. We were living in Diepkloof, Soweto. Just me, my parents and Dube, my beloved St Bernard. ‘My Kombi’, our lift club, picked me up to take me to school and my parents would drive to work together. On this one particular morning – I think I was nine years old – my parents left the house before me because My Kombi was running late and Sisi, the woman who capably took care of our home and of me, was on her way but had not arrived yet.
The messages speak of the promise of service delivery and anti-corruption. They speak about respect for women and protecting children. They speak about education and health.
The campaign, “The Will of the People”, called on those living in South Africa to send in personal declarations, ahead of Freedom Day, with a prompt linked to the first words of the preamble of the Constitution: “We the people”.
Albie Sachs, former activist and Constitutional Court justice, addresses guests via live stream at the Will of the People campaign launch at Constitution Square, Johannesburg. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)
“[The messages] are about reaching out to the humanity in each other,” said Vanessa September, CEO of the Constitution Hill Trust, about the group’s campaign, which feeds into a wider national campaign, called “We, the People”, aimed at defending democracy.