10 February 2004
INTRODUCTION
From 1652 to 1906, South African history is characterised by the destruction of the subsistence economy of the Africans, the dispossession and proletarianisation of the Africans by European imperialism and, the numerous wars of resistance waged by Africans in defence of their lands, liberties and freedom.
The 'Boer War' of October 1899 and, the subsequent peace Treaty of Vereeniging, on 31 May 1902, set the stage for political evolution that would lead to the enactment of the so-called Act of Union of 1910.
This Act, which established the South African Union, led to the creation of a Parliament, which served exclusively as a forum for political representation of the white minority.
These developments led to the realisation among the dispossessed of the need for an effective national organisation, which regardless of tribal origin or language, could unite the people as they struggled against white minority domination. This awareness found expression on 8 January 1912 when representatives of the oppressed and dispossessed met to form the African National Congress.
When South Africa became a republic in 1961, it enacted a new Constitution, which perpetuated the exclusion of Africans from Government and Parliament.
This took place at the same time, (late 50's early 60's) as people's organisations were banned, activists and leaders were imprisoned or banished in an attempt to silence all opposition to white minority domination.
The resurgence of internal political resistance in the 70's, which significantly undermined the apartheid state's ideological and political positions, forced the racist regime to try and rebuild its ideological and political foundations around a package of major policy reforms.
The inclusive negotiation process, the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, culminating in the adoption of the 1993 transitional constitution, a process which would lead to the holding of the first democratic elections in 1994, and the ushering in of a new government based on the will of the people, marked an end of an historical era and a beginning of a new one.
Out of these historical processes, the new democratic state was born. A constitution, government and parliament that represents a true expression of the will of all our people.
This is our proud history of sacrifice, heroism, reconciliation and forgiveness.
Ten years into our democracy, we look back, filled with pride at our extraordinary achievements.
Even the obvious fact, that we are gathered here today, as representatives of our people, to debate openly and freely, should, if well considered, convince even the worst of cynics, that indeed we must celebrate the First Decade of our Freedom with pride, resolved to push further back the frontiers of hopeleness, united in a people's contract to create work and fight poverty.
MULTIPARTY DEMOCRACY
The untarred road of debate we chart today, is a necessary occasion we cherish and respect, as a platform out of which arises a shared understanding about our shared future and destiny.
The reaction, by most parties, to the State of the Nation Address by the President, is amazing.
It reminds me of a story, when as boys, we had a debate about the origins of a term 'scapegoat'. One of our friends, Gwinya, told us that the term scapegoat derives from an ancient ritual in one traditional community.
Each year, villagers would gather at one place in the village to perform a ritual. A goat would be brought before villagers, and each villager who had a problem of any sort, would come forward and put blame on the goat for his/her misfortunes. 'For instance, a villager would say; I do not have a wife today or lost my girlfriend because of this goat. Another, would walk up and say; I think I feel bewitched, so this goat is to blame, etc.'
This would take rounds amongst villagers, until, finally the goat is released to escape to the mountains, in the hope that, it escapes with all the ills that villagers had blamed on it, and should never return.
When all of us are confronted by social challenges, which are man-made, some people turn around to try and say, this situation is not a product of social engineering of a specific era. They look for a convenient scapegoat. In this instance, the ANC is a scapegoat for all racists and colonial era collaborators. All of them are innocent, they had no role in the creation and sustenance of oppressive regimes.
Persistently, questions on the situation in Zimbabwe have been asked in this House. Of course, this is normal. However, the motive is not innocent, as the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs put it yesterday ' natives across the Limpopo are grabbing land and violently harassing fellow citizens, so this will also happen here'. The DA has always been quick to deny such an assertion.
Ian Davidson though, is the Gauteng DA leader. Since the 05 February 2004, he has been in the frontline of what they call 'Democratic Alliance Telemarkerting'. He informs would be voters, in his letter in the following manner; " the DA is currently doing work to prevent a one party state situation in our country".
He urges involvement to "help prevent such an horrendous debacle, which would undoubtedly lead to catastrophic instability in our land, the likes of which we are witnessing in Zimbabwe."
They urge through his letter, for would be voters to join "our Confidential Supporters List, and contribute financially towards our Growth Fund."
So the Zimbabwe issue is used to scare fellow South Africans, so they could bankroll the Democratic Alliance. To them this is not driven by principle at all.
The other new fashionable machination that is soon gaining currency within the ranks of some in this country, is the equation being made between a strong African National Congress and a one party state.
Yisimanga sikaJehova lesi! These are the wonders of our times!
To suppose, that in a constitutionally entrenched multiparty democracy, you could have a one party state - this being brought about by the democratic practice itself - is absurd to the extreme.
