Roelf Meyer, co-architect of South Africa's new, non-racial constitution, told me why he thought the handover from apartheid to majority rule was achieved with such relative peace and stability.
He drafted the first non-racial constitution of the South African Chess Federation, in 1975 founded a multiracial cricket club, which, at first, was declared illegal and then allowed to compete, and was the only white member of the multi-racial South African Cricket Board of Control's governing committee of 16.
As I see it, this inquiry is sufficient to answer the constitutional question because racial gerrymandering offends the Constitution whether the motivation is malicious or benign.
A Recognise youth representative who is travelling to Canberra from Adelaide, Rebekka Rogers, said: "I know that with constitutional recognition and the removal of racial discrimination from our constitution our country will be better and I am prepared to fight for that".
He wants to roll back what most Americans consider racial progress because the "Constitution abhors classifications based on race" and even when the government uses them to solve problems and confer benefits, "it demeans us all".
Ms Gillard has promised the referendum by the time of the next federal election, due in 2013.The panel said Australia has an "historic opportunity" to remove the "last vestiges of racial discrimination from the constitution".
The measure would permit only parties with at least 10,000 members, including 100 in at least half of Russia's regions, and would outlaw parties that seek to change Russia's Constitution, foment racial hatred or undermine national security.
In striking down this policy, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Virginia, concluded that the Constitution prohibits "racial balancing" from being used as the decisive factor in school assignments.
The treatment of racial discrimination within the constitution remains the main sticking point of a historic national summit on the recognition of Indigenous Australians in the nation's founding document.
Because "racial gerrymandering offends the Constitution whether the motivation is malicious or benign," Justice Thomas said, "it is not a defense that the Legislature merely may have drawn the district based on the stereotype that blacks are reliable Democratic voters".
Other significant provisions of the 1902 Constitution imposed racial segregation in public schools (which already existed on a de facto basis) and abolished the county court system.
