Programme Director;
The Executive Mayor of the City of Tshwane, Councillor Kgosientso Ramokgopa;
Members of the Mayoral Committee and other Councillors here present;
The Chairperson of the Voortrekker Monument, Mr Rudolph Botha and other members of the Voortrekker Monument Council here present;
The Chairperson of the South African Heritage Resources Agency, Professor Somadoda; Fikeni and other members of the SAHRA Board, here present ;
The Director-General of the Department of Arts and Culture, Mr Sibusiso Xaba;
The CEO of SAHRA, Ms Sibongile van Damme;
Senior officials from government;
Our honoured guests;
Members of the media;
Ladies and gentlemen.
We have gathered here today to mark one of the most significant milestones in our journey to build a South African nation that is truly united in its diversity. On this day we commemorate the declaration of the Voortrekker Monument as a national heritage site.
Since the attainment of Freedom and Democracy in 1994, the Voortrekker Monument is the first Afrikaans Monument to gain the status of a national heritage site.
By declaring this site, which has a deep historic meaning and significance to the Afrikaner community, we are taking an important step towards strengthening reconciliation in our country.
Today we are reaffirming that the South African nation is a product of many streams of history and culture, representing the origins, dispersal and re-integration of humanity over hundreds of thousands of years.
We are today making a bold statement to uphold the ideals of the founding fathers of our democratic nation. These are the ideals of one country, one people, one democratic state and a non-racial destiny for all who live in it, black and white.
Declaring the Voortrekker Monument as a national heritage site gives practical meaning to preamble of our democratic Constitution which states:
“We the people of South Africa, recognise the injustices of our past. Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity”.
As directed by our Constitution we are using this event to make a contribution towards healing the divisions of the past. We are also contributing to the establishment of a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights.
Indeed today we reaffirm our common heritage and our shared destiny as South Africans, united in our diversity. We are taking an important step in defining a new and inclusive narrative for our country, a narrative that gives recognition and appreciates our rich and diverse cultural heritage.
We are proving once more that; while our struggle for national liberation could easily have been conducted as one against a racial group, it rose above this category to embrace the principle of non-racialism; to see humanity as one and diversity as a source of strength.
Programme Director, as we preserve our rich and diverse heritage, we do so in order to tell the true and complete story of where we come from as a people. This is also a story about who we are and where we are going.
Part of our history is painful. It is a history of exclusion, suppression, domination of one by another and a history of division. However, we cannot wish away this history!
It must be told and told in full to current and future generations. It must be embraced as a defining feature of where we come from and who we are as a nation. This history must be a constant reminder that Freedom and Democracy came at a price. It must therefore be defended jealously.
We must therefore be firm in our determination to ensure that; as the founding father of our democratic nation former President Nelson Mandela said, “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land of ours will experience the oppression of one by another.”
Fellow South Africans, in December last year we opened the road linking Freedom Park and the Voortrekker Monument. In addition to improving access to both these facilities, the road is a symbolic gesture signaling a new era where these two institutions will work together to build an inclusive South African society.
As a result of this road, we now have a precinct that will assist us to tell the South African story in its entirety. In the coming months we will open the second phase of the Freedom Park Museum. The Museum will tell the South African story of pre-colonial times.
We take this opportunity to urge all South Africans to visit this precinct to reflect on our common heritage. We also call on the private sector to partner with us, in terms of funding and expertise, as we invest in infrastructure to preserve our heritage and to tell the true South African story.
Fellow South Africans, in the interest of openness and in order to promote an inclusive process of decision making, I have asked the Mayor of Tshwane, Councillor Ramokgopa, to broaden the consultation process on the issue of the re-naming of Pretoria to Tshwane.
Upper most in our minds as we take part in this and other related processes is the need to engage in dialogue, to reach out to one another and to strive for consensus. We must prioritise dialogue and consensus because these are the unique features that saw our country successfully closing the chapter on its unhappy past.
Indeed it is because of dialogue and consensus, and not through the courts of law, that as a nation we were able to achieve what is today proudly referred to as the South African miracle. Let us work together to continue building a South African nation that is socially inclusive, prosperous and truly united in its diversity.
Thank you!
