I’ve heard an honour of travelling the length and breadth of our province (Western Cape) in the company of great men and women, most of whom like me they see in COPE a last beacon of hope for our people. Most of us, seeing the general anger of people against politicians, were concerned by what we see as the fire next time (James Baldwin) when the false promises of the Zuma Project become glaring; the social unrest that may occur in our country. Who’ll douse those flames when they flare?
Take the recent Karoo tour with the Western Cape Premier Candidate. As I was looking at the stabbing poverty of our people in towns like Beaufort West I felt like a phony, slamming it in and out of people’s difficult lives when a certain old lady, with disappointed eyes, took the premier candidate aside and said; “Boesak, I don’t want you to promise us anything; but I’m glad you came to see the kind of lives we are living.” Back on the air-conditioned car with dark windows I felt discouraged by the enormity of poverty and all. I looked back at the book I was reading, the lines I had underlined. At first they didn’t make much sense to me until later on:
One might almost imagine that there were no such thing as absolute truth, since a change of situation or temperament is capable of changing the whole force of an argument. We have been accustomed, even those of us who feel most, to look on the arguments for and against the system of slavery with the eyes of those who are at ease. We do not even know how fair is freedom, for we were always free. We shall never have all the materials for absolute truth on this subject, till we take into account, with our own views and reasonings, the views and reasonings of those who have bowed down to the yoke, and felt the iron enter into their souls. [Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dred: A Tale Of The Great Dismal Swamp (1856)]
I was listening to a political debate on the radio and felt we were busy arguing about who has done what, who can do what better than whom; meantime people are living hopelessly difficult lives. It’s not that our government does not have resources to ameliorate our people’s plight; it just that the money is in wrong hands of people who do not know how to spread it around and make people’s lives better. They’d rather it goes down back to the treasury than putting it to real use. Tell me then; how fair is freedom in that scenario? How can we leave with ourselves?
As I said, I felt discouraged. In my discouragement I put down my book, sent my vacant eyes to the naked poverty running on the township streets before turning to read Dr. Boesak’s, There’s never been a time like this speech: “Our hopes of yesterday are still there, but have become the disappointments of today. Our joys of yesterday in so many ways became the tears of today ... We’re here to say we have a new vision in which we can believe in, we are here to say we’re chiseling a new road that everyone can walk, a new home that can be a home for everyone. We’re here to say it is not too late; we are here to say we’ll not be ruled by fear, we’ll not be prescribed by hopelessness, and that we’ll not be hopeless. South Africa is our country; South Africa is not bound to failure, we’ve a God given calling to fulfill, and the time to fulfill that calling is now.”
I recalled that I still had my hopes and beliefs to give the people, and wrote it on my knee that I’ll never allow my leaders to forget this. I whispered in my heart for theirs to hear that the Congress of the People (COPE) will not only be a movement for the new era, with a commitment to putting its ear on the ground and basing its actions on the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, but it’ll be the vehicle of deliverance for their hopes. I said, yes COPE is a party that subscribe to democratic values while being sensitive to individual and minority rights, but it must be more; it must be the party of the people by the people through the people. COPE needs to enshrine as one of its founding principle that everyone has a right to decent life, liberty, prosperity, property, free speech, freedom of worship and assembly, and equality before the law. And COPE must believe these rights to be fundamental. That they are not subjected to a vote, or depend on the outcome of electioneering and populism.
Having seen how easy it is to manipulate governing laws to suite the capricious and arbitrary power of the day, I recalled my enthusiasm and hopes at the Sandton Convention that historic November day. When we said we’ll no longer trust even in legislation if the the values and ideals espoused by it is not robustly followed, or does not become part of the very fabric of political process. When we saw the crossroad moment of the devaluation of our institutions of our freedom and civil liberty, for the promotion of the ascendancy to power of one man, and defense of his criminal allegation, we said not in our name.
“I’m telling you now; you’re part of this moment, part of this tidal wave of the future. You are part of this vision for hope we are offering the peoples of South Africa, a home where everyone is welcome, but we will go out and challenge this country, we will pick its people up; we will hold our hopes high, and let me tell you,: There was never a time like this.” COPE’s work has just only begun. Sometimes when an idea arrives at an opportune time, and finds right leadership, of progressive spirit, it acquires a force of inevitability. COPE is an idea whose time has come, hence, as Reverend Boesak would say: COPE is on the Roll.
