Presidential address. Rights, rituals and the political process.

Abstract

To stand before the membership of our Association and deliver the Presidential Address has generally been regarded by my predecessors as the zenith of the presidential year. And indeed, in many ways it is. It is probably the most challenging task which the president faces, even though for me, it may not be the most stimulating. For myself, the stimulation and the rewards, as well as the frustrations and the failures, have been spread throughout the year. What is left for today is the challenge. The challenge obviously lies not only in the immediacy of the moment, but more particularly has been in all of the processes that constitute the preparation for the moment. Throughout my year as president, whenever there was a period of leisure, an awareness of this address would nibble at the corners of my consciousness, coupled with self-admonitions for time being used in a non-productive manner. In theearlier months of my year in office, these selfadmonitions were immediately followed by self-defensive responses responses centering on my own rights to leisure and also on the significance of the Presidential Address, attempting to relegate it into the category of a ritual, serving political processes, and hence of no great import. However, this self-deceptive, selfdefensive and self-defeating manoeuvre was short-lived. By the middle of the year