Programme Director, Mr Ahmed Essop;
The Cachalia family;
Wits Registrar, Ms Kirti Menon;
Professor Sheerin Hassim;
Friends and comrades and
Ladies and gentlemen,
I wish to start off by thanking the Cachalia family for the signal honour to share a few words on the occasion of Amina Cachalia's memorial service. While honorific, this task is all the more daunting since the memory of the human being we are here to honour is one of a larger-than-life figure.
Along with her late husband, Yusuf, Amina took up the cudgels for social justice, a struggle that would define her entire life, and importantly for us today, her legacy. A product of her times, Amina Cachalia comes from a golden generation in the annals of both the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid history.
Men and women from her generation had heeded the counsel of the philosopher Edmund Burke that 'all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (and, should we add, women) do nothing'.
In the teeth of historical conditions where, to paraphrase the poet, the best lacked all conviction, while the worst were full of passionate intensity, the generation of Amina Cachalia rose in unison against an ignoble and putrid ideology underpinning an oppressive political system.
On this account, invoking Amina Cachalia's name necessarily brings to mind such glorious names as Yusuf Cachalia, Fatima Meer, Yusuf Dadoo, MG Naicker, Helen Joseph, Lillian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa, Sophie de Bruyn, Ruth First, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Joe Slovo and many others.
Defined by a humanist conception of society, which was itself based on a higher understanding of the historical process, this generation broke new ground in many critical ways in its envisioning of a post-apartheid social landscape.
In consequence, it is to Amina's generation, and generations before it, that we owe the conceptual and philosophical understanding of the human condition in the South African, and indeed African, context.
This is such a penetrating understanding that it has lifted our level of consciousness beyond the frontiers of nationalism to enable us a full grasp of the challenges facing society and with that, the best ways to address such challenges in order to usher in a new dawn.
Accordingly, our current view of the post-apartheid landscape has been shaped by this inherited tradition, which continues to guide our advances into the future.
In a way as we gather here to celebrate Amina's legacy, we are equally celebrating the collective legacy of this golden generation.
As we shall see later, this legacy cannot just be celebrated in the abstract; it is, as it has always been and will always be, a living legacy, a lived reality, a concrete historical experience that has neither beginning nor ending.
And herein lies the rub, for such a trans-historical experience imposes on current generation, as it does the next, the responsibility to keep alive the vision Amina and her generation set in motion.
Metaphorically, this legacy is a torch passed to us by her generation; which torch we have to use to shine our way out of darkness.
In other words we who are the inheritors of her legacy need to appreciate Francois Chateaubriant's observation that 'every revolution is the consequence of one revolution and the beginning of another.'
Amina spent her life in a revolution to eliminate apartheid; our revolution is to ensure that we deliver on the needs of all South Africans in order to change their lives for the better.
Programme Director;
Why then, does Amina Cachalia's legacy matter?
I am sure you would agree that an act of merely recounting the accounts of her life would not suffice in helping us to answer this question.
For while we all know her eventful life, more than that, we need an understanding of how her noble legacy is of relevance for us today.
In this connection, the Buddhist saying, 'If you want to know your past look into your present conditions, if you want to know your future look into your present actions', is closer to the mark.
While Amina and her generation saw their goals through, the goals of obtaining liberation and ushering in democracy, this in itself does not mean the end of the struggle. In this regard, a distinctive aspect of her life stands out: she was a committed anti-apartheid activist, who passionately embraced the strategic vision of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and just society.
These tasks speak of a society whose construction is still work in progress today.
They issue forth from concrete experience thrown up by decades of toil that inspired many across generations to dare to re-image a new, humane society.
By the same token we have to define the key goals of our revolution in this historical epoch. At the core of this strategic vision is the moral imperative to improve the material conditions of all South Africans.
To this end, key to government's vision for a better life for all South Africans are the five priority areas which manifest the devastation our country has suffered over the years.
The five priority areas are: improving our health, education, creating decent work, accelerating rural development and land reform and fighting against crime and corruption
We are particularly concerned about the fight against crime and corruption because many of government's programmes, including the other four of the five priorities identified above, depend on success in this regard.
Understanding that corruption disables the state from delivering on its mandate to improve the lives of all our people, we should continue to intensify efforts to combat it.
Concomitant with these key priorities is the obligation to better the standard of living of all our people by working to improve our system of governance.
This entails a speedy, efficient and effective implementation of all policies and programmes meant to make a difference in the lives of the working class, the under-class, the peasants and the poor in general.
