11 October 1983
I should like first of all to read a message which I have just received from the three remaining representatives of the United Democratic Front, the Nelson Mandela Committee and the Natal Indian Congress, who are taking refuge in the British Consulate in Durban: Archie Gumede, Paul Davids and Billy Nair. I will read you the message as it has been received by me a few moments ago:
"Your Grace, Archie and Billy were actually present at Kliptown on 26 June 1955 when you received the prestigious Isitwalandwe Award from the Congress Alliance. Paul is addressing you for the first time. We salute you for your long service in the cause of mankind and we send you warm fraternal greetings on the occasion of the United Nations Day of Solidarity with South African Political Prisoners and detainees. We are writing to you from the temporary sanctuary of the British Consulate in Durban, South Africa, where there is naught for our comfort.
"The South African policy of apartheid remains unchanged despite the South African Government's protestations to the contrary and so-called constitutional reform. This so-called new dispensation has been overwhelmingly rejected by all black South Africans. The present unrest gripping our beloved country is one more testimony to the rejection of apartheid by the majority of the people. Unfortunately, Sophiatown was not the last removal of settled communities.1 Three and a half million people have been removed and this year alone one million more are expected to be relocated. The apartheid regime goes on grinding our people. High infant mortality persists in all black communities and is even increasing, particularly so in the so-called homelands. Low wages, pass laws, group areas, race classification, separate and inferior education for blacks persist and limit the channels for legitimate protest against legislated oppression. Wanton killings, arbitrary arrests, detention without trial, and banning, try to stifle the voices of protest, but our people hope for freedom, cry out their anguish and struggle for justice for all. Much of the struggle has recently been voiced through the United Democratic Front. We ourselves have detention orders outstanding against us although we have only engaged in a non-violent and peaceful struggle for a just and participatory society in South Africa.
"Once more the South African apartheid regime seeks to imprison and silence legitimate leaders of the people. the people, we trust, will be prevented. Once more their hope of defeating We call on your Grace and freedom-loving people in the United States to demand the release of all political prisoners and detainees in South Africa. In particular we wish to bring tribute to those in Robben Island and other prisons who have been kept away from their people for many years and have only been able to support the recent struggle in their hearts and thoughts: Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Dennis Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, Barbara Hogan, and many others. Let us not forget these leaders and fellow activists who have been so important in keeping the hope for justice and freedom alive in South Africa.
"May we also remind your Grace and all who with you pray and work for a South African democratic society that in the last few months hundreds more have been detained without trial and languish in prisons. Among them are many United Democratic Front leaders and activists who are sorely missed in this hour of need in South Africa. Your Grace, if the carnage in our beloved country is to be stopped, we need the active support and prayers of the international community. All people of good will need to unite to stem the flood of evil of the abhorrent system of apartheid. Please pray for our country and for our people. Pray that we may find the road to freedom and justice. Please offer yourselves and encourage others to do the same as instruments of your prayer. We thirst for freedom and justice. The land is parched. Peace. Archie Gumede, Paul Davids, Billy Nair."
I would wish to be able to leave almost everything I had prepared, in view of that letter because the most urgent and essential task before us is action and not words, and those who at this present moment are yet again symbols of that action within the country of South Africa at this moment are, in my view, virtually the only people who have a right to speak with authority. Nevertheless, I had already decided to begin what I have to say to you with some words from Nelson Mandela himself: not the famous words with which he ended his defence at the Rivonia trial, but words from his first trial in 1962 when he was convicted of leaving the country without a proper permit and was given a sentence of three years. He said:
"I consider myself neither morally or legally obliged to obey laws made by a Parliament in which I am not represented. That the will of the people is the basis of the authority of government is a principle universally acknowledged and sacred throughout the civilized world, and constitutes the basic foundation of freedom and justice."
It is to me most moving that those words of Nelson Mandela have been echoed so clearly in this letter that I have just read to you.
I came here first of all to attend this anniversary meeting of Solidarity with South African Political Prisoners and then to present to the Secretary-General the first instalment of the international petition for his release. The symbolism of the Nelson Mandela petition is of course the fact that he represents not himself alone, but all South African political prisoners, all South African prisoners of conscience, and I believe it is very important to recognize this at this time and on this United Nations occasion: most particularly so, at this moment, when the Durban Six themselves represent and symbolize 22 years later those moral and ethical issues which are being trampled underfoot by the South African Government and by the entrenchment of apartheid under the new constitutional arrangements.