It is an undemocratic supposition which seeks to deny South Africans their constitutional right to elect freely - without fearing the democratic outcome - a government of their own choice. It is a feeble attempt at twisting the primary object of democracy by exploiting genuine fears that are a residue of our past.
Old habits do indeed die hard. The apartheid racist state thrived on whipping these very fears on the one part of our community so that it could be prepared to take up arms against its fellow citizens. The beneficiaries of apartheid were persuaded into believing that the victims of that system were savages, barbarians and terrorists waiting to take their wives, murder their children and destroy everything the country had.
They were wrong!
They should have read our policies where they would have discovered our love for our people and country, and all of humanity.
They would have discovered that the very first line of the Freedom Charter declares for all to know that South Africa belongs to all who live in it.
In contrast to what they foretold, what has emerged instead is one of the most, if one may borrow the phrase - civilized constitutional democracies in the world. A country envisaged in the Freedom Charter.
Today comes the modern scare-monger, he tells our people that if they, in maximum numbers, unite behind a common conviction to eradicate the legacy of apartheid, their democratic expression would be harmful to the process of eradicating that legacy. Their unity, it is said, is dangerous to democracy. Do you remember the past? Divide and rule, look who is talking. He says our unity is dangerous to his type of democracy.
These scare-mongers, like their forerunners, are wrong. No catastrophe is about to befall our country on account of the huge support our people are rendering to speedup the process of democratic transformation.
On the contrary, something bad will happen if our people were to listen to these prophets of doom. In addition to wasting their votes, the scared victims of these schemes have their money also to be looted.
There we see the negative characteristics born out of years of racial supremacist upbringing, where one person has all the audacity to stand up and tell the whole nation that his view and only his, is democracy, not the nations overwhelming choice, as this nations choice, according to him, represents destruction of democracy.
What stupidity in a country with perhaps the largest number of opposition parties in the world. Here, we have real multi-party democracy.
What logical turn of events, the DA, which as PFP used to be nocturnal friends of the apartheid regime, is now the daylight opponent of constitutional multiparty democracy, scaring people of the dangers of expressing freely, their democratic will.
As we heard Hon. Tony Leon state boldly, yesterday, there is now a new version of multiparty democracy being offered to our people, it's called, let me quote directly, "we are going to create a genuine two-party system."
Now, let us quote from the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, chapter 1,sections (a)-(d), "The Republic of South Africa is one sovereign democratic state founded on the following values: (a) Human dignity…(d) Universal adult suffrage, a national common voters roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government,"…
They too, should familiarize themselves with our policies. Addressing itself to issues relevant to this point, the African National Congress has expressed its position as follows;
"The ANC commits itself to the fundamental provisions of the basic law of the land, which accords with its own vision of a democratic and just society. We have set out to implement both the letter and the spirit of the constitution, including such principles as multi-party democracy, the doctrine and practice of separation of powers in a constitutional state, fundamental human rights to all citizens, respect for the rights of linguistic, religious and cultural communities, and social equity within the context of correcting the historical injustices of apartheid."
We adopted these positions so that all the people of our country are clarified about our commitment to ensuring that even the smallest voice of our people is heard.
The overwhelming support for the ANC is in fact, a very good signal for our democracy.
It proves that more and more people of South Africa are progressively uniting in a people's contract to accelerate the process of eradicating the apartheid legacy, and that they have together identified this legacy as their common enemy.
South Africa without that legacy will be better in every respect.
It is therefore very much correct that the people of our country should unite behind the African National Congress, to defeat the legacy of apartheid in all its manifestations, whether it appears in the form of unemployment, or schemes designed to scare people into parting with their hard-earned cash.
We as a people must remain very vigilant. These scare toys come in all shapes and sizes. Now the new one being nurtured is the so-called third term in respect of the Presidency.
To these people the foremost issues are not unemployment, poverty and lack of skills from which our people suffer daily humiliation. They are preoccupied with power, about the Presidency which they have no chance in hell to occupy.
INTERNATIONAL
Truly, life has become interesting in the South Africa of today.
Yesterday, sooner had the President announced the date of the national general elections, there comes the mouse, strutting before the lion, saying, 'come here you weak lion, I'm going to show you a thing or two.' This House watches in disbelief. And I saw, on the faces of some, some slight smiles. So much for the excitement of elections!
" And when the people raise their voices," Says Hon. Tony Leon yesterday, " the Government reacts in ways that raise serious questions about its commitment to openness and democracy."
