Earlier this year - a year in which we have been celebrating ten years of democracy in South Africa - the South African National Assembly took delivery of a new mace, the symbol of the sovereignty of Parliament and a tangible manifestation of the strength of the democratic process that has taken root in South Africa in the past decade.
The head of the mace is an 18-carat gold book inscribed with the preamble to the Constitution in all the national languages. There are, I believe, currently around 185 sovereign nations in the world.