Address at the Centenary Congress of The South African Institution of Civil Engineering

8 May 2003

Chairperson,
Mr Faried Allie, President of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering,
Delegates,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and gentlemen:

T.S. Eliot begins his 1922 poem, "The Waste Land", with the following evocative lines:

Whenever I have read these words, I have remembered Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind", which ends with the following lines:

In the Northern Hemisphere, T.S. Eliot's cruellest month of April, falls within the fertile Spring that Shelley said would quicken the new birth of the dull roots that Eliot had fed with dry tubers. It represents not cruelty, but the music of the trumpet of prophecy, of words of human hope that had been deadened by a miserable winter that, nevertheless, portended that Spring was not far behind.

But perhaps T.S. Eliot wrote of the month of April in the manner he did because, to him, Spring represented memory and desire, as he said - the bridge between the actuality of a painful past, and the dream of a future of joy, the cruel uncertain world between what was and what should be.

Later in his poem, Eliot says:

The cruellest month of April had happened on T.S. Eliot in the great city of London. He had heard pleasant music even as he walked along the Strand, Queen Victoria and Lower Thames Streets, the music whining from the lowly bars of fisherfolk, while he contemplated the wonder that behind the same walls resided the great creations of Greek sculpture.

As he thought of his people, the working people with broken finger nails on dirty hands, humble people who expected nothing, willing to connect to nothing, he remembered that others of these humble people built the African Carthage, of great fame. And so, in despair, he wrote:

In the section of the poem "Peter Bell the Third" entitled "Hell", Shelley wrote:

And so, at last, they come together, Shelley and Eliot, and speak of the humble people with broken finger nails, undone in cities with little or no fun, whose creation might in future burn, as Carthage did.

But when the Italian Leornado da Vinci wrote to Ludovico il Moro, the Duke of Bari, about the year 1483, he proposed the building of an infrastructure that would defeat the destructive fury of war, saving the Italian cities from the destruction his ancestors had brought to the African city of Carthage. He wrote:

At last, our country has come out into the sunlight of which T.S. Eliot dreamed. We now have the possibility to drink coffee quietly in our Hofgarten, and talk to another for an hour. At last our continent of Africa, that is slowly succeeding to pluck itself from Carthage, burning burning burning burning, is able, now, to say that Spring cannot be far behind. Now we can begin to say that our people, humble people, have every right to expect something.

Our own Leornado da Vinci's must now come into their own, to build for us bridges, and the means to conduct water from one place to another, the passages that pass underneath our rivers, the buildings both private and public, and the caves.

We are at that moment in the history of our African world of which Shelley spoke, when in tribute to the West Wind, he said -drive my dead thoughts over the universe, like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth! We have the common responsibility to quicken the new birth of our common motherland and continent, having, during the winter months of our existence, sustained the little life of our dreams with the dry tubers we harvested after the Spring rains had stirred them into full blossom. Like Leornardo da Vinci half-a-millennium ago, the time has come for us to build anew.

We have met here today, yesterday and tomorrow, among other things to celebrate the centenary of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering.

But I believe that as we celebrate the achievement, that this organisation of creators of material things has survived for a century, despite the trials and turbulence that our people and country had to live through, throughout the hundred years of its life, we shall not treat this as our cruellest month that mixes memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.

I trust that together, we approach the tasks ahead of us as civil engineers in the manner that Leonardo da Vinci explained to the Duke of Bari what he could do, to create monuments to the future, that would give expression to the mighty harmonies of the rediscovery of our common humanity, sweet though in sadness at the harm we visited on one another in earlier times.

I believe that this is not a conference that will deal merely with technical issues. I am convinced that it is an occasion of immense importance that will enable all of us who are here to make a critical contribution to the reconstruction and development of our country and the renewal of our continent.

The most tangible proof, visible to the naked eye, that our Spring has come, that we have been plucked out of the burning hell city characterised by small justice shown, and still less pity, will come from what you will do.

Many in our country and the rest of our continent are in need of durable roads and bridges. Millions are in need of cleanwater and the healthy environment that would be born of proper sanitation. We need the places where we can dispose of waste in a manner that protects our environment.

In this regard, we must draw inspiration from what one of our leaders in the medical profession, Professor Harry Seftel, said, that during the first half of the twentieth century, life expectancy doubled in the Western world.

"This" said Dr Seftel,

Our country and all of Africa has to grapple with the terrible shame of millions who are desperately poor, whose lives of misery are cut short by the corrosive accumulation of the effects of hunger, disease and despair.

