The Freedom Charter belongs to the people of South Africa. Every one of the ten points in the Charter can be used to rally our people anywhere in South Africa. However the task of rallying our people requires that we understand the Charter for what it is. In this paper I consider some of the main features of the Charter and try to clarify what are, I think, misunderstandings about its nature. I then look at its major demands.

A people's charter

The concept “people” pervades the entire Freedom Charter. I want to argue that the Freedom Charter is not a class document, and that when you use the concept “people” in the context of the national democratic struggle, you immediately usher us into an arena of class alliances, of class compromise.

All the existing classes and social groups (Christian, Moslems and intelligentsia) have been brought together for purposes of conducting the national democratic struggle. There is no question of playing one class against another. The emphasisis is on national unity and the immediate goal of all the classes and social groups in the alliance is the attainment of a popular people's republic in which they will have full participation.

The Freedom Charter will certainly usher in that sort of republic. It will not be a republic based on the dictatorship of the working class or the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, it will be a people's dictatorship. If I sound provocative on this point, I can only hope that I am sufficiently so. For it has been argued in the past, that the Charter is nothing else but a working-class, socialist document.

Among the champions of this school of thoughts are members of the Nationalist government. From this point of view in 1956, they tried to proscribe the Charter as a communist document, and the entire leadership the Congress movement was put behind bars and prosecuted.