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11 Stellenbosch L. Rev. 385 (2000)
The South African Constitution as Memory and Promise

handle is hein.journals/stelblr11 and id is 393 raw text is: THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTITUTION AS MEMORY AND PROMISE* Lourens du Plessis B Jur et Comm, LLB, B Phil, LLD Professor, University of Stellenbosch 1 The Constitution and different modes of memory A constitution both narrates and authors a nation's history. The potency with which it can mould a politics of memory thus equals the authority with which it can shape the politics of the day. However, neither the memorial nor the auctorial role of a constitution is (historically) all-encompassing or absolute. A constitution, or the Constitution with a capital letter (to honour its precedence as law-text), is but one among many narrators of a given national history and similarly at most a co-determinant, however significant, of the said nation's destiny. The point of this article is that the promise(s) which a constitution holds can only emerge from contradictory modes of dealing with that constitution as memory. In other words, the manner in which we deal with the Constitution as memory predetermines the fulfilment of the Constitution as pledge. The Constitution as memory is a monument and a memorial at the same time. In purpose and style these constitutional modes of existence are largely contradictory, but they need not necessarily exclude or eliminate each other. A constitution as delivered promise(s) can possibly be both a monument and a memorial if both modes of memory are duly and simultaneously acknowledged and honoured. The present article canvasses this possibility. Monuments and memorials have memory in common, but in significantly distinct ways: a monument celebrates; a memorial commemorates. The difference in (potential) meaning(s) may be subtle, and in a dictionary sense celebrate and commemorate could even be said to be synonyms, but for present purposes they are not or, at least, not exactly. Heroes and achievements can be celebrated or lionised. The same cannot be said of anti-heroes, failures and blunders: they can be remembered yes, but not celebrated. Commemorate is a feasible synonym for remember (in its ordinary signification, as lawyers would say), but celebrate can only be an exultant or jubilant mode of * Paper read at the launch of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town on II May 2000. Financial assistance rendered by the Centre for Science Development (presently the National Research Foundation, Division: Social Sciences and Humanities) in support of the research on which this article is based, is hereby acknowledged. Opinions herein expressed and conclusions arrived at are, however, those of the author and should not be attributed to the National Research Foundation. For an insightful discussion of the distinction between monuments and memorials, cf Snyman Interpretation and the Politics of Memory 1998 Acta Juridica 312 317-321.

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