Today's proceedings in honour of Kader Asmal and his retirement are extraordinary for several reasons. First, he leaves Parliament, literally, to become a Professor-Extraordinary at the University of the Western Cape . (Although as he remarked in a recent interview, the "extraordinary" aspect about his new appointment is that it is unpaid). Second, it is also an occasion to pay tribute - across the aisle - to a person who has rendered extraordinary service to Parliament and to the politics of South Africa for the last decade and a half. Third, today's occasion is extraordinary for me: it is only Kader's departure from this institution which has caused me to break my parliamentary silence after more than a year since my last speech from this podium.
Kader Asmal is a very rare politician, particularly within the confines and stricture of our young democracy. He actually engages in debate. He understands that any worthwhile conversation must include at least one other person - a rare occurrence on his side of the house. More: he has never profited from the considerable offices of state he has occupied, nor sought to exploit commercially his political connectivity and his access to state power. Never mind school pledges or apex priority points; if we want to offer an example to the country, this is what a life of public service to South Africa should be all about.
Kadar Asmal is someone with whom you can - as I can attest - vehemently disagree across the floor of Parliament, but afterward share a jaw and a "jar", either in the parliamentary bar or at some other preferred hostelry.
Our closed list proportional representation system (which bizarrely Kader did so much to defend at the time of the Van Zyl Slabbert Report) actually militates against the sort of free-thinking, irreverent and academically distinguished contributions which have been the hallmark of so much of the Honourable Asmal's parliamentary and ministerial performances.
We have, however, very often disagreed with each other. I recall before the 1999 elections, the Democratic Party published a poster of me bearing the legend " Tony Leon needs you". In the State of the Nation Debate that year, Kader Asmal opined, "The bigger question is whether you need Tony Leon as he defaces our landscape like an urban scarecrow." Well, we have both been compared to some pretty weird beasts in our time; but at base I think we have much in common. We are parliamentary animals. And it may be true that, in saving this chamber from turning into a complete zoo, that parliament needs more, not fewer of them.
In another debate, more for the paucity of his argument on that occasion rather than his distinctive physical presence, I described him as "a hypocrite on stilts." He affected to splutter with rage but he was also very amused.
Kader's first Ministry, Water Affairs and Forestry, was hugely successful in presentational terms, and he certainly set the bar very high for his cabinet colleagues in getting a "good press" and communicating with the public. But while there was a showman side which Kader used to good effect, even he sometimes expressed amazement at the extent to which the requirements of presentation sometimes overwhelmed and intruded on modern politics. Shortly before his election as Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair visited this parliament during the recess. Few MP's were therefore on hand to receive him. Kader, however, was one of them. I asked him later what impression the New Labour Leader made on him. "Impressed?" Kader spluttered, "He wore make-up throughout his visit, in order to have the right glow on TV. That's my impression and it is not therefore a serious one."
His second Ministry, Education, seemed unusually suited to his talents and background as an educator. There was, on his watch, no shortage of ideas, schemes and ideology. But the core problem which required urgent address and redress, the quality of teaching and the performance of educators, remains an unresolved problem to this day.
Late in the day, after having been relieved of ministerial office, Kader Asmal found his voice on a range of issues: denouncing Robert Mugabe's tyranny in Zimbabwe and proposing a third way for the ANC outside of what he saw as the Zuma/Mbeki cul de sac. He also suggested a new generation - or third way - of leadership for his party to which he had dedicated his entire adult life. Late, however, is far better than never.
If we look back over the fourteen years of our parliamentary democracy and the negotiations which preceded it, we can see precisely what a big role Kader has played at every stage of our political and constitutional journey. And even where I believe he was profoundly wrong, or that decisions taken might have been differently executed, Kader Asmal was often quite prepared to think outside the box imposed by party and to go against the prevailing tide -whether it was on deliberately fettering his ministerial discretion when Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry or, indeed, questioning the hegemony of the trade unions and their stranglehold over the teaching profession of South Africa.
But more than agreements or disagreements on policy or arguments about decisions taken or decision deferred, perhaps what we will most remember is his lively sense of engagement, his intellect and his humour which - in this house -have often been like sweet perfume on the desert air. He invigorated an often sterile discourse with intellect, and animated many, many dull debates and discussions otherwise entirely unremarkable.
Kader Asmal's departure from Parliament hardly signals a withdrawal from politics and perhaps freed from the burdens of both party discipline and parliamentary routine, he will continue to perform great and lasting service to our country: to defend our Constitution from the encroachment and undermining by those whose zeal often exceeds their probity. Because if we look back to those now fondly remembered and far off days of constitutional negotiation and contestation, it might also be said that Kader Asmal was a co-architect of our constitutional order. He, better than most, knows what has to be done to ensure it remains a living document and not a palimpsest on which the exigencies of power overwrite and overwhelm its foundational principles.
Amongst many curious political animals, Kader Asmal was, as they would say in the parlance of British politics, "A big beast in the parliamentary jungle." And as he goes we should look upon him and learn from him. It will be a long, long time before we see his like again.
This is the prepared text of a speech delivered in parliament by Tony Leon, DA Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, February 26 2008
