We have a right to dream

On Monday, September 24, we will be celebrating our National Heritage Day. As before, this will give us an opportunity to reflect upon and enjoy the rich and diverse heritage with which we are blessed. This heritage is an important part of what defines us as a country and a people, the starting point of our march towards the better and humane future we desire for all our people. Unless we understand the impact of this heritage on ourselves, none of us can correctly answer the question - who and what am I?

Many among us believe that when we speak of our national heritage, we speak only of language, custom, culture and the arts. According to this view, National Heritage Day should focus us on these areas in all their diversity, recognising the reality that this diversity is but a combination of different colours and materials that bind together to form a single quilt. It is therefore expected that we should pass this public holiday rejoicing the varied complexity of the music and dance, the drama, the poetry, the languages, the plastic arts, the normative rituals and social prescriptions of our country, that we correctly characterise as a defining part of our culture and being.

At the same time, some take it as given that National Heritage Day gives us the possibility, and impose an obligation on us, to celebrate particular moments of frozen historic time that we see as inherent to the determination of who and what we are. Thus do historical human experiences - events, heroes and heroines, particular customs, beliefs and mores - that were dynamic and restless in their time, get transformed into unchanging monuments that serve as icons that we endow with the power to determine who and what we are.

No value judgement attaches to what we have said. It describes merely what we do as we pay tribute to our varied national heritage, knowing that the activities in which we engage are both necessary and correct. However, as we thus celebrate this and future National Heritage Days, we will have to bear in mind that we honour this heritage at a particular time in our history, and therefore in a specific social context. At the same time, we have to recognise the fact that some of that heritage is not worthy of celebration.

The unacceptable elements in what we have inherited constitute part of what we need to confront as we continue the struggle for the fundamental social transformation of our country. Our heritage is therefore not only about language, music and dance. It also concerns the political, economic and social history that also defines who and what we are. As we seek to overcome what is negative in this legacy, that history presents us with the new challenge to define who and what we want to be.

National Heritage Day gives us this possibility. It affords us the opportunity to project to ourselves both what we inherited from the past and who and what we want to be in future.

During this national holiday, we have a right to dream. We have a right to dream about a future for ourselves and our country that is free of inequality among our people and free of the painful racial and gender practices, prejudices and intolerance and the social reality that continue to inform our lives. We have a right to dream of the fulfilment of each and every South African, through the elimination of poverty and the opening of the doors of learning and culture for the benefit of all our fellow countrymen and women.

We have the possibility to construct images in our minds of a new world for our people, free of the violence and crime that blight our lives, safe from the preventable diseases that kill without mercy, rid of the poverty that both wastes people and denies them their humanity. We also have the opportunity to dream of a time in future in which we will all have access to all the languages, cultures, arts and traditions that make up our composite heritage, considering these to be ours, celebrating each, regardless of our individual origins.

We must believe this to be true that there will come a time when KhoiSan culture will be accepted by all of us as part of our common culture. We must believe this to be true that by sharing with other South Africans what they believe to be sacred to themselves, all Afrikaners will come to understand that they are, indeed, Africans, and can be nothing else.

Whether Venda or Tamil; Coloured or Gujerat; Zulu, or Portuguese, or Ugandan; Pedi, or Greek, or Chinese; Tsonga, or Jewish, or Malay; Zanzibari, or Italian, or Rwandan; Swazi, Mozambican, Malawian, Zimbabwean, or Slav; Sotho, English, Tswana, Scottish, Irish, or Polish; Cypriot, Ndebele, Somali, Lebanese, Senegalese, Congolese, or Afghan, or African-American; Lemba, Xhosa, French, Ghanaian, Nigerian, Angolan, Cypriot, or German; where these are South African, we have a right to claim and celebrate their languages and their cultures as part of the national heritage.

