Al-Qalam 
By Nabeelah Sheikh
Muslim organisations have joined over 100 civil society groups – who have all sworn to do their bit – to defend South Africa’s constitutional democracy.
During a two day conference held in Gauteng earlier this month, the organisations represented by more than 300 people, signed a declaration aimed at holding politicians accountable and restoring stability in the country. The conference for Democratic Renewal and Change was hosted by Defend Our Democracy, a campaign founded in March 2021.
The campaign aims to eradicate state capture, corruption and looting in the public and private sector, to speak up against unsubstantiated attacks on the judiciary, demand accountability, deepen participatory democracy to achieve socio-economic justice and support campaigns of organisations that call for democratic rights.
Among the signatories of the declaration were the Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa (MYMSA), Africa4Palestine, the Afro-Middle East Centre, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Auwal Socio Economic Research Institute (ASRI), Awqaf SA, the Muslim Judicial Council, Palestine Solidarity Alliance, the South African National Zakah Fund and Women of Waqf.
MYMSA President, Thandile Kona, said the organisation was dedicated to showing support for the Defend Our Democracy campaign, and in signing the declaration, made a commitment to be part of various planned activities.
“The MYMSA was invited as part of the initial organisations when the Defend Our Democracy campaign was launched. It was started by Reverend Frank Chikane and some other activists from the 70s and 80s. On seeing the conditions of what was happening in our country, and leading up to the unrest in July last year, they gathered a group of organisations. This was to chart a way to ensure the stability of the country first. But also to push back some of the ills that have taken over South Africa recently, such as corruption, crime, inequality, and poverty,” said Kona. He said the idea behind the initial formation was to gather civil society to safeguard the gains made as a democracy but also to further deepen democracy, because the work of democracy is a work in progress. The end of the conference saw the signing of the declaration.
“The document speaks mainly about countering the widespread disinformation in the country, countering the attacks on the judiciary and galvanizing civil society in order to hold politicians accountable. The idea is not to leave politics to the politicians, but to get ordinary people involved to keep their leaders in check, and hold them accountable,” said Kona.
He said the MYMSA will always be involved in initiatives like this.
“It has always been doing this work and it will continue to offer their support towards the Defend Our Democracy campaign. Our members must keep the politicians in their surroundings accountable, and ask critical questions to do this,” said Kona.
Kona said there were various activities and marches planned, as well as task teams put together to formulate campaigns.
“But the main aim is to push for the recommendations of the Zondo Commission report into State Capture. The declaration focuses on ensuring that those recommendations are implemented and we see this through,” said Kona.
CEO of Awqaf SA, Zeinoul Abedien Cajee, said civil society groups were deeply concerned about the state of the country and the Defend Our Democracy campaign created the platform for them to come together to pave a way forward.
“As an organisation, we too, have been concerned about the state of the country. This is a way for us to continue to work together. Essentially, it’s to have solidarity with all the other organisations who are concerned about what’s happening in the country. We will offer support to any plan of action, to get the country in order again. Let’s all work together to remedy the situation. Let’s see what support we can give, and what role we can actually play. It’s a question of looking into a plan of action on how to tackle the problems we are facing,” said Cajee.
Angelo Fick, Director of Research at ASRI said the core idea behind the values of ASRI is a combination of social justice and learning.
“We supported the declaration because the research that we were doing showed there was a real risk of democratizing being scaled back in South Africa. This is partly because of state capture and corruption, but also because of the rise in opportunistic agents in the political space, using this opportunity to scale back the gains of the constitution and the democratic order,” said Fick.
He says in signing the declaration, ASRI wanted to highlight that it is committed to preserving the gains we’ve made in a democratic South Africa.
“It is also so we can solidify those gains, protect them and protect the commitment to social justice. There will be different initiatives coming out of this, and where they align with the core values of ASRI, we will definitely be involved in them,” said Fick.
