The Veil of Participation

Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 The public face of constitution making In the final months of 1995, about one-third of South Africans encountered an interesting full page advertisement in a newspaper or magazine. It was a picture of President Nelson Mandela standing on a pavement outside a building, dressed in a suit, and talking on a cellular phone. The speech bubble above his head read, Hello, is that the Constitutional Talk-line? I would like to make my submission" (Segal and Cort, 2011; Everatt et al., 1996, 156). This advertisement was part of a large campaign to encourage South Africans to participate in the constitution-making process. The central message was that South Africans of any background, level of education or income, could meaningfully contribute to the drafting of the constitution. It intimated that their participation was wanted, and that participation was easy. This message was buttressed by the publication of comic strips that illustrated the constitution-making process and the content of the constitution, and TV and radio programs that brought the development of the constitution into the living rooms, minibuses and cars of the "rainbow nation." By the time the final constitution was completed in 1996, more than a 1.5 million South Africans had participated in some way, and cemented the place of South Africa's constitution as a guiding example to the world"--