Oscar van Heerden | Ramaphosa has reformed and rebuilt. Maybe not decisively, but certainly steadily

On Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa, in part, attempted to answer the question as to whether the ANC has fulfilled its historic mission, writes Oscar van Heerden.

When, on Sunday, 26 June 1955, about 3 000 ANC delegates of all colours and backgrounds gathered in an open veld outside Johannesburg in what author Saul Dubow, in his recording of the event, described as a "carnival-like show of popular strength", to draft the Freedom Charter they had in mind, not ideology, but the dreams and aspirations of millions of people.

Among their aspirations were the right to share the country's wealth, to enjoy human rights and equality before the law, and to enjoy equal access to education, housing and medical care. These aspirations, recalled activist Lionel 'Rusty' Bernstein in his memoir, Memory in Forgetting, were written by thousands of people on pieces of paper, scraps of cardboard and toilet paper. They were, recalled Dubow, relatively uncontroversial.