To Still Speak of Freedom
Seventy years ago, the Congress of the People was broken up by apartheid police while discussing the Freedom Charter, a vision for a just society. The document remains a guide for building a free South Africa today, writes Mervyn Bennun, one of the meeting’s participants.
The Freedom Charter was notable precisely for its insistence that economic and political rights were equally important. (Photo credit: Eli Weinberg / UWC Robben Island Mayibuye Archives)
On 25 and 26 June 1955, the Congress of the People was held in Kliptown, South Africa. Proposed two years previously by Z. K. Matthews, a prominent academic, it was organised by the National Action Council. This later became known as the Congress Alliance — a coalition consisting of the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Trade Unions, the Coloured People’s Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats, and the African National Congress. The Congress of the People was intended to adopt the Freedom Charter.
The Freedom Charter was summarised best by Joe Slovo who, writing in 1956, said that its essence was ‘to allow each South African to say for himself what he desires of life’. Often on small scraps of paper, proposals from people across the length and breadth of South Africa were collected by thousands of volunteers, who brought these ‘freedom demands’ into the hands of the document’s organisers, with anti-apartheid figures like Ruth First and Rusty Bernstein tasked with wading through the varied, often hyper-local or sometimes abstract, demands.
Eventually, the Freedom Charter was thrashed out. Its text commences:
We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people . . .
A future non-racial, democratic South Africa was outlined, guaranteeing equal and human rights, wealth and land redistribution, education and housing, job security, culture and peace. The document was ratified by 3,000 people in Kliptown, a neighbourhood of Soweto, over those two days in June. On the second day, the proceedings were broken up by riot police, and 156 anti-apartheid militants were arrested and faced what soon became known as the Treason Trial.
Evading the ‘Bright Buttons’
I was in Kliptown that day. With several others from Cape Town, mostly students, we drove up in my father’s car. All of us were concerned that the police would follow us and perhaps frustrate our journey; in fact, years later I learned that others from Cape Town were stopped en route and never reached the meeting. We drove straight to Kliptown, arriving after dark on 24 June. While my car was parked, somebody drove into the back of it, breaking the red cover to one tail light and making the car easily detectable with one bright white tail light.
I telephoned the friends who were putting me up, Ike and Fanny Fanaroff, to tell them I was coming. I recall Ike saying to me that I should not bring ‘the bright buttons’ with me; I did not understand what he meant at first but then realised that he was referring to the police. I was concerned by the broken tail light on the car and took all sorts of precautions to make sure that I was not being followed.
I was able to replace the broken light the next morning and went on to Kliptown. It was by far the biggest political gathering I had ever been to. We sat on benches made of planks on bricks at each end. Our small Cape Town delegation sat together, and there is a well-known photograph which includes us. One member of the group is standing looked backwards into the gathering, and that person is me.
One of our group was Benny Sacks. He was a fifth, or final, year medical student and the oldest of us. We regarded him as politically more experienced, and by tacit agreement he was our unofficial leader. To the best of my recollection, others in our group, mostly students, were Joy Maraney (now Coplan), Tony Aronstam, Hymie Rochman, Yusuf Wadee, Alf Wannenburg, and Alf’s friend Nita. Someone from the organisers asked Benny to arrange for a speaker from among us to introduce the part of the Freedom Charter dealing with education, ‘The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall Be Opened!’ We were asked because some of us were identified as university students.
Benny turned to me and said that as I hadn’t addressed a meeting yet, I should be the speaker. I found a piece of paper, folded it into quarters, and made some notes. When the moment came, I went up on the platform. I had barely started when I saw the police enter at the back, running in a single file down the centre aisle of the area where the audience was seated. Those were still the days when the white constables wore khaki uniforms and pith helmets, and each policeman was carrying a rifle.
The chairperson for the session was Piet Beyleveld. He snatched my notes from me and pushed me hard, face forward, off the platform. I fell at the feet of the leading policeman as he reached the platform. I noticed that he was wide-eyed with fear — I think he was as frightened as I was.