On National Heritage Day, one and all have a right to take to our assembly places, our fields and our streets, to enhance our unity as a people by celebrating our diversity, with none superior to the other, with none entitled to be more human than another. Our dreams are also a call to action. What we wish to be, obliges us to strive together to extricate ourselves from the unacceptable habitats we inherited from our past. What we have done together in the last seven years has given us an ever-firmer platform from which to proceed towards the future of which we dream.

What we have inherited as a country, through the millennia, provides us with an even firmer foundation on which to base our definition of ourselves as human beings. I speak here of the historical place of our country, from the very formation of the earth. The labour of those who work tirelessly to discover the secrets of life, nature and society - the scientists - has provided us with a remarkable record and glimpses of where we come from and the place we occupy in the evolution of the earth, life and human society.

That record speaks of the very origins of the earth as well as life itself. It conveys a story of the evolution towards and the emergence of the human being. It speaks of some of the earliest examples of organised agriculture in human history. It contains the tale of some of the earliest artistic representations of that human being and other forms of life in the tens of thousands of rock paintings that are scattered throughout our country.

Here are to be found stories of societies that mined gold, produced goldsmiths and traded with the Far East almost a thousand years ago. It tells us of traditional forms of fishing that have been practised for many centuries.

As we survey our country today, composed of a united but diverse population of many colours, cultures and languages, with science telling us through the study of our DNA that these human beings are organically the same, we cannot but recall the fact that after all we all spring from the same human beings who emerged here many millennia ago.

Our national motto says !Ke e: /xarra file://ke - diverse people come together. It conveys this message in the language of a native people that has become extinct. Nevertheless, from their graves, the /Xam call on us to unite despite our diversity because, after all, we all belong to one human race. They urge us to unite despite our diversity because if we do not, we will perish together, as they did.

Not many of our people know the heritage we speak of, of the very origins of the earth, life, human life and society. Thus is our sense of where we belong in time and space reduced because of ignorance. National Heritage Day gives us the possibility to discover this South African heritage that stretches back for billions of years. To access it, merely to know that we are part of a society that has emerged from this extraordinary history, necessarily lends pride and humility. Nobody who knows this can escape the recognition of our obligation to behave with the dignity and respect for our national being that must be due to a people who are citizens of a country with so rich a heritage.

But we have inherited an unbecoming legacy of racial and gender divisions and antagonisms. The majority of our people were victims of a colonial history that obliterated the /Xam and sought to deny the humanity of the rest. That history sought to deny that these masses had any history, culture, belief or value system of their own. It said the African people are but barbarians and savages with no names of their own except those that the civilised masters gave them, proclaiming them to be Christian names and therefore holy. Thus did Sipho become Jim, Nomsa, Mary and Kealeboga, Sixpence. These names were given to deny the very being of the African, to tell them that they had no identity except such an identity as they were given by the civilised master.

Their freedom denied, their land taken away, their value system systematically gutted, reduced to mere hewers of wood and bearers of water, these who correctly claim to belong to the very cradle of humanity became nothing but a disposable appendage to others. This too is part of our heritage. It constitutes the legacy whose consequences we have a duty to eradicate. It is what obliges us to engage in a protracted struggle to create a prosperous people-centred society of freedom and democracy, non-racism and non-sexism.

Thus do we have a task as we celebrate our National Heritage Day to ensure that we end the heritage of the indignity of poverty, of the crime of violence perpetrated by human being against others, the insult of racism which, among other things, says we suffer from disease because we are promiscuous, the injury of sexism which results in the treatment of half our population as less human than others, the offence of ignorance which turns some into slaves of prejudice and superstition.

We who live today are privileged that we have the opportunity and the possibility to make of our country the happy home for all our diverse people that must surely be due to a land that is the cradle of humanity. Much of what we have inherited gives us the possibility to achieve this noble objective, working together as fellow South Africans, inspired by a new patriotism. I wish all our people a happy National Heritage Day.

