Overcoming the Threats to Freedom

Freedom Day Statement issued by: Helen Zille, DA Leader
26 April 2008

South Africa has traveled a great distance since our first democratic election in 1994. We have come of age as a nation; we have realised that there is more that holds us together than keeps us apart.

As we celebrate Freedom Day we must ask: Are we truly free in South Africa today?

I am afraid to say that the answer to this question must be “no”.

Many people might disagree. They will say that we gained our freedom when we voted in that first democratic election. I will reply that elections are not enough to make you free. We only have to look at Zimbabwe to see that.

They will say that we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that guarantees our freedom. I will reply that the mere existence of a Constitution is not enough to make us free. It is a blueprint for freedom, but does not guarantee it.

When we use the Constitution as the yardstick to measure our progress, we see that the free society it envisages is not the one we live in. The majority of our people are still a long way from enjoying their most basic freedoms:

• When 53 people are murdered every day, we cannot say that the right to life is upheld.
• When 144 women and children are raped every single day, we cannot say that the right to be free from violence is protected.
• When 15 million people are without access to basic sanitation, we cannot say that the right to dignity is enjoyed by all.
• When 10 million people live in informal settlements, we cannot say that the right of access to adequate housing has been fulfilled.
• When half a million HIV positive people require access to antiretroviral drugs but do not receive them, we cannot say that there is access to basic healthcare.

It is clear that there is much work to be done, and it is going to take the efforts of every one of us to make our Constitution a living, breathing reality. But the story does not end there. Fourteen years after our first democratic election, we face a new threat to our freedom. The threat is a ruling party that believes it is more important than the Constitution. It is a party that believes it will rule until Jesus comes.

• Instead of allowing the free press to flourish, the ANC wants to control the media.
• Instead of allowing the judiciary to be independent, the ANC wants to make judges accountable to politicians.
• Instead of fighting crime and corruption, the ANC wants to take away the Scorpions.
• Instead of opening the space for real debate, the ANC wants to shut down Parliament.

On Freedom Day every year, the ANC pays tribute to the icons of the liberation struggle. Its leader sings about machine guns. This is because the ANC needs people to stay in the past if it is to keep power in the future. The ANC undermines freedom in the present and has no vision for the future. So where is the hope?

The hope lies in the people of South Africa who never gave up in the past and will not give up now. The hope lies in a party that does have a clear vision for the future, the Democratic Alliance.

Our vision is an open society in which the people are more important than the ruling party. It is a society with a free and questioning press, an independent judiciary and a Parliament that holds the government to account. Our vision is an open opportunity society in which every person has the freedom to achieve their goals, whatever their background. It is a society where every person’s basic needs are met, where people do not live in fear of criminals, where every child has access to a good school and where every person has a job. This open, opportunity society is the one promised in our Constitution.

A few weeks ago, the US Presidential candidate Barack Obama, gave a landmark speech in Philadelphia. He spoke of the struggle to attain the liberties that were set out in the American Constitution, but were denied to many for so long. He said:"Words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time."

Narrowing the gap between the reality of our time and the open opportunity society envisaged in the Constitution is the DA’s mission. And it is a mission that will succeed. It will succeed because most South Africans are rejecting the politics of race. They are more interested in the politics of ideas and the politics of prosperity. It will succeed because the ruling party has shown that it cannot govern. It has shown that it rules in the interests of the connected few and not the majority of our people. It will succeed because the ANC believes that it rules South Africa by divine right. It forgets about the people that put it in power.

In the coming months and years, the DA will continue to build the moderate, non-racial centre of politics. We will take power in this country municipality by municipality and province by province. And, make no mistake, we will not wait until Jesus comes.