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Cry Freedom too
(Revised 2009)
Foreword
Are South Africans really free after 1994? Fifteen years of democracy has been celebrated with big fanfare and spendingmillions of dollars, but the question remains: “Are all South Africansfree?” Are all South African actually and equally free? Does theconstitution, the fifteenth anniversary also now celebrated, reallyoffer the freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Human Rights?The writer, Herman Toerien, who has an Honors Degree in PoliticalScience and is an experienced news reporter, studiedConstitutional Law part time in 1994, thus under the newconstitutional dispensation. He was also a political researcher for the African Christian Democratic Party, but free lance for the pastyear.Yet, the year after he completed his Constitutional Lawqualification, he himself became a victim of the new dispensation.The resulting conflict, utilizing the instruments to protect humanrights, such as the Human Rights Commission and the PublicProtector, had not yet been resolved, a decade and a half later.Yet, Cry Freedom too, rich in symbolism, is not his own story, notquite. He explores reality as how many others battle to have their human rights to be upheld. The tales of most characters in thisbook are true, drawn from electronic newspaper archives, andsome are based on reality, some he met in person, all carefullywoven into a single story. Not all try to make the constitution work.Some have given up hope of a life as painted in the constitution.Rather than criticizing the constitution, he points out that not eventhe best constitution in the world can guarantee heaven on earth.He uses footnotes in order to have the text itself flow easier with the
 
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slang and expressions of life out there – the life of the “outsiders,”yet explaining them to the person who had not been exposed tothat life.The ten chapters of 
Cry Freedom too
were deliberately selected tohave some bearing on the Ten Commandments. Touching onToltec and even earlier philosophy one becomes aware that verylittle is new in life.Take note that this manuscript was not accepted by any SouthAfrican publisher – one claiming it not to be credible. Whenresponding that it contains no fiction, just names, places andcareers changed, the response was that reality is often stranger than fiction. Although the author has success with writing short,Afrikaans humor stories (also published in Huisgenoot, but mostlyas “Herrie se Kerrie” in Vrystaat, and stories read on radio” oneshould not expect something that should have been accepted by apublisher, politically correct or not.Since the original text was published, political correctness more or less was thrown out of the window, with first black editors statingthat they have been humiliated enough by the artificial “protection”from criticism black leaders enjoy. The then president, ThaboMbeki, became an early victim of this new objectivity, and “white”newspapers joined into the freedom the dropping of politicalcorrectness brought.This resulted in new racial polarization, though, as is demonstratedby the 2009 election results with the ANC, despite the Cope rift, stillalmost gathering a two thirds majority. Traditional SA is not yetready for a situation where a white woman, opposition leader HelenZille, can get away with mocking a black man with several wives.
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