(Extract from the January 8 Statement, delivered by African National Congress President Oliver Tambo, 1987)
We must unite all these forces, both Black and White, around the democratic perspective for which so many people have already laid down their lives. Once more, we reaffirm that in the new South Africa the people – all the people – shall govern. We shall, together, translate that fundamental democratic principle into the practice whereby each person shall have the right both to vote and to voted to any elective organ in the new united and non-racial South Africa.
For us, it is of special importance that that new reality should reinforce what we are accomplishing now, in struggle: the building of a nation of South Africans. It must reflect and enhance our oneness, breaking down the terrible and destructive idea and practice of defining our people by race, colour or ethnic group. The revolution will guarantee the individual and equal rights of all South Africans without regard to any of these categories, and include such freedoms as those of speech, assembly, association, language, religion, the press, the inviolability of family life and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention without trial. For all this, the victorious revolution demand and must ensure thoroughgoing democratic practice.
For its own success, it imposes the obligation that all should be free to form and join any party of their choice, without let or hindrance. But as a people and a movemen
