What does it mean to be a liberal in SA? The question goes to the heart of our politics. It tears at the ruling party and now the main opposition too. As an ideology, and very strangely given the people who devised it, our Constitution is liberal in both conception and intent. Yet it was put together by an African nationalist, Cyril Ramaphosa, and an Afrikaner nationalist, Roelf Meyer. Were they both so intrinsically wary of their own instincts that they unwittingly sought refuge in the only civilised way to order human society — that individuals have rights to speech and security and life that cannot be ignored? Most South Africans will have long forgotten the Liberal Party. It was founded in May 1953, when I was five months old, and disbanded in 1968, when apartheid was at its most virulent. Its founder was the author Alan Paton, grandfather of the deputy editor of this newspaper. While it began as a mainly white party, it was uncompromisingly nonracial and rapidly attracted black...
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