Prof Naledi Nomalanga Mkhize – Professor and Historian: Nelson Mandela University
Prof Andre Odendaal – Writer In Residence & Honorary Professor: University Of The Western Cape
Former Justice Albie Sachs – Founding member of the ANC Constitutional Committee & Former Justice of the Constitutional Court
Thandiwe Matthews – Admitted Attorney and Doctoral Researcher
On 27 October 2022, Constitution Hill Trust (CHT) and the Oliver & Adelaide Tambo Foundation (OATF) hosted the launch of the book Dear Comrade President by André Odendaal with contributions by Albie Sachs. The book details how South Africa’s transition from Apartheid to democracy was an effort by Africans who used their efforts, knowledge, and power to fulfill the mandate of a democratic South Africa. The book articulates how the template for the 1996 Constitution was forged well before the negotiations of the 1990s. It captivatingly details how Oliver Tambo, along with the Constitutional Committee, worked selflessly and tirelessly for this framework to have come into place.
The launch, which took place on the 105th anniversary of Oliver Tambo’s birth, was a panel discussion facilitated by Prof Naledi Nomalanga Mkhize with Prof André Odendaal and Justice Albie Sachs, accompanied by the young and dynamic attorney and PhD candidate, Ms Thandiwe Matthews.
Describing the book as comparable to an archive of the South African liberation story, Prof Mkhize highlighted that this body of work brought out the political sentiment and atmosphere in the events surrounding the drafting of what would become the framework of the South African Constitution. In his address, Prof Odendaal, described the path that was taken in putting the constitutional framework together as “a path of innovation…and political genius”. Re-counting what was once a “crazy dream from a democratic constitution for South Africa” Justice Albie Sachs, who was directly involved the drafting the framework, described it as “an African document, made in Africa by Africans, with African vision and sensibility, and broadness of vision”. In her address, Ms Matthews lauded the Constitution of South Africa for the power that is gives to society and commended the people who worked tirelessly to come up with this; a document that allows society to reconstruct itself on its own terms.
The panel did an incredible job of not only discussing the journey that was taken for South Africa’s Constitution to come into being, but also how it functions today, and how society benefits from this extraordinary feat. The event was extremely well attended with descendants of the Constitutional Committee’s founding members in attendance.
To watch the launch, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eoqM7nl9Iw
