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Through his deeds Tata Sisulu
has won our love
Speaking of
the hero in Shakespeare's "Coriolanus", an officer in
the play says: "He hath deserved worthily of his country: and his
ascent is not by such easy degrees as those, who have been supple and
courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further deed to have them
at all into their estimation and report: but he hath so planted his honours
in their eyes, and his actions in their hearts, that for their tongues
to be silent, and not confess so much, were a kind of ingrateful injury;
to report otherwise were a malice, that, giving itself the lie, would
pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it."
We too have one of our own that we can assess in like
manner - our own Coriolanus! Of him too we can say that he is both eminently
worthy of our country and that our country owes him much. Neither a smooth
talker nor a dissembling actor, he has won the love of our people through
his deeds.
To be silent in our praise would indeed show a hurtful
ingratitude. Were we to deny that he occupies a special place in the hearts
of our people, this would be condemned universally as a lie.
We speak here of Isithwalandwe Walter Sisulu who will
celebrate his 90th birthday this weekend, Saturday, May 18, 2002. To him
we say - Many happy returns of the day, Xhamela! May you have many more!
Our country and people are blessed with many heroes
and heroines. These are men and women who elected to dedicate their lives
to the service of the people. They were prepared to sacrifice everything,
including their lives, so long as this was necessary for the betterment
of the condition of the people.
They were ready thus to act, not to earn any praise
or receive any material reward. At all times they swore never to betray
their cause and their people, regardless of the price they might have
to pay. They acted to satisfy their consciences that they had done all
they could to serve the people of our country.
It may seem to some that heroes such as Walter Sisulu
were, through their parentage or other element of fortune, born to perform
heroic deeds. It may seem to these that some are blessed with a rare gift
not given to all, of the capacity to overcome all selfish impulses and
surrender oneself to the achievement of the greater good. The conclusion
would therefore not be difficult to reach that it is impossible to emulate
such people.
But yet as extraordinary as our heroes and heroines
are and have been, they are human beings who are produced by the same
society that produces all of us. They are in all respects ordinary human
beings, who have nevertheless shown themselves capable of doing extraordinary
things.
>From our very first contact and interaction with
the European peoples over 400 years ago, our people have shown the greatest
heroism. Throughout this period, they have produced countless heroes and
heroines who have dedicated their lives to the service of the people.
Patriots such as Walter Sisulu therefore both represent and continue a
deeply entrenched culture and tradition among our people.
But whence this culture and tradition! The indigenous
people of our country have no history of the practice on their part of
discrimination against other human beings on the basis of colour, race
or ethnicity. Whatever the differences among people, our culture celebrates
and emphasises the common humanity of all human beings. It recognises
it as the task of society to protect and guarantee the welfare of every
individual, including strangers.
It was for this reason that our forebears were happy
to welcome visitors and settlers from Europe, including ship-wrecked sailors
who were absorbed into African communities before the formal colonial
process commenced 350 years ago. Strange as these Europeans would have
seemed to the African, and perhaps a little frightening, they were nevertheless
welcomed and treated as human beings who were entitled to such help as
they needed as travellers or new arrivals.
This celebration of our common humanity, so inherent
in our culture, is one of the critical elements that has formed the characters
and personalities of many of our heroes and heroines. They have loved
all our people, regardless of race, colour or ethnicity. While recognising
our diversity, they have drawn on the culture of their people to assert
the greater unifying identity of all of us as human beings.
Related to this, is the equally deeply entrenched respect
in our culture for all human life, once again without regard to race,
colour or ethnicity. Traditionally, this informed the behaviour of the
people with regard to a whole variety of matters.
For example, it would never be permitted that any family
in a village should go hungry simply because it was poorer than others.
Such a family might, for instance, be given a herd of cattle to look after,
enabling it to milk the cows in the herd and to keep some of the calves
from the herd as their own.
Even in the conduct of war, the rules of combat did
not allow that the objective of a military contest should be the annihilation
of the vanquished people. At the end of a battle, the victor and vanquished
would go home and prepare to meet to discuss the terms of surrender.
It was this same culture and tradition that guided our
movement when it took the decision, forty years ago, to take up arms against
the apartheid system. Once more, the view was taken that the purpose of
our armed struggle could never be the wilful annihilation of a people,
however much they had abused and brutalised us.
This position was maintained firmly to the very end,
that all actions should, as much as possible, avoid the loss of innocent
lives. This is a history of which we are immensely proud, informed as
it was by the value system in our culture, which upholds the sanctity
of all human life.
As much as the traditional societies knew that it might
be necessary at times to resort to war, they also had a critically important
institutionalised system of discussion, negotiation and decision by consensus.
