Durban - THE constitution was imposed on African people. They were refused the right to elect their own representatives to write the Constitution.
Former president FW de Klerk had a mandate from whites who had elected him the apartheid president, and endorsed his proceeding with “negotiations” to “end apartheid”.
He went on to hand-pick those he felt comfortable to negotiate with.
The Concourt judgment is based on interpretation of the Constitution.
It is not a matter of the Concourt, but the Constitution itself.
True “democracy” would
demand that referendums be held among people (they have to live
in accordance with the provisions
of a constitution), especially on cultural things like corporal or capital punishment.
What a constitution says on
these things has to be something endorsed by the majority, not imposed by a few white culture-obsessed, hyper-academised (on the basis of research in Europe or the US among whites) individuals on the rest of the population.
Only a referendum in which every citizen takes part and the majority view is taken into the clauses of the Constitution can such a constitution claim to be the people’s constitution.
Democracy would demand that what guides their laws (constitution) is what they (citizens) are comfortable with.
Unfortunately, apartheid
has so battered Africans that they
are unable to distinguish between what is imposed on them and their right to have a say in issues guiding their lives.
I have not seen corporal punishment, which was the norm in every home in my formative years having churned out violent irresponsible adults.
Instead, my contemporaries are responsible members of society, doing sterling work in all professions. Even those who did not go far in schooling are not dominating the ranks of violent thugs.
But I have also been shocked by trending videos in these times of no corporal punishment, in which teachers are attacked by pupils, pupils killing each other - something that never happened in my time of corporal punishment.
Knowledge of consequences of bad behaviour kept most kids out of such punishment.
Dr Kenosi Mosalakae Houghton
Daily News