A complex process of regeneration and rediscovery
The recent controversy relating to the operations of the Blood Transfusion Service has highlighted the racist legacy that continues to blight our country. Yet there are some in our society who are very determined to ensure that we discuss this particular challenge as little as possible.
To suppress this discussion, they present many interventions in this regard as "playing the race card" for narrow political purposes. As we have seen in the debate about black economic empowerment (BEE), and earlier discussions about affirmative action, it is not difficult for some to present initiatives to build a non-racial society in the most negative light.
The objective to address "the national question" stood at the heart of our struggle against racism and apartheid. In our country the national question expressed itself as the oppression and exploitation of the black majority by a white minority.
The first task of our struggle, of the national democratic revolution, was to defeat the system of white minority domination and replace it with democratic rule, in the context of building a non-racial society.
In part, our ongoing efforts to entrench and consolidate our democratic system have to do with the further deracialisation of our politics, and the cultivation of the sentiment among all our people of a common patriotism and a shared sense of nationhood.
For this reason we welcomed the decision of the New National Party (NNP) to encourage its members to join the ANC, and ultimately to dissolve. The fact that the historic party of racism and apartheid could come to these conclusions could not but help our country further to move away from its racist past, towards a lasting solution of the national question.
Other decisions taken earlier during our transition sought to address this same issue - the solution of the national question. I refer here particularly to the then constitutional provisions to establish a Government of National Unity and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Our decisions with regard to these two matters sought to facilitate acceptance among our white compatriots that they had nothing to fear from the advent of democracy and the liberation of their compatriots, who happen to be black.
During the pre-1994 negotiations, our movement also decided to respect the view expressed by sections of the Afrikaner community that they needed political space to give concrete expression to the desire for "self determination". This became part of the Interim Constitution, naturally affording this right to all our people.
As a result of this, as well as the provisions contained in our current Constitution, we have now established the Commission on Linguistic, Cultural and Religious Rights. In addition to and as part of everything we have done and are doing to ensure that we build a non-racial society, we remain sensitive to the concerns of our national minorities regarding any threat of marginalisation and their reduction to the status of second-class citizens.
Sometimes, within the context of careless discussion about the evolution of our society away from its racist past, all manner of unfounded allegations are made about so-called reverse racism. Allegations are even made boldly that we too have become racists.
However I have no hesitation in asserting firmly that as a movement and government, we have performed very well with regard to our sustained efforts to address the national question - in our case this being the struggle to build a non-racial society.
Of critical importance in this context is the fact that for over 90 years, the ANC has propagated and defended the policy of non-racism. It is the earliest political formation in our country to base its policies for the solution of the national question on the thesis and perspective of the establishment of a non-racial society. Even within its ranks, it fights to ensure that it respects its commitment to non-racism.
Our movement we will continue to insist on the centrality of the solution of the national question as we pursue the goals of the national democratic revolution, however much others may seek to minimise the importance of the task to eradicate the legacy of colonialism and apartheid. Success in this regard is of decisive importance to democracy, stability, social and economic progress in our country.
The critical importance of these conclusions is supported by the fact that many of the conflicts in Africa and other parts of the world, as well as many global tensions, derive from contradictions emanating from the failure successfully to address the national question.
In 1997, the Singapore diplomat and scholar, Kishore Mahbubani, delivered a lecture provocatively entitled "Can Asians think?". Among other things he said: "It is vital for Western minds to understand that the efforts by Asians to rediscover Asian values are not only, or even primarily, a search for political values. Instead, they represent a complex set of motives and aspirations in Asian minds: a desire to reconnect with their historical past after this connection had been ruptured both by colonial rule and by the subsequent domination of the globe by a Western Weltanschauung;.an effort to define their own personal, social and national identities in a way that enhances their sense of self-esteem in a world where their immediate ancestors had subconsciously accepted that they were lesser beings in a Western universe. In short, the reassertion of Asian values in the 1990s represents a complex process of regeneration and rediscovery that is an inevitable aspect of the rebirth of societies."
From this we can see that it is not only Africans in our country and elsewhere on our continent who, in the effort to address the national question, are involved in "a complex process of regeneration and rediscovery that is an inevitable aspect of the rebirth of societies".
In his autobiographical book, 'Heading South, Looking North', the renowned Chilean Jewish author, Ariel Dorfman, reflected on yet other elements of the challenges of the national question. Having grown up as a child in the United States, and therefore speaking English rather than Spanish, Dorfman writes:
"Languages do not only expand through conquest: they also grow by offering a safe haven to those who come to them in danger, those who are falling from some place far less safe than a mother's womb, those who, like my own parents, were forced to flee their native land.
