16 June 2002
Master of Ceremonies,
Honourable Ministers,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am sure that all of us here today and many of our people throughout the country are happy that we are at last launching the Freedom Park. It is also appropriate that we are launching the Freedom Park on an important day when we commemorate the sacrifices that our young people made to ensure that we attain freedom.
On this day, we are also celebrating the achievements of all our people today as they continue to make a difference towards the creation of a transformed society based on the basic principles of non-racialism, non-sexism and democracy.
As we launch the Freedom Park many people will ask a pertinent question: Freedom from what?
Different countries across the world celebrate their freedoms in a variety of ways. This is done by building museums, constructing statues and designating specific dates as Freedom Days.
Our neighbouring country, Mozambique, whose defeat of the colonialists in 1974 made them to mark the 25th of June as Independence Day and 7th September as Victory Day.
The Americans achieved their independence from Imperial Britain in 1776 and every year celebrate that independence on the 4th of July. The bloody French Revolution defeated the monarchy and brought into power the republicans on the 14th July 1789 and have since declared that day as a national day on which they celebrate freedom from feudal monarchy.
Ghana celebrates their day of independence as a national holiday on the 6th of March.
We have declared the 27th of April as Freedom Day because this is an important day on which we transformed South Africa from an apartheid country to a democratic society.
On the occasion of the inauguration of former President Nelson Mandela in 1994, he made a number of important observations that indicated the need for the Freedom Park. Amongst other things he said:
"Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.
"We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation. We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free.
Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward.
"Let there be justice for all.
Let there be peace for all.
Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.
Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.
Let freedom reign.
The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement!
God bless Africa!"
As I have said, one of the central messages from what Madiba said is that the achievement of the 27th April 1994 must be forever etched in the consciousness of our nation. Clearly, one of the most practical ways of doing this is through a monument such as the Freedom Park.
I am sure that most of us will understand Nelson Mandela to be calling for the Freedom Park that will honour and celebrate the heroes and heroines who sacrificed so that we could achieve political emancipation. These heroes and heroines come both from our country and abroad.
Yet, Nelson Mandela also said: "Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves."
In other words, Mandela is calling for a situation where we have to fully utilise the advances that have been made over many years, to ensure that we further assist in the development of humanity. He is also calling for intellectual, spiritual and cultural advancement, based also on the achievements of the past.
Indeed, if the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves, it is incumbent on all of us to celebrate this significant progress. In a sense, we are enjoined to look at the celebration of our freedom not only from one social process, important as it may be, but from various processes that are central to holistic human development.
Accordingly, this is a call that should inform our approach to Freedom Park as a monument that will capture the separate but interconnected processes that have ensured that humanity make the many breath-taking and far-reaching achievements.
Clearly, being the last country to gain freedom from colonial and racial oppression means that we ourselves have the benefit of learning many things from those who have attained their independence before us.
One of these important lessons is the manner in which we conceptualise an important tribute to the people of our country through a national monument like the Freedom Park.
The paradox of South Africa being the last country, together with East Timor, to gain freedom is that our country has in abundance fossil evidence that indicates that ours is the land from where humanity first emerged.
Homo sapiens and its predecessors have evolved over millions years ago. During this process, they have been engaged in a continuous struggle to free themselves from the dominance of nature, which amongst other things meant that they had to find ways of anticipating and dealing with natural calamities.
For a long period of time, humanity had to learn to control nature. This was necessary if human beings were to derive maximum benefit from the same forces of nature.
History is full of epochs of endeavours to free humanity from the constrains of nature, from socio-economic backwardness and political oppression. Many technological advances have been made over thousands of years so that humanity can be freed from poverty, underdevelopment and illnesses.
It is in this context that we see the Freedom Park. In the narrow sense of the word, Freedom Park would refer only to political freedom and therefore be a symbol of acknowledgement of the heroes and heroines of our struggle for freedom.
In the broad sense of the word, we are dealing with freedom from the adverse impact of the forces of nature, freedom that comes with technological revolutions, freedom occasioned by socio-economic advancement and of course freedom from political oppression, ensuring that the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.
At the same time, the human beings that have been freed from all the negative forces, natural and man-made, are the products of evolutionary processes.
Accordingly, Freedom Park must celebrate these evolutionary processes that have led to the emergence and transformation of human beings.
In short, we are launching Freedom Park that will celebrate human achievements in their totality.