Continental trade

Economic success in South Africa depends on growth across Africa

The success or failure of South Africa's development objectives will depend on economic development across the continent, Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said in a parliamentary briefing this week. The government is therefore working hard to develop and reinforce the economic aspects of the Millennium Africa Recovery Programme (MAP), which was launched in July at the OAU Summit following its merger with the Omega Programme.

Economic growth on the continent will provide markets for South African products, and provide the impetus for creating the integrated manufacturing economy that South Africa seeks to build. While South Africa's success could be central to the future economic growth and development of the continent, economic deterioration in Africa is likely to complicate the country's development objectives by limiting the possibilities to expand South African markets on the continent and by placing undue pressure on South Africa's infrastructure.

Africa's developmental challenges are well known. They include weak social and class formations, weak political and state institutions, poor human and physical infrastructure, and underdeveloped and distorted economic structures. The economies are characterised by undiversified production structures, excessive dependence on a few primary commodities for export, declining terms of trade, declining flows of official developmental assistance financial flows, low and stagnant FDI flows, and crippling debt.

It was for this reason that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) had played a significant role in developing the economic component of the MAP programme and had integrated this vision into South Africa's global economic strategy, which is grounded in a vision of industrialisation for Southern Africa and the continent.

Southern Africa, in particular, is of considerable importance to South Africa's macro-economy, Erwin said. Increased trade and investment flows between countries at different levels of development can generate rapid regional growth, which can strengthen industrialisation processes in a manner that makes the region internationally competitive.

The structural trade imbalance between South Africa and its SADC partners is economically unsustainable over the longer term, he said. "We have to restructure regional arrangements by pursuing policies that promote industrialisation in SADC. This means encouraging regional imports and promoting outward investment to the region."

The DTI is spearheading a process where integrated manufacturing platforms are the basis for a regional industrial strategy. This entails using Southern Africa as an integral part of supply chains for globally competitive manufacturing processes. Through a combination of sectoral co-operation, policy co-ordination and trade integration, its regional policy aims to achieve a dynamic regional economy capable of effectively competing in the global economy. Examples include the Mozambique South Africa gas pipeline and the integration of South African small businesses into the Mozal project.

South Africa can contribute considerably to African development in the areas of mineral and agricultural beneficiation and processing, in the rehabilitation of infrastructure, telecommunications and in the provision of technical and engineering expertise. The department has already implemented successful projects in the power, water, transport, telecoms, minerals beneficiation, and other sectors.

Institutions involved in this process include the Development Bank of South Africa and Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). Legislation is currently in Parliament to broaden the mandate of the IDC to collaborate with other African institutions and to participate directly in investment projects on the continent. Other institutions involved in this process are parastatals like Telkom, Eskom, Transnet, and a range of science councils.

This regional development is being achieved this by implementing the Southern African trade protocol to provide rapid and significant market access to regional exports; linking regional trade development and industrial restructuring to reflect current and dynamic comparative advantages across the region; promoting co-ordinated infrastructure and resource-based industrial development through the Spatial Development Initiatives (SDIs); encouraging South African firms to invest regionally through a further relaxation of foreign exchange controls on capital destined for the region; promoting regional trade facilitation, strengthening custom control and administration; and eliminating non-tariff barriers.

Beyond Southern Africa, the government is engaged in a range of interactions on the African continent. While some of the interactions on the continent involve export promotion, most require outward investment promotion and project formulation. This approach has led in the last two years to an increased focus on capital goods exports, which has had a profoundly developmental effect on the recipient countries, as evident in Mozambique.

The DTI has led the drive to promote trade and investment links with strategic African countries across the continent. South Africa has numerous bilateral trade agreements with the nations on the continent and DTI has led various trade missions to Africa to introduce South African businesses to opportunities in the region and the Continent. Trade between South Africa and Mauritius has doubled in the past year.