"By the time I was an adult of thirty-one, I had renounced and denounced the language of my childhood America as imperial and Northern and alien to me, I had fiercely and publicly reverted to my original native Spanish and proclaimed that I would speak it forever, live forever in Chile. Forever. A word that I naïvely cast to the winds at the time, a wind that this wanderer in love with the transitory that I now have become knows he should be wary of. I hadn't learned yet that when other, more powerful people control the currents of your life, very few things are forever."
Dorfman's parents had ended up as refugees in the United States, having fled from repression in "their native land". Ariel Dorfman was also forced to flee his native land, Chile, when, in 1973, "more powerful people who control the currents of your life", helped to ensure the overthrow the Chilean government led by Salvador Allende.
This included the murder of Allende, a distinguished Member of our national Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo, and his replacement by the military dictator, General Pinochet.
Ariel Dorfman gives eloquent expression to his passion for the correct resolution of the national question by rejecting the displacement and domination of his language, Spanish, by English, and the defeat of the sovereign determination of the Chilean people to decide their own future, through the overthrow by reactionary forces then supported by the United States, "the more powerful people", of the patriotic Chilean government led by Salvador Allende.
In 1969, the Nigerian diplomat and Ibo, Raph Uwechue, published the book 'Reflections on the Nigerian Civil War', which war had been sparked off by the secession of the largely Ibo part of Nigeria, temporarily leading to the establishment of the "State of Biafra". He wrote:
"The principal point at issue on which I disagreed with the Federal Government (of Nigeria) was its inability.(a) to provide effective protection for Ibo civilians during the gruesome massacres of 1966 and, (b) the unsatisfactory handling of the question of compensation and rehabilitation of the families and dependents of the victims of those unfortunate events.
"My opposition to the Federal Government.was not based on any sudden realisation that the Nigerian peoples who had lived together in one country and in that sense as one community, in considerable harmony for over half a century, have become such inveterate incompatibles that they must now be separated in order to be saved...
"Until we become a truly integrated nation - only time, tolerance and patience will make this possible - it is unrealistic to adopt a constitution which presupposes the existence of an already integrated society.The answer lies in 'modulated' decentralisation within the framework of a federation in which minority elements are effectively insulated from the threat of domination by any of the preponderant tribes, Hausa-Fulani, Ibo and Yoruba."
In their various ways, all these authors reflected on the national question. Together they make the statement that this question should be resolved correctly, to create the space and the possibility for the success of the necessary and inalienable "complex process of regeneration and rediscovery that is an inevitable aspect of the rebirth of societies".
The failure correctly to respond to this imperative led to the victory of a brutal military dictatorship in Chile, serious concerns about a "clash of civilisations", and the costly Nigerian civil war. It has condemned the African continent to the wars and instability that have obliged the African Union to give top priority to the issue of peace and stability on our continent.
Currently, we are involved in a complex process to help end the crisis in the Cote d'Ivoire. We are involved in similar efforts to support the Government of National Unity of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to ensure peace and stability in the eastern part of the DRC.
We continue to work with the Transitional Government of Burundi to support that country's transition to democracy, peace and stability. We are working with the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea to encourage a permanent, stable and just peace between these two neighbouring countries. We work with the people of Sudan and are committed to lead the post-war reconstruction process in that country to contribute to the guarantee of a just and lasting peace.
All these instances, including the Israel-Palestine and Western Sahara issues which we continue to engage, reflect the challenge and the failure correctly to address the national question in all its complexity.
They emphasise the need for institutions such as the African Union to ensure that our continent addresses the national question correctly and on time, and not merely wait for violent confrontations to take place, requiring the deployment of peace keeping troops.
Our history has made it inevitable that we must and would focus on the resolution of the national question, centred on the building on a truly democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa.
Experience in the rest of our continent and elsewhere in the world must surely tell us that we are well advised to persist in the pursuit of these objectives.
Thus, as we successfully address the national question by ensuring the eradication of the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, and constructing a non-racial society, we will certainly spare our country and people the painful agony of the social conflict that would result from a failure to attend to the national question.
As a country, and during our First Decade of Liberation, we have made commendable progress in this regard. The masses of our people, both black and white, clearly understand the need for us to work continuously to create the new non-racial society, understanding that this is of fundamental importance to their future and the future of their children.
For this reason it is not possible for anybody in our country to incite rebellion against the democratic order. Happily, we are not threatened by the kind of conflict and crisis that has afflicted the friendly and sister people of the Cote d'Ivoire and other countries on our continent.
The recently exposed and highly reprehensible practices at the Blood Transfusion Service sound a stern warning about the need for us to persist in the struggle for the victory of the high cause of non-racism in our country.
Our Second Decade of Liberation must be distinguished by the achievement of yet new and decisive advances in the struggle successfully to address the national question in our country.
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