THE call by our president to open debate on values in South Africa has been widely welcomed. No one in her right mind would be against debate. But the debate cannot be about “shared values” in South Africa as President Jacob Zuma requested. We already have shared values. They were the result of many years of liberation struggle and opposition to apartheid, and were exactly the subject of long negotiations after 1990. Those values are enshrined in our Constitution.

The preamble and chapter 2 are clear: We agree on human dignity; we agree on healing and reconciliation; we agree on transparency; we agree on democracy;we agree on individual liberties; we agree on academic freedom; we agree on private property rights; we agree on equality before the law; we agree on no discrimination based on any accidental factor like race, class or sexual orientation.

The debate must rather move toward interpretation of these values and their actual implementation in the everyday realities of South Africa.

The real questions are: Is human dignity promoted when people sleep in queues outside our state hospitals? Is equality before the law affirmed when the outcome is politically determined, and hinges on the size of your bank account?

Does polygamy entrench patriarchy, and therefore by implication subtly confirm discrimination against women? Can nationalisation be paired with private property rights, and how should we balance the two?

Is rural traditional leadership democratic, and should it be?

An interesting possibility is to extend the debate to the more difficult question: Is our Constitution not deriving its deepest thrust from Western Enlightenment thinking, with its focus on individual rights, and thereby losing sight of African realities?

Can we honestly say human rights are “universal” if, for example, religious and cultural sentiments stand in direct opposition to some implications of those rights: the right to kill the unborn; free speech that borders on blasphemy; universal suffrage in the context of hereditary rule; Western legal principles in the context of age-old customary laws; communal land ownership in the face of private ownership? Things are trickier than they look on the surface. Let us support the president on this one.