The resolution of disputes through discussion and negotiation,
so central to the governance of traditional societies, sought also to
make the statement that war was only permissible as a matter of last resort.
Again, this had to do with respect for human life that is so much part
of our culture and tradition.
It was the loyalty to this value system that constituted
some of the conditions for the formation of such heroes as Walter Sisulu.
Thus they saw themselves not merely as being obliged to avoid the loss
of life in everything they did. They saw it also as their responsibility
to act in defence of life where it was threatened, as by the oppressive
and exploitative system of apartheid.
Peaceful as the traditional societies were and open
to resolution of differences through discussion, they nevertheless placed
a very high value on principled behaviour and the orderly conduct of social
affairs. Patient as they might be, they would never accept a permanent
situation of wrong-doing. Nor would they allow that an injustice should
succeed for all time.
It was for this reason that though defeated, these masses
could never be conquered. In particular they could not be vanquished because
the value system they upheld was most sensitive towards the objectives
of the protection of human life and advancing the welfare of the people.
For a long time, those who colonised us did not understand
this, believing that it only required the increased use of repressive
force to maintain the people in permanent subjugation. They did not realise
that the more vicious the repression, the greater would be the strength
of the counter-offensive to end the repression.
Their failure to understand the oppressed derived in
part from the inability to know the fact that here they were dealing with
a people whose culture and tradition enjoin them to respect loyalty to
principle and honourable behaviour. They therefore engaged in a vain search
for "agitators", not knowing that a deep-seated impulse imposed
an obligation on each to stand up for what was right and just.
Once again, it was from this culture and tradition of
respect for principled behaviour, especially in defence of life and the
people, that heroes such as Walter Sisulu were born. It is a culture and
tradition handed down to us not only by our parents but also by society
at large. It is therefore accessible to all of us and not merely a select
few, who happened to have benefited from some peculiar and exclusive circumstances.
The heroes and heroines that we have known in a period
of over four centuries of our most recent history have been people who
have respected our past and honoured the traditions of which I have spoken.
They have been accepted among the masses of our people as their true sons
and daughters because these masses knew, even instinctively, that these
represented the best of the personality that gave them their identity.
Our heroes and heroines became heroes and heroines not
because they distanced themselves from what our oppressors had defined
as our pagan past, or because they sought approval for what they thought
and did from those who had oppressed them. They became heroes and heroines
because they absorbed and informed their actions on the basis of the most
fundamental values that have given us our pride in ourselves as a people.
Since the beginning of the period of the colonisation
of our country, our heroes and heroines have engaged in struggle expecting
to be rewarded only by the protection of the lives and advancing the welfare
of the millions of our people. They fought that struggle knowing that
at all times they stood the danger of death at the hands of the enemy.
While not seeking martyrdom, they were nevertheless
prepared to pay such a price because they knew that freedom could not
be achieved without making the necessary sacrifices. This commitment among
our people was passed down the generations undiluted. It brought us the
freedom we enjoy today.
But that very same freedom, a monumental and permanent
tribute to the selfless efforts of our people, our heroes and heroines,
has created conditions that pose the question to us whether it is any
longer possible for our country to produce such heroes and heroines as
are represented by Walter Sisulu. In these circumstances, is it a reasonable
thing to ask the young to follow the example of a Walter Sisulu!
Today it is possible both to identify oneself as a liberation
fighter and to expect material reward. It is possible both to adhere to
the liberation movement and to accede to high positions merely by being
"supple and courteous to the people". It is possible for one
to present oneself as a servant of the people while treating the country
as though it owed him or her everything.
Despite all this, which is a natural consequence of
the victory of our democratic revolution, we know that our people will
still give birth to new heroes and heroines. That democratic revolution
also gives us the possibility the better to understand and recover the
past, which gave us our identity and our capacity to defeat the attempt
at our dehumanisation.
It gives us the possibility seriously to learn from
the example of heroes such as Walter Sisulu and others who preceded him,
and to ensure that in the public consciousness, especially among the young,
they occupy the pride of place they so richly deserve.
The democratic victory brought about through the efforts
of such heroes as Walter Sisulu has given us the possibility to enter
into the second phase of our struggle to protect the lives of the people
and advance their welfare, of the creation of a non-racial, non-sexist
and prosperous society. This struggle too, requires its own heroes and
heroines.
When the Roman Senate offered Coriolanus the high position
of consul, he replied: "I do owe them still my life, and services."
Thus would respond one of the heroes of whom we speak, Walter Sisulu,
whatever position he was offered - I do owe the people still, my life
and services! Happy Birthday, Xhamela!
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