Master of Ceremonies;
It is fitting that on this historic occasion and as we discuss the freedom that we are capturing through this Park, that we borrow the visionary words of one of own inspiring poets. The revolutionary poet, Keorapetse Kgositsile speaks to us through his poem, entitled, 'The Present is a Dangerous Place To live.' He says:
And at the door of the eye
is the still voice of the land,
my father before my father
knew the uses of fire,
my father before my father
with his multiple godhead,
sat on his circular stool after the day was done.
At times even between the redness of two suns
knowing that time was not born yesterday.
(K. Kgositsile, If I Could Sing - Selected Poems, p42, Kwela publishers, 2002.)
Today we launch the Freedom Park, in part because since we attained our freedom, the true history of our country has not been told in its entirety.
As we are engaged in the important tasks of transforming our country towards a truly non-racial, non-sexist democracy that ensures a better life for all, there has always been a pervasive consciousness that at the heart of our nation there is, like Kgositsile says, "the still voice of the land," that quietly but resolutely urges us to tell the story of our being.
Accordingly, we have to tell the story because, although our father before our father knew the uses of fire, and were the first on Earth to make and control fire, we, their descendents, have always thought that people other than our fathers and mothers, have been the ones endowed with the knowledge and expertise of this far reaching discovery whose consequence was the unleashing of an unprecedented technological advancement that, millions of years later, has taken our common global village to the highest summits of achievements.
It is critically important to fully understand that time was not born yesterday when colonizers appeared in our land, that in fact our daily life today, is based on a talent for innovation that was first used by our own ancestors, hundred of thousand of years ago, to make stone and later iron tools here in Africa.
As we have already indicated earlier, what we are doing this morning is to launch a narration of the totality of the South African story.
That story begins at the beginning!
It is the story of the beginnings of life in Barberton some 3,6 billion years ago, in a single cellular organism, later evolving into multi-cellular life-forms like animals and humans.
This history which the still voice of our land wanted us to relate, tells us of the greenstones belts that contain gold and diamond pipes and are found in many parts of the world.
Yet, most of these stones are found in Africa. It seems that geology had contrived to deposit greater amounts of mineral riches within the boundaries of what billions of years later was to become the Republic of South Africa. Through the Freedom Park, we will know more about the gold-bearing rocks of the Witwatersrand.
Freedom Park will also unravel to all of us a huge single mass of rock just over the northern rim of Witwatersrand that is the repository of mineral wealth unmatched anywhere on Earth and has been described as a unique geological feature. Geologists among us will know this place, which is called the Bushveld Igneous Complex and covers areas in the Provinces of Gauteng, North-West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
This still voice of the land that Kgositsile talks about, shall reveal to us the life of the colossal dinosaurs that ruled the world for millions of years. Here we are informed about the dinosaurs that roamed the vast expanse of the Karoo for countless number of years before their sudden extinction.
Indeed, through the Freedom Park we will know about the emergence, evolution and many transitions in the history of mammals.
We are very excited about the Freedom Park because it will trace this history for us. We are also happy because as we said at the beginning, the Park will boldly asserts the fact that our land is a cradle of humanity.
In Sterkfontein, Kromdraai, Mokopane and numerous sites scattered throughout our country, we have rich evidence that these are the places where first human emerged, evolved, learnt to walk, found gainful use for their hands and began to construct early factories and engaged in rudimentary elements of technology.
Accordingly, Kgositsile is right when he says "my father before my father knew the uses of fire," because the first time human ancestors made fire was in these various sites that we have mentioned. Before that human ancestors knew only natural fire.
Although the historical distortions says diamond and gold were discovered in the latter part of the 19th century by colonialists, the Freedom Park will tell us the true story that the earlier civilizations of Mapungubwe and Thulamela not only mined the two glittering minerals, but of importance, the technological advancement made these earlier inhabitants of our country do their own beneficiation of the raw materials as early as the 10th century.
We are aware that having given birth to humanity, part of that humanity migrated to different corners of he world. Some amongst them came back to our shores, with ideas of being superior to those from whom they originated.
They found our people friendly and hospitable. Because their intentions were less than noble, they engaged in many dishonourable and unacceptable acts that occasioned conflicts and wars.
Since these invaders were better equipped and came prepared to wage wars against unsuspecting peaceful people, the indigenous people were conquered and subjugated to systematical destruction, over a long period of time, of the cultures, customs, beliefs and histories of the African people.
In some instances, the colonists succeeded in obliterating the memory and identity of the local people. Hence, another illustrious writer from our continent, Ben Okri, in his book, "Astonishing the Gods," succinctly captures this tragedy:
"He was born invisible. His mother was invisible too, and that was why she could see him. His people lived contented lives, working on the farms, under the familiar sunlight. Their lives stretched back into the invisible centuries and all that had come down from those differently colored ages were legends and rich traditions, unwritten and therefore remembered. They were remembered because they were lived.
"He grew up without contradiction in the sunlight of the unwritten ages, and as a boy he dreamt of becoming a shepherd. He was sent to school, where he learnt strange notions, odd alphabets, and where he discovered that time can be written down in words.
"It was in books that he first learnt of his invisibility. He searched for himself and his people in all the history books he read and discovered to his youthful astonishment that he didn't exist. This troubled him so much that he resolved, as soon as he was old enough, to leave his land and find the people who did exist, to see what they looked like.
"He kept this discovery of his recent invisibility to himself.... One night when the darkness was such that it confirmed his invisibility in the universe, he fled from home, ran to the nearest port, and stole off across the emerald sea.
"He traveled the seas, saying little, and when anyone asked him why he journeyed and what his destination was, he always gave two answers. One answer was for the ear of his questioner. The second answer was for his own heart. The first answer went like this: "I don't know why I am traveling. I don't know where I am going." And the second answer went like this: "I am travelling to know why I am invisible. My quest is for the secret of visibility."
"Those who worked with him in those years saw him as a simple man. Actually, they didn't see him at all.
(Ben Okri, Astonishing the Gods, pp3-4, Phoenix Publishers, 1996)
The Freedom Park seeks to re-capture as far as possible, the legends and the rich traditions both written and unwritten so that we, as Africans begin to be visible. We want to do this so that when the invisible African in Ben Okri's book looks for himself and his people, he can discover that, in fact, he does exist.
Through projects such as the Freedom Park, we are able to ensure that other people who pretended that they don't see the African people, or even if they see them they accord an inferior status to us, we will begin to remove cobwebs after cobwebs of their prejudices such that they begin not only to see and recognize our existence, but that, they themselves, appreciate the fact that they are descendents of human ancestors who emerged and evolved from a common origin, the African continent.
The Freedom Park will also relate the history of our recent past. This includes the manner in which indigenous people lost their land, livestock and freedom under both Dutch and British colonialism. We will record the heroic resistance of the native people of South Africa.
Moshoeshoe, Shaka, Sekhukhune, Makana, Ramabulana and many other icons of resistance against colonialism, will occupy a pride of place in the Freedom Park.
The South African War, otherwise known as the Anglo-Boer War, will be put in its proper context, and the resilience shown by Afrikaner women and children in the concentration camps as well as those blacks that were incarcerated will be displayed, so that all of us can learn about the futility of war.
Further, we will ensure that we present the true story that has characterized the struggle of our people for freedom, especially in the 20th century.
Bambatha, struggles around land, workers' struggles and different stages of union organization, the various phases of mass mobilization - peaceful petitions, deputations, peaceful protests, passive resistance, defiance campaign to armed resistance - all these will be important parts of the Freedom Park.
The Freedom Park will recognize the significant role played by different sectors of our society. We have already referred to the workers. In addition it will celebrate the important contributions made by women, youth, rural people and others.
Together, through the Freedom Park, we will acknowledge the central role played by South Africans from different parties to ensure that our country becomes free and democratic. This includes during the course of struggle as well as during the negotiations for the new political order.
Freedom Park should therefore make us walk the entire South African history. When we have done this, we should then appreciate our country, its people, their diversity and their determination to build a united nation with common vision, aspirations and goals.
The Freedom Park must help us to heal the divisions of the past and work for reconciliation. As we will all agree, real healing and genuine reconciliation will only come about when we have told the entire story of why we became antagonists in the first place. It is on this basis that we should not, in trying to deal with the divisions of the past, sweep some matters under the carpet.
In this way, we will, all us, black and white and as South Africans, proudly recite with Kgositsile:
"My father before my father
Knew the uses of fire,
My father before my father
With his multiple godhead,
Sat on his circular stool after the day was done.
At times even between the redness of two suns
Knowing that time was not born yesterday."
I thank you.