Rasool, Commemorating 150 years of Dutch diplomatic presence in South
Africa
19 February 2007
I want to greet the Ambassador of the Netherlands to South Africa and I also
greet all the High Commissioners and the Ambassadors present. I particularly
want to greet that special breed of diplomat who have liked far better than the
High Commissioners and their Ambassadors who have to stay in Pretoria,
Consul-Generals who have the absolute pleasure of living in Cape Town and
enjoying it here so much so that it blunts their aspirations to become High
Commissioners and Ambassadors. I also want to recognise the brand-new Rector of
the University of Stellenbosch, Professor Russel Botman. I'm just saying that
because I want everyone to know that the new Rector also comes to these
functions.
Ambassador, your reference to the Greek Ambassadors here, reminded me of
something that I did not think was going to be in my speech but which I think
is appropriate for my speech and that is that out of the vast writings,
particularly out of the Greek tragedies, there is one truth that I'm always
reminded of on occasions when we signify milestones in the history of the then
troubled South Africa and that is from Aggethon who said, "Not even God can
change the past" and that I think is a very important point of departure, for
everything we do in South Africa it is to understand that if God could not
change the past, we are not also capable of changing it and reinventing it in
particular ways.
I think that what we need to do is to use an important occasion such as this
when we celebrate 150 years of diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and
South Africa, more particularly between Cape Town and the Netherlands because
in those terms before there was South Africa there was Cape Town, the Cape of
Good Hope and so we can be allowed to be our best with a little bit of pride
and to say that we held a diplomatic chord for much of the 150 years before
South Africa as a country was even democratised.
And so our nation today is the coming together of the streams of history and
culture and in recognition of the fact that that past is what we have
inherited, part of that task, part of that relationship has elements of pain in
it, elements of slavery, elements of wars that were fought on the frontiers, of
the Khoi and the San and what's happened to them and their history, of Malay
Slaves and exiles that were brought from one Dutch colony to the other and a
range of other things and so there's enough pain in the past to keep us honest
as we move forward to the future and know what it is that we want to avoid in
the next 150 years of relationships between South Africa and the Netherlands
and any other country for that matter but it would only be the most biased, the
most blinkered commentators who could simply put the history over the last 350
years of interaction with the Dutch down your painful history.
I think that we should be of enough equanimity to say that it has also
resulted in some of the most developmental advances that have been made. I
think forms of economic production and trade have also positioned us as a
country today to take forward not only our own people but to be the standard
bearers of what is possible in Africa as well. And so I think that we have
understood all these transitions Ambassador that you have spoken about over
these 350 years because it started off as so-called discoverers, as colonisers
and we were in a master and slave relationship.
I think in the last 150 years and particularly during the last century we
have been able to transform much of our relationship into partnerships. On the
one hand initially partners in the struggle against apartheid and the Dutch
people had been in the forefront of some of the most heroic intentions to
isolate apartheid, to fight apartheid and to give material support for those in
this country and in exile who were fighting apartheid and at the same time, the
figures that you have quoted begin to show that we have become economic,
cultural and other partners as well in the last 13 years of freedom and
democracy. We appreciate the fact that we are in a new phase in which, as you
said, there's R400 million of aid in the year coming from the Netherlands to
South Africa for a variety of reasons. There's R11 million of Dutch exports to
South Africa. There's R12 million of South African exports to the Netherlands
and that there's enormous investment that is also ploughed into South Africa by
Dutch citizens in our country and I think that that begins to say that we have
begun to outgrow our history and we have begun to make sure that the path of
our partnerships are paths that will never repeat some of the most painful
aspects of that history.
I also want to say and I say it especially on this occasion because I know
that in the