Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
Book announcement: “Walk with us and listen: Political reconciliation in Africa”
Walk with us and listen: Political reconciliation in Africa
Author: C Villa Vicencio
ISBN: 978-1-91989-530-7
Size: 225 x 152mm
Extent: 224 pages
Format: Soft cover
Pub date: September 2009
Recommended Retail Price: R220 (incl. VAT)
Effective peace agreements are rarely accomplished by idealists. The process of moving from situations of entrenched oppression, armed conflict and open warfare towards peace and reconciliation requires a series of small steps and compromises to open the way for the kind of dialogue and negotiation that makes political stability, the beginning of democracy and the rule of law a possibility. For over 40 years, Charles Villa-Vicencio has been on the front lines of Africa’s battle for racial equality. In Walk with Us and Listen, he argues that reconciliation needs honest talk to promote trust-building and enable former enemies and adversaries to explore joint solutions to the cause of their conflicts. He offers a critical assessment of the South African experiment in transitional justice as captured in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and considers the influence of ubuntu, in which individuals are defined by their relationships, and other traditional African models of reconciliation. Political reconciliation is offered as a cautious model against which transitional politics needs to be measured. Villa-Vicencio challenges those who stress the obligation to prosecute those allegedly guilty of gross violation of human rights, replacing this call with the need for more complementarity between the International Criminal Court and African mechanisms to achieve the greater goals of justice and peace-building.
Contents Abbreviations Introduction A Theoretical Prologue: Affinities and Tensions in Debate Chapter 1: An African Journey Chapter 2: Shared Peace Chapter 3: From Encounter to Settlement Chapter 4: National Conversation Chapter 5: Ubuntu Chapter 6: African Traditional Reconciliation Practices Chapter 7: Why Reconciliation is Important Chapter 8: Seeking Consensus Recommended for Students and practitioners in law, human rights, transitional justice, politics and international relations.
About the author
Charles Villa-Vicencio is a visiting research fellow at The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University and executive consultant at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town, South Africa. He was executive director of the Institute from 2000-2007. He was also national research director of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He is the author or editor of 18 books, including A Theology of Reconstruction: Nation-Building and Human Rights and The Spirit of Freedom: South African Leaders on Religion and Politics.
