Reconciliation and/or transformation
14 April 2021
Judge Jody Kollapen is one of eight candidates who are being interviewed this week by the Judicial Service Commission to fill two vacancies on the Constitutional Court. In the course of his interview he is reported to have said that “in the transition to democracy, South Africans had perhaps focused too much on reconciliation and not enough on transformation.” He added that “reconciliation could not be achieved without transformation - without all South Africans accessing the economy.”
What did he mean by this? Reconciliation is a constitutionally mandated process that, according to the Preamble to the Constitution, is intended to “heal the divisions of the past”. It involves the difficult business of trying to resolve the painful historic divisions between black and white South Africans - a process that Nelson Mandela managed with such sensitivity. Its goal is the promotion of national unity on the basis of the rights and values in the Constitution.
Does Judge Kollapen think that we have now had enough reconciliation - that we should permit already frayed race relations to deteriorate further? And can he perhaps point to instances during the past fourteen years when the government of the day has actually continued with the process of reconciliation - when it has made South Africans from all our minorities feel at all welcome in the country of their birth?
He also seems to think that there is a contradiction between transformation and reconciliation - that South Africa cannot have both at the same time. That, of course, depends on what one understands by ‘transformation’. If transformation means the establishment of “a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights” - as indicated in the Preamble - and the improvement of “the quality of life of all citizens and the freeing of the potential of every person” then everyone should enthusiastically support it. Transformation of this kind can and must be achieved without limiting anyone’s rights and freedoms and without violating the foundational values of non-racialism, equality and human dignity.