–– Tim Cantrell
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Last month was the 70th anniversary of South Africa’s Freedom Charter, once called the ANC’s “Bible” by former president, Jacob Zuma. Hailed as the true ‘voice of the people’ for liberation since 1955, it is often elevated to the status of religious dogma, and exalted above our national Constitution. As image-bearers of the Almighty, God has placed this cry for freedom and human dignity in all of our hearts, as we’ve often argued here on TARIF. Muzzling the consent of the governed and trampling on human rights is abominable in God’s eyes and must be opposed.
But is the Freedom Charter biblical and sound? I’ve searched high and low for thoughtful Christian reflection on this enormously influential document in South Africa, but it is hard to find anything but highest praise. Yet as Christians, we are called to “hate what is evil, cling to what is good”. Ideas have consequences, so we must “renew our minds” to recognise error and stand for truth. We cannot live rightly unless we think biblically. How then should a Christian think about the Freedom Charter, and of what God wants for the political future of this beautiful and beloved country, or for any nation?
One journalist summed it up well: “The Charter was inspirational and aspirational, supportive of democracy and the rule of law. However, it reflected the dogma of socialism in its economic plans.” In brief, here are the three best analyses of the Freedom Charter I could find, all giving strong warnings against what was essentially “a communist creation direct from the hand of South Africa’s top communist, Joe Slovo”, and held up to this day as a model by Marxists worldwide.
Spoiled by Socialism
Last month, this local reporter wrote:
The Freedom Charter was the first time that a truly non-racial vision for a future South Africa was established, and it won broad-based support from all corners. It ought to be celebrated, if for this aspect alone. However, it also stands as a symbol for the failures of the post-democracy government.
One only has to look at Walter Sisulu Square in Kliptown, where the Charter was signed, to witness the failure of the promises of a better life for all. What should be a glorious memorial stands dilapidated and neglected, only a stone’s throw from people living in grinding squatter-camp poverty.
…[In the Freedom Charter] Socialism was seen as the ideology of equality and freedom, standing against brutal colonial capitalism. Yet colonialism and segregation were imposed by governments, not by the capitalist free market. And socialism inescapably requires an authoritarian government that restricts freedom and offers a better life only for the well-connected political elite.
Since the Freedom Charter was adopted, we have had 70 years of incontrovertible evidence, from countries around the world, that the more free an economy is, the higher is the standard of living, and that the poor have a higher standard of living in economically free countries than most of the rich do in economically unfree countries.
In short, free market capitalism works, and government-dominated socialism does not.
…The Freedom Charter has critical flaws in its lack of recognition of property rights and individual endeavour, and in its socialist appeal to a patriarchal government in which citizens are infantilised and forever dependent on a benevolent state.
Utopian Rhetoric
This analyst further exposes the fatal flaws of the Freedom Charter:
It is laden with flowery communist rhetoric which provides a convenient mask for the authoritarian regime which would come about to implement its provisions. …Its near complete disregard for property rights – the deprivation of which is what made the black majority of South Africa poor during Apartheid…makes for scary reading.
The Freedom Charter made promises that no individual, institution or society can realize. Rather than guaranteeing the liberty of each person to better his own lot or the lot of those around him, the Charter told him that he will be given stuff, for free. Rather than explaining how the fantastic idea of national ownership of land, and state control of industry and the economy can work in real life, the drafters of the Charter opted to be inspiring, poetic and instill hope among the people.
Communist Hypocrisy
Finally, Henry R. Pike, missionary historian in the 1980s in South Africa, gave this sober warning about the Freedom Charter (the only Christian response I could find):
Typical of communist hypocrisy, the Charter called for things not allowed in any communist country on the face of the earth [e.g., equal rights, shared wealth, security, etc.]. …Even today, the Freedom Charter is still viewed by the communists as a valid document and its contents are part of terrorist training in the Soviet Union.
Pike makes clear that the Charter was not a noble vision for equality, but a strategic instrument of communist ideology, and part of an international conspiracy, orchestrated by Marxist-Leninist forces, specifically the Soviet-aligned SACP (South African Communist Party), the ANC, and sympathisers. The Charter became a Trojan horse for them to gain moral leverage and public legitimacy. It would’ve been more accurately entitled, ‘Bondage Charter’, since the so-called ‘power to the people’ actually means power to a few corrupt thieves.
Conclusion
Cries for freedom ring out today on many fronts. Three of the top “Hotspots for Freedom Struggle” are African countries: Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. Ukraine and Iran are also striving desperately for their freedoms in the face of tyranny. Meanwhile, last week, my motherland celebrated her Independence Day, as the fruit of generations of Judeo-Christian influence from the Bible. Yet if America keeps defying God, she will lose her blood-bought freedoms.
As Vishal Mangalwadi writes of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt:
God was free, and He wanted His children to be free like Him. Oppression and slavery were evils to be routed. They were evil because they were contrary to all that God had intended for the human beings made in His own image. …Biblical cultures highly value freedom as the essence of God and of His image – humanity.
May God awaken His Church here in South Africa and call us back to His Word, our supreme ‘Freedom Charter’ and source of lasting liberation in Christ.