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The Original ‘Pinch-me’ Moment

LAUNCH OF THE KADER ASMAL HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD | UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE | CAPE TOWN | 28 MAY 2013

Sitting at that kitchen table in rainy Dublin in 1988, Kader Asmal and I began the task of preparing the Bill of Rights – I’d actually imagined, that it was a wooden table, in my head it became a wooden table, but apparently it wasn’t, it had a plastic-covered top. The Constitutional Committee, prompted by Oliver Tambo, had said, ‘just draft an outline’ – that was our mandate – ‘of the fundamental themes that a Bill of Rights in the new South Africa ought to have’.

I recall we divided up the work – I would do the material side and Kader would deal with the enforcement, and then we would swop. I sat down at that table with a clean piece of paper – no books, no documents, no charters, no constitutions, no preambles – the idea being that a Bill of Rights should speak from inside of you, it should proclaim itself.

It’s something human beings are entitled to. Something so fundamental; so central to what human beings are, and what they want, and what they strive for, that it shouldn’t be derived from anything: it should just emerge. And particularly those of us who’d spent decades swimming, immersed in that environment, the phrases should come out. And I was writing with my left hand – I had to learn to write with my left – and I jotted down a number of fundamental rights that the people of South Africa would have. And afterwards, we checked; Kader went through it, he made some textual changes, and we checked it against the great instruments of the world, and all the fundamental rights were there.

It wasn’t because we were particularly clever or astute. It was because we’d been so deeply immersed and involved in a struggle, with millions of people taking part, and expressing their demands, that we were able to find the language. And have that first ‘pinch-me’ moment: ‘Is this really happening? Is it really true?’ And we were to have many, many more …