I may not agree with the views raised by Hon. Leon in this instance. But I think, part of the answer that should help to explain our reaction to his interventions may be found in the very statement he read to this House yesterday.
In that statement, Hon. Leon continues to say, "I say this with confidence because I have listened to the people. And the people want real change." And then he goes on through a list of tabulated wants, in this fashion:
And then he says, "These are the policies that will bring South Africa real freedom."
Now, how can a list of six bulleted wants be said to be policies that could bring South Africa the so called real freedom.
This is the problem of South Africa's political opposition. They develop no real policies to address the problems of our people. They only remember that the people of South Africa are confronted with problems when they find themselves in front of a microphone, where they would then list a set of bulleted wants and call these, as Hon. Leon did yesterday, policies.
I suppose one should also take this opportunity to respond to Hon. Leon's concerns on issues of our foreign policy in general, and Haiti in particular.
Him and other elements in our country have made much noise about our participation at the Celebrations of the Bicentenary of the Independence of Haiti.
Perhaps the best place to start our response in this regard is to state that as a country, we are committed to good governance, peace and stability, human rights and the creation of a better life for all, by creating a better world.
As has been stated before, we do not believe that South Africa can survive as an island of prosperity in the sea of poverty and instability.
On the other hand, we should also state quite categorically that it is correct that we celebrate the Haitian Revolution and we make no apologies for that.
That revolution, led by a slave by the name of Toussant L'ourveture from 1791 to 1803, dealt a heavy blow to slave traders. The 'cargo' in that business was other human beings whose only crime was that their skin pigmentation is not defined as white.
This revolution landed a heavy blow at the slave trade, a trade that was no trade at all. A business that ruined families, animalishly trampled on human dignity and human rights.
Colonists, among themselves, enjoyed a game derived from the blowing up of slaves, it had a name-"to burn a little powder in the arse of a nigger"
Because of this so-called trade, millions of our people were murdered, lost their identity, their culture, future and their humanness.
That we should celebrate and rejoice at the Haitian Revolution is correct. We should, as President Mbeki once said,
"celebrate the heroic deeds of these Africans who single-mindedly struggled for their freedom and inspired many of us to understand that none but ourselves can defeat those who subject us to tyranny, oppression and exploitation."
Those in our country who are still bent on continuing their cultural and psychological dominance over those who were the victims of these Satanic (dastardly) practices, now want to tell us what is of historical significance for us and what is not.
In so doing, they are telling us that;
They are wrong. For us to defeat poverty and underdevelopment requires that we work to advance here and everywhere, the objectives of peace and stability, good governance, and an entrenched culture of human rights.
As Ben Okri puts it;
"it is only when diverse peoples of the earth meet and learn from and love one another that we can begin to get an inkling of this awesome picture. Call it the picture of divinity, or humanity if you want, but like magic powder that Africans sometimes allude to, this great jigsaw has been distributed amongst all of us; and one aspect of our destiny on this earth may be to discover something of that grand image or music of our collective souls, of our immense possibilities, our infinite riches. No one person or people has the final road or the great keyboard or exclusive possession of this jigsaw of humanity. Only together, as one people of this earth, facing our common predicament and redeeming love, we can we can make use of this gift, this map of our earthly journey and glory."
CONCLUSION
Forces of backwardness say; that the hills and valleys, the mountain ranges of our country; that for nearly 350 years were scorched by the evil fires of colonialist imperialism and racism, the fires that deformed the human spirit within the colonizer beyond recognition, the fires that dispossessed and dehumanized, the fires that for all this time set our people on a collision course, deliberately setting them apart and teaching each to hate the other; - they say;
The beautiful rains of a democratically constituted state must, in one decade, turn the barren, scorchly burnt soils of our country into the beautiful garden of Eden, fill up all of the Sahara Desert with the plenty waters of the Nile, and fill every stomach with the milk and honey of Canaan.
They suffer from a realism of prejudice. They put forward a proposition, that their son is born and becomes a man of experience 30 years on. Yet, our daughter who was born earlier this morning, is expected to become a woman of experience and integrity by this afternoon.
This, is the arrogance of ignorance born out of racist supremacist upbringing and convictions, that impels the beholder to believe that the majority who look different from him are stupid.
They will not see through the superficial machinations of modern baaskap whose heart is filled with envy at seeing the dream becoming true, of a people united in a social contract, working together black and white, to determine a better future for themselves. These noble people of our land will move on and succeed.
Nevertheless, these pseudo-democrats too, are our people. We must accept, that in the process of transformation, not only some structures and institutions will take longer to respond to the imperatives of change, but there will also be the DA, the likes of whom our Afrikaner people will say,
"Die agter os kom ook in die kraal."