From People's Education to Neo liberation in South Africa.

In this address at the 10th Anniversary celebration of the Foundation for Human Rights in Pretoria, 29 November 2006 Neville Alexander posed the following question: Why is it that in spite of a constitution that was arrived ar in a 20th century model of democratic bargaining and consensus building and in which are enshrined some of the noblest sentiments and insights concerning human rights, we are living in a situation where very few of those rights appear to be realised, or even realisable, in practice? This paper attempts to answer this question through an analysis of the struggle to attain education rights in South Africa. This exercise it is hoped, will also allow us to further unravel the class nature of the south African state, the political economy of the transition (for extensive and excellent analysis of the latter see Marais, 1998; Bond, 2000 and Alexander, 2002) and the importance of the oppositional role of the new and independent social movements. A founding principle of South Africa's constitution is common citizenship and equal enjoyment of an array of citizen rights including freedom of belief, religion, expression, assembly and association. A range of socio-economic rights including the right to basic and adult education and the rights of children are emphasised in the Bill of Rights. There can be no doubt that the end of formal apartheid and the attainment of a liberal democratic dispensation has been a momentous victory for the people of South Africa and of humanity. The lyricism of the phrases in our constitution and the promise of its words of justice, after decades of apartheid, has become a symbol of hope for advocates of social justice the world over. Yet two years into the second decade of our democracy, social injustice remains pervasive and inequality is growing, despite progressive changes to various aspects of our society, reminding us, once again of Marx's view that 'One cannot combat the real existing world by merely combating the phrases of this world'.