I made my way back into the audience, but I couldn’t reach my friends and sat down in the first vacant space I saw. There was then an incident which, now when I look back on it, seems like a sentimental soap opera, but it really happened. I was seated next to an old man who said to me, ‘Is this the first time you’ve met the police?’ I nodded. ‘You’re frightened?’ I admitted I was. He said, ‘I’m from the Eastern Cape. I’ve met the police before. I’m not afraid. Give me your hands.’ He took my two hands in his, and I remember his big, black, hard working-man’s palms holding my two little soft white hands. ‘Now you’re not afraid,’ he said.
Looking back on those events seventy years ago, I must confess that I had no idea at the time that I was at an historic event. It was important, yes. And I knew the buildup and preparations and collection of demands that had gone before it. But that it was a life event for me? No, the thought never entered my mind at the time. As the years went by, my understanding grew. I became very conscious that it had been a great privilege to attend the Congress of the People. I was profoundly shaped by what happened in Kliptown.
I grew to know the text of the Freedom Charter well and even contributed an article on it to Sechaba, the ANC’s journal. The Freedom Charter was referred to shortly after it was adopted at a meeting of the Modern World Society (MWS) at the University of Cape Town where I was a student. The MWS essentially being a body to bring anti-apartheid speakers to campus. I recall a student aggressively challenging the chairperson at a meeting, demanding to know what ‘freedom’ meant. I think that the chairperson was Hymie Rochman.
Hymie replied that South Africa would be free when the principles in the Freedom Charter were realised. To me, this seemed — and still does seem — an easy, reasonable description of a free South Africa. The Freedom Charter meant more and more to me as the years went by. Writing this in April 2025, I am 89 years old. My understanding of what the Freedom Charter stands for became clearer, and its importance greater to me, as the struggle against apartheid developed.
From Freedom Demands to Constitutional Rights
Every South African should measure South Africa against the Freedom Charter. Consciousness of it should start in schools, so that every South African knows about it. The demands that went into the Freedom Charter’s drafting still have huge unmet gaps.
The scale of these has often been due to corruption and incompetence, and sometimes the incompetence has itself been corrupt because it was protected. Sometimes the gaps are due to lack of resources, sometimes due to lack of political will, and sometimes the gaps are works in progress — that this is the case fills one with hope.
Our Bill of Rights was also born out of the Freedom Charter. The freedoms of conscience, religion, thought, belief, and opinion are explicitly named and protected. Our freedom of expression is limited only by prohibitions on propaganda for war; incitement to imminent violence; advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender, or religion; and anything that constitutes incitement to cause harm.
To give effect to these rights, we have the rights to assemble, picket, and petition. We can associate, form political parties, and campaign for them. We have the right to free, fair, and regular elections. The Bill of Rights also states we have rights to housing, healthcare, food, water, social security, and education. Until these unmet rights are fulfilled, we cannot say that we are really free.
Some South Africans criticise the Freedom Charter for its political content — or lack of it — or because it does not reflect their views in some way. But they miss the point of it: political doctrine was not the issue, nor was it intended to describe utopia. It was written to set out what people wanted, as stated in the demands all South Africans were asked to write down and which were collected.
The demands were simple and clear. For example, we wanted streetlights, schools and clinics, decent homes, and water and electricity. Above all, we wanted a sense that South Africa was ours; we wanted an end to the cruelties of apartheid.
Accordingly, the poetic and simple opening words of the Freedom Charter are designed to embrace all South Africans. This ensures that the Freedom Charter is not the property of any political party. In fact, the ANC had to consider and adopt it, though it helped in the processes which led to Kliptown. It can be amended only by the same process by which the Congress of the People was convened — a process which is designed to involve all South Africans.
The Freedom Charter is a truly South African document. It is the living breath of the people. It describes what South Africa should look like, and South Africans should have no difficulty in accepting the image. This is an especially important point to remember in the context of the country’s current pressures, and those who are trying to impose their wishes on South Africa must understand that our democracy has a history which cannot be brushed aside.
The Freedom Charter was created by that history and safeguards it. We have committed ourselves to a ‘fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations’. We refuse to be bullied; this drives our respect for international law with regard to questions such as the genocide in Gaza and our concern that others shall have the same right to self-determination as ourselves.
It’s good to be a South African!