The strategic vision of building a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and just society will ring hollow if not underpinned by continued amelioration in the living conditions of ordinary people.
Yet for all their effectiveness and efficiency, systems and programmes of government cannot work if the people who operate and implement them do not personally believe in the ideals that drive society.
We need a renewed national consciousness that impels individuals in society to bring about change, believing that such change is necessary and of benefit both at an individual and societal level.
This animated national attitude should make us do our best for our country, especially in terms of pulling our fellow compatriots out of poverty.
The sight of poverty that mars the socio-economic landscape of our country should assault our sense of personhood, whether we are public servants, the business community or private sector workers.
Amina herself understood during her lifetime that poverty, a condition largely engendered by the system of oppression, was the greatest blight on the lives of South Africans and, along with political oppression, had to be eliminated.
Another challenge with potentially baneful effects on the fabric of society if left unattended is social cohesion. We are all aware that our nation is undergoing a healing process following decades of division.
The key elements of unity, non-racialism and non-sexism in our strategic goals stem from this awareness. Equally it takes concerted efforts to build social cohesion; it is not an issue that can resolve itself outside human consciousness.
The extent to which our nation is socially cohesive primarily in terms of racial relations reflects whether our current generation is faithful to, understands and lives out the vision of the previous generations.
It is a fact of our history that more than any generation that has fought the system of racial oppression, Amina's generation best exemplified inter-racial solidarity and a commendable non-racial outlook.
The possibility of a non-racial future gathered momentum during her generation, which, despite the atmosphere of social fragmentation, rose above the prevailing conditions to fully embrace racial unity and co-operation.
All the historical actors involved in this ascendant consciousness felt valued and appreciated as part and parcel of a progressive movement.
Similarly, social cohesion can only flourish in a post-apartheid society of which all our people are an integral part in meaningful ways.
This is all the more important given that no South African was unaffected by the virus of racism, which was embedded in the bloodstream of society.
It is our responsibility as the current generation to ensure that no one feels marginalised or disregarded on account of race or ethnicity.
Crucially we have to move with speed to extricate all our people from the mire of poverty and ignorance, so that poverty and ignorance are no longer synonymous with particular racial groups.
Above all, Amina's legacy for us today means levelling the ground in economic terms, including addressing the historically festering sore in the form of the land question.
I am deliberately raising all these key issues under the rubric of post-apartheid socio-economic relations because these are issues that are inter-generational. Whether or not we succeed in tackling them will decide whether we are the generation that betrayed history or hiked it to a glorious level.
Arising out of that, our failure, if we do fail, will be a serious indictment that justifiably disinherits us of the right to claim the legacy Amina Cachalia and her generation and generations before her have left us.
In addition to the socio-economic challenges that define our strategic vision, we also have to come to terms with the challenges of gender inequality and the feminisation of poverty in society.
During her lifetime, Amina threw her lot in with the gender struggles, aware that gender was among the noticeable fault lines in the apartheid firmament.
She co-founded the Women's Progressive Union and became its secretary and was equally active in the National Federation of South African Women when it was founded in 1954.
As adherents of her noble vision we are shocked by acts of gender violence that violate the sanctity of our common humanity. Once again if there are any lessons for us in her life, it is that we should spare no effort in choking off the pestilence of gender oppression.
Indeed her legacy would mean nothing if we failed to uproot social conditions that lead to gender-based violence. It is our duty to create a new consciousness that puts humanity at the centre of our universe irrespective of our race or gender.
This means understanding that the struggle for gender equality is not an appendage to the struggle against racism, nor is it an after-thought. It is indeed a struggle that must, as with charity, start within the basic units of society— it must be in the home where beliefs and values are imprinted and handed down.
Programme Director;
Amina Cachalia lived for a higher purpose; she was driven by idealism which, with the dawn of democracy, was translated into a living reality during her lifetime.
While indeed she is a hard act to follow, pursuing her vision, the vision adopted by her generation, is within the realm of possibility for all those who are equally inspired to bring to fruition a better human condition.
We cannot afford to fail her and all those who come before her. We can also not afford to be the generation that failed the future. Our unique challenges are not insurmountable.
As I said earlier, Amina Cachalia is the product of her times...and, admirably, she responded to the imperatives of her day with exceptional vim and vigour.
If she were with us today, she could have reminded us, in the imperishable words of James Baldwin, that:
'I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.'
I thank you for your kind attention!!!