Nigeria, Algeria, and Egypt are critical countries with which South Africa will need to collaborate closely in pursuing its African agenda. Closer to home, South Africa is deepening and strengthening its bilateral relations with Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Mozambique, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritius, and Angola. These bilateral engagements are forming the basis for stronger collaboration in implementing the continental agenda.

The strategy needs to be multi-faceted, encompassing outward investment in infrastructure and production activities, market access agreements, and development finance. Given the range of challenges, the approach to promoting development on the continent will need to be constructed on the basis of well-defined projects.

"As South Africa also possesses considerable economic advantages as the most-developed economy on the continent, these challenges can be turned into opportunities if our strategy is well defined and effectively implemented," Erwin said.

MORE INFORMATION:

• Parliamentary Briefing Week, September 2001

Children

Vulnerable children centre of social development focus

The plight of orphaned and vulnerable children in South Africa is a key focus of government's social development work this year. Addressing a parliamentary briefing this week, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said government was particularly concerned with the situation and special needs of children in child-headed households.

The issue of orphaned and vulnerable children speaks to issues of poverty, HIV/AIDS, food security and nutrition, improvements in social security, budgeting issues, litigation and partnerships. Starting in late August, Skweyiya has been conducting two-day visits to provinces to examine the living conditions of vulnerable children and improving their chances of survival. These visits have been focused on the nodes that government has identified for the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme and the Urban Renewal Programme, and have been conducted in conjunction with provincial departments, LoveLife and Unicef.

The focus of the visits has been on community projects that improve the living conditions and survival chances of vulnerable and orphaned children. They have also been holding imbizos to hear directly from children about their concerns. Together with its partners, government has been engaging community structures and all role players to mobilise care and support for vulnerable children.

Throughout the visits a common concern expressed by both volunteers and people living with HIV/AIDS has been the difficulty in obtaining nutritional food. One of the priorities of government's social sector cluster for the 2001-2002 period, food security and nutrition is being addressed in an integrated manner.

Immediate responses are required in emergency situations, such as in the case of Mount Frere in the Eastern Cape, where governmental inefficiencies were found to be worsening a situation of chronic malnutrition. These inefficiencies included the provision of birth certificates and identity documents to enable access to social assistance. They also included the referral and follow-up of poverty stricken families to ensure that they received food parcels and accessible poverty relief funds. The departments of Social Development, Health and Home Affairs moved quickly to address the inefficiencies.

For parents living with HIV/AIDS an additional concern has been securing the future care of their children. The departments of Social Development and Health are providing support through the Home and Community Based Care Programme. "The support provided through this programme does not match the growing needs of orphaned children and the provision of more institutional care cannot be ruled out as an option in the future," Skweyiya said.

He said there needs to be more recognition and support for community initiatives. The experience and expertise of retired teachers, nurses and other professional should be utilised more effectively.

The issue of foster care is being addressed in the comprehensive child care legislation that is being prepared by the Law Commission. A draft of this legislation will be ready for consideration by November this year.

In July this year, working together with nine South African universities, an HIV/AIDS capacity building course for government planners was launched. Through this training programme, 1 200 government officials at all levels will be equipped with the tools to plan for the prevention and reduction of the impact of the epidemic.

In August this year, the department started disseminating together with Save the Children a newly published directory of services provided by 900 different organisations in South Africa for children affected and infected by HIV/AIDS. This resource is to be translated into all official languages.

As a preliminary step in its partnership with Faith Based Organisations on this issue, the Department of Social Development is mapping the care and support activities of Faith Based Organisations. These commendable initiatives within communities are being supplemented by initiatives at the workplace. In the mining industry, both the trade unions and the mining houses are devoting substantial resources to the provision of care and support for mine workers and their families.

A key element in enhancing the provision of care and support for vulnerable children is improving the social security system, Skweyiya said. To this end, a project to develop national norms and standards for social security was completed in July. Successful implementation of these norms and standards will ensure that all beneficiaries receive equitable services regardless of demographic or socio-economic differences between provinces, he said.

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