But I would like to stress the importance of the word "solidarity", because it expresses in itself the very reason for this meeting. It would be possible for me to read out to you the many different forms in which the international community has responded to the declaration and petition for the release of Nelson Mandela, but time simply does not permit this. At the international level, Security Council resolution 473 (1980) of June 1980, which was unanimously adopted, demanded his release. In July 1983 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) awarded the Simon Bolivar Prize for Liberation at Caracas, Venezuela, to Nelson Mandela together with the King of Spain. In June 1980 the European Parliament, again unanimously, resolved that Mandela, and with him of course all political prisoners in South Africa, should be freed. So also the International Commission of Jurists; and in the United States of America the House joint resolution of March 1984 gained 70 co-sponsors calling for his release; and in the USSR 78 chairmen of executive councils endorsed the Mayors' Declaration, which was called for from Britain and which was responded to all over the world.
I only isolate those particular moments because of their international significance. But in addition to this, universities all over the world have honoured Mandela with honorary degrees. Countries and nations in their various and different legislatures have done the same; and in my own country, Great Britain, I have taken part in many civic occasions where new streets were named after him or new civic gardens dedicated to him, and all of this I recognize - and I am sure you do - as symbolic of the will of mankind that this appalling and degrading system of apartheid symbolized by life imprisonment for men of such immense gifts and talents as Mandela and his companions should be brought to an end.
But why is it not brought to an end? The truth is one that we all know. It is that for some reason we prefer words and words and words to deeds and action. This is the plain truth and it is one that I, as I get older, find more and more difficult to live with. Indeed, I really find it almost intolerable to have to say again and yet again, after over 40 years within this struggle, the same things as I have tried to say and to express for so long.
The responsibility for action is the consequence of solidarity, if solidarity means anything, and this action is demanded not only in certain moments of crisis within South Africa, such as, for example, Sharpeville 1960, Soweto 1976, today 1984, but as a continuing responsibility, and it is always the refusal to act and the substitution of words for action that Governments prefer and choose; that therefore solidarity with African political prisoners means a kind of iron steadfastness of purpose until the end is achieved and victory is won. I have recently read a most remarkable historical account of the life of the first Secretary-General of the African National Congress, Sol Plaatje. In fact, his lifespan began in the year I was born, and although I say his lifespan I mean his life's activities began in the year I was born, and nearly five years after that he led the first delegation of Africans to the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1919, and his plea was precisely the same plea as we have been trying to make heard by the Government of my own country for the last 70 years, and still the refusal to act is the one consistent element. At the heart of it, in other words, there is a lack of political will and a lack of moral principle.
It is true that in these long years we have at least achieved certain massive results. Apartheid has become a world issue; and this is something, of course, which many people today cannot really believe - that only 28 years ago or so the meaning of apartheid was unknown to the rest of the world. It has been achieved, of course, not least by the Special Committee against Apartheid and those who have set themselves with such dedication, like its present Chairman. I t has been achieved, of course, by many solidarity groups all across the world and it remains now to be achieved within South Africa through the United Democratic Front and all others which are pledged to resist apartheid itself.
It is too easy to be content with half-victories. It is too easy to go from one or other of the major issues and, having achieved it, to think that is all we need to do. For example, the resolution passed by the Security Council in June 1964 did prevent the execution of Nelson Mandela and his companions, but then it has to be followed through. To become despondent in our approach to Governments or to substitute rhetoric for action within our movement - that is the unforgivable thing; or, indeed, to yield to that most subtle self-interest that can keep even the most dedicated solidarity movements divided within themselves.
So today I would plead with all my heart that we rededicate ourselves to action, that we look with great suspicion on resolutions words alone. We have to understand once and for all that we cannot live with apartheid, that apartheid must die before we do, and those of us who are getting old believe that, I think, more firmly than others.
I would like to end with yet another voice from this country. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, at the North American Regional Conference for Action against Apartheid, said this:
"The United Nations, as an international forum, continues to be a beacon of light and a vital centre of moral authority in these perilous times because it is a meeting place for the whole of humanity."
That is for me - and I am, and am proud to be, a Christian leader - the essential foundation upon which my plea is based, and I would add further, in the words of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, "Don't adjust to apartheid; resist and rebel, but do so now".