We go back to 1990. We had to shift our country, which at that time was the epitome of division, repression, and injustice – a point of negative reference for anybody who wanted to condemn anything in the world. It was a country that introduced the word ‘apartheid’ to the English language and international human rights discourse. It was a country that sent death squads across its borders to hurt and torture people to death and that had an organised system of repression that extended into every village and into every nook and cranny of society. It was a country that was racist, authoritarian, and narrow.

This very harsh, racist South Africa had to be converted into a country – with the same people, the same physical terrain, the same resources, and the same buildings – into a country that was democratic and respected human rights. It had to be a country where people of widely different backgrounds would respect each other, where everybody would live in dignity, and where social peace prevailed. This was a not a small task. Just through language you can trace the whole constitutional parabola that followed as we made the best of it. In those days, we used to speak about ‘the enemy’, later ‘the enemy’ became ‘the regime’, then ‘the regime’ became ‘the other side’, and now ‘the other side’ is simply ‘the opposition’.