By Mapula Thebe
Former Minister of Finance and Minister in the Presidency, Trevor Manuel delivered the Archie Gumede Lecture at a dinner in Durban as part of the Law Society of South Africa’s (LSSA) AGM held on 20 March. Other speakers of the evening included, the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, Senzo Mchunu; Member of Parliament, Don Gumede; outgoing LSSA Co-chairperson, Max Boqwana; and Paul David who was Archie Gumede’s friend.
Mr David recalled that his relationship with Archie Gumede stretched over many years. ‘He and my family were neighbours in Camps Drift Road in Pietermaritzburg. … We worked together in political organisations and civic organisations. We were incarcerated together. We faced the treason trial together and my sister, Phyllis was his partner. … I want to congratulate the society for this occasion and for the thinking that went behind the launch of this programme dedicated to the memory of Archie Gumede, not because he was a lawyer, I hope, but because he was a political activist and one of the stars in the struggle for human rights.’
Premier Mchunu said that ‘Baba Archie Gumede’ was an inspiring humble leader during very turbulent times in South Africa. He added: ‘Without any hesitation, he sought to restore hope to the millions of our people in this country through what he said and through what he did and every day of his life he made it possible for these millions of people to see the day of liberation and freedom getting closer and closer. It’s a coincidence that we are here in this function, celebrating the work of this gallant fighter of our people and champion of dignity, justice and the rights for all, particularly following the principles of non-racialism, non-sexism, democracy and unity among the people, that when at the same time are mourning the passing on of one of our comrades, Collins Chabane, through the tragic accident, that this coincidence make it even more possible for us to think even deeper.’
Premier Mchunu said that he met with the leadership of the National Democratic Lawyers Association and the Black Lawyers Association in the province. ‘We discussed, among other things, the fact that the issues around justice and transformation of the judiciary, including the need to access justice to all in the true sense of the word, gets off and relocated to the periphery in terms of our daily discourse, mistakenly so and it is befitting to recommit ourselves, all of us this evening. … to the course that Baba Archie Gumede stood for, for he would never have retired from fighting for all, especially those amongst us who are least recognised and are vulnerable to injustices,’ he said.
Speaking on ethics, Mr Boqwana said that it was unacceptable that the Attorneys Fidelity Fund had to pay R 97 million, in the past financial year to members of the public as a result of theft committed by practising attorneys. He said that this behaviour dishonours the work done by the generation of Archie Gumede. ‘It is in this context therefore that … we thought it’s important that we begin a series of lectures on ethics. We are actually going to formulate a course on ethics and that course will be named after Archie Gumede so that it’s a constant reminder of what we are doing,’ he added.
In conclusion Mr Boqwana said: ‘We all owe it to Archie Gumede and his generations – the generation of Phyllis Naidoo; the generation of Pius Langa, Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge – to serve the people of South Africa in a principled and value-driven fashion, lacking neither courage, drive and self-reliance when we do the course of justice. Let it be that we must never say what is just is unjust. To traverse this and other critical important lessons drawn from Archie Gumede, from the days of the formation of the United Democratic Front, and the determination of a dream of a new society and to question whether the dream that was formulated at that time, whether that dream has been realised. We could no better therefore, colleagues and friends, than to ask Mr Trevor Manual to do that. Mr Trevor Manual belongs to that privileged generation that took the responsibility to put the final nail on the coffin of apartheid.’
Delivering his lecture, Mr Manuel said that he had the great privilege of serving under Archie Gumede, who was the President of the United Democratic Front (UDF). ‘The slogan said it all “UDF unites, apartheid divides.” You made a choice in life. You are either with those who united society or you chose to be on the other side and if you chose to be amongst those who united people, there were certain ethics required of you. You behaved yourself in a particular way. There weren’t many rules. You demonstrated respect. You demonstrated determination. You demonstrated courage. You did not divide the people. You didn’t factionalise … . You appreciated the values of non-racialism and you were determined to work for democracy,’ he remarked.
Speaking on the Constitution Mr Manuel said: ‘Because part of what we have done in our Constitution is to create difficult formulations. We have undertaken to adopt 11 official languages. What does it mean for us? You see, when we undertake the issues to build a nation state we need to be very clear about what this entails and the task at hand is a big one. In Italy, for instance, Massimo d’Azeglio, at the point of unifications of Italy said “we have built Italy, now we must make Italians.” Perhaps when we adopted the Constitution in May of 1996 we should have looked to our people and said now we have made South Africa. How will we make South Africans? How do we create the sense of unity, the sense of common purpose, because without that what are we after all? … You see, we also say we believe South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, it’s from the Freedom Charter, it’s in our Constitution. Now, what do we say to people who’ve recently arrived, these shopkeepers? Who stops the xenophobia in our country and say South Africa belongs also to those who live in it?’
Mapula Thebe NDip Journ (DUT) BTech (Journ) (TUT) is the editor of De Rebus.
This article was first published in De Rebus in 2015 (May) DR 7.
