30 October 2000
It was the lure of exploiting the wealth of our Continent under white hegemony that inspired Cecil Rhodes to dream of a Cape to Cairo link, and more than half a century later led to the notion promoted by PW Botha of a constellation of African states in southern Africa.
For the African people the cause of African Unity has been a noble and liberating one: reflected in the Pan African Congress a Century ago, and shortly thereafter by Pixley Ka Seme calling for the unity of the African people to prevent further conquest and dispossession, and later the founders of the ANC calling for an inclusive society in a united non-racial South Africa.
This liberating concept has been dominant on the continent expressed at the All African People’s Congress called by Nkwame Nkrumah, and the formation of the OAU, with a commitment to liberate the entire continent from colonialism.
No people have more reason to appreciate the value of African unity than we South Africans. The end of apartheid and the establishment of this democratic Parliament in 1994 came about through the support given to our struggle by African countries, including the pressure exerted by a united Africa on those who continued to support the apartheid regime for so long.
As the frontiers of colonial rule receded, the focus of the OAU shifted from liberation to development. The Declaration on the Political and Economic situation in Africa, and the African Charter for Popular Participation in Development was adopted in 1990. A few years later, a Mechanism for Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution was put in place. In 1998, the establishment of an African Court on Human and People’s Rights created a legal instrument for the enforcement of the African Charter adopted in the early 1980’s.
Economic co-operation and integration began at regional level and in 1991 provision was made for establishment of the African Economic Community.
Three months ago, African Heads of State agreed to establish an African Union with a Pan African Parliament.
Today, globalisation propels Africa towards greater economic and political unity. For developed economies, globalisation offers promise. For debt-ridden and poverty stricken economies, globalisation can be a threat to our survival.
While every other region of the world has made progress over the last two decades, the income per head for Africa as a whole is lower than it was in 1980. Faced with a trading system which insists on transnational capital having carte blanche, African countries are increasingly recognising that they will have to stand together if they are to defend (or advance) their own interests. As individual nation-states within artificial borders, they are too easily picked off or played against each other by the Corporations and the global accountants in a post-colonial version of divide-and-rule. Both the threat and the example of the European Union have given the idea of an African Union new impetus.
By the year 2050, Africa will have a population of 1 billion: a demographic giant. An African bloc that brings together the mineral wealth and offshore oil fields of sub-Saharan Africa, and oil producers in the Maghreb and Nigeria, would indeed be a global force to be heeded.
In all these developments, the voices of the people of Africa articulated through their elected representatives in Parliaments have been absent – until now.
Since the Pan African Parliament was first mooted, Parliaments of the SADC Region have resolutely maintained that Parliamentarians must be involved in its creation, and our voice has finally been heeded. I wish to express our appreciation to our Minister of Foreign Affairs for her consistent support.
The Organisation for African Unity has convened a meeting of African Parliamentarians next week to finalise and submit to the Council of Ministers a Protocol establishing a Pan African Parliament.
The task is not simply a technical one of drafting rules and procedures. The principles have been spelt out in the report before us. We need also to consider carefully the nature of the Institution we want to create, taking account of political reality and laying sound foundations so that one day it could grow into a Parliament of all the people of Africa, in the truest sense of the word. Much will need to be done, before that can be realized.
Africa has witnessed a number of attempts at Union between countries, motivated by idealism but frequently hastily conceived and ill prepared, often built on the shifting sands of political rhetoric and blown asunder by the harsh winds of political reality. Creating a Continental Union and its institutions is a far greater challenge, but the need was never more urgent.
The development and strengthening of African Unity needs to go hand in hand with the building of institutions. In doing so, we will have to recognize and take account of the racial, ethnic, religious, political, linguistic and cultural diversity of our continent, the differing colonial experiences and the levels of political and economic development.
It will not be enough to simply acknowledge this, more importantly, we have to respect this diversity.
Apartheid projected this country as a part of Europe rather than an African country and this has left its imprint as is visible in much of the public discourse. We need to educate, redefine and correct our perceptions as Africans and if I may presume to say, Deputy Speaker, to be less arrogant as we look at the rest of the Continent, for we have much to learn.
South Africans are justly proud of our Constitution and our democracy. But we have no universal or perfect answer. After all we have a long way to go before this institution is fully representative of our population. For a start, we need at least 80 – 90 more women, more representatives from the rural areas, from the trade unions and business, and more young people. In many other ways we have yet to expand the democratic content of this institution.
Our democracy is based on the Westminster system, and this is not necessarily the best. After a degree of hesitation, the No-Party system of Uganda has been accepted by the Commonwealth as providing a democratic Parliament. Elsewhere, we might find other models.
What will be important for the Pan African Parliament, is not be prescriptive but to build it on universal principles, which we accept can be applied differently in various countries.
The most important role of the Pan African Parliament in the immediate future will be to provide a forum for free and open debate on a range of issues, including the African condition and possible solutions, the relief of poverty and the management of globalisation. It can serve to develop a common understanding of African and our common future, and thereby help to strengthen economic ties and relations.
Our dialogue can inform and create a culture of Human Rights and Peace and educate people on the resolution of difference and conflict through discussion and negotiation rather than violence and war; we can contribute to the creation of stability and prevention of war.
Importantly, such a forum would strengthen and spread democracy, reinforcing the will of African leaders to remove from their midst those who come to power through military coups or abuse and manipulate power for personal gain.
The Pan African Parliament could protect the rights and freedoms of the African people, and raise a collective voice to guard, develop and defend democracy and its institutions.
There is much that we can do. Today this House must express its support for the establishment of the Pan African Parliament, and commit itself to our full co-operation and participation.