To respond to this challenge, we must see on our skyline everywhere, the builder's crane, and hear everywhere the sound of the picks and shovels that those with the broken fingernails of dirty hands know how to use.

Out of the common endeavour must be born new factory buildings and new mines, new harbours and airports, new pylons supporting cables that carry clean and affordable energy to all our people, homes for those who work in the new economy defined by the advances in information and communication technology, which the British writer, Charles Leadbetter, described as "living on thin air".

It is only in this way that we will create the conditions that will enable us to banish the scourge of poverty and underdevelopment, to change the circumstances decried by T.S. Eliot when he spoke of my people, humble people who expect nothing.

We have spoken in loud voices about the renaissance of Africa and appropriated the 21st as the African Century. In this room are the brains and the hands that must serve as Shelley's West Wind, driving our dead thoughts over the universe like withered leaves, to qu! Africa. The renaissance will not happen unless Africa builds, creating new edifices and usable structures that constitute our common commitment and prayer to the future. The African Century will not be African until you too, like the West Wind, become tameless, and swift, and proud of your African being.

Together we must and will create the conditions so that you can do your miraculous work as midwives of a new future in conditions of peace and stability. You who must build the new Africa should not cease to work, because another has decided that their task is to shoot and kill. You who must renew our continent should not be loath to create because another sits across the valley ready to destroy.

We should never be daunted by the challenge to bring peace to Africa, nor discouraged by the reverses and failures that come from trying. Neither should we be too embarrassed to dream of the seemingly impossible. Without dreams, we will cease to be human. Without dreams we will lose hope and perish. To dream of the new Africa is to make a solemn commitment to work for its birth.

The great work ahead of us needs many hands. It demands that we open the doors to the many so that we harness their talents to the common cause. In this regard, I am happy that your Institution, in collaboration with your counterparts elsewhere on our continent, has been promoting cooperation in Africa by working for the formation of the Africa Engineers' Forum.

I learnt with great interest that a former president, Professor Knight, was aware, as long ago as 1977, that the engineering needs of our country would not be met by recruits from one section of the community. It was therefore appropriate that the Institution responded to that correct observation by actively promoting career guidance among the black people and by making bursaries available to deserving students.

You have also encouraged young people of all backgrounds to become engineers. It is most pleasing to see that in the year 2000, 70% of engineering students at our universities and technikons were black. With only 17% female students doing civil engineering, we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

Once these students graduate and join the mainstream civil engineering profession, we trust that the membership of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering will commit itself to the programme of mentoring and transfer of skills, so that these young engineers can benefit from the rich experience that we have in this organisation.

At the same time, we must continue to form real and meaningful partnerships with and transfer skills to our emerging contractors, so that they also, can make a full contribution to the challenges of the reconstruction and development of our country.

Gradually the new South Africa is beginning to emerge out of the old society that had left all sorts of people undone, to use the words of the poet. The new that is being born looks good to me. It looks good because, among other things, we are breaking down the walls that kept us apart, turning us into one another's enemies.

In some parts of our common world, people are building walls and electrified fences and laying down minefields to keep them separated from others behind barricades of fear and hatred and loaded guns. I dare say that we will never ask you, whose vocation is to build, in order to expand the life opportunities of humanity, to create new monuments that diminish our humanity.

As our country's pledge to celebrate our common humanity forever, we will build our Freedom Park. When it is done, it should be like no other in the world. When it is done, it should touch the souls of the humble people who expected nothing, and those who, in the past, were blind to the terrible harm that was done to those among them by a society that showed small justice, and still less pity. On Freedom Park, they must together say, here we are fulfilled.

We want our visitors from other lands who will come to Freedom Park themselves to say - we came to this great monument built by the people of South Africa to see, and left renewed in our humanity.

It will be your task to give form to these dreams, to work with the historians and archaeologists, the poets and the architects, the landscape gardeners and the musicians and those with broken nails on dirty hands, to build a monument that will both speak of our past and serve as a lodestar pointing our way into the future, itself the product of a prophesy and the trumpet of a prophesy.

The question I must ask, perhaps only in the rhetoric, is - will you, the civil engineers, the creators of the new Africa, will you respond to this historic challenge and leave all future generations with a statement in rock and steel on Freedom Park that says, here stands a living thing that constitutes the tribute of the civil engineers to their people and the peoples of the world.

Members of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering and honoured guests, I am privileged to have this opportunity to salute this Institution on its centenary. I assure you of the support of the government as you challenge your hearts and minds to contribute to the creation of a South Africa and an African continent that will live up to their responsibility as the cradle of humanity.

I wish you success in your deliberations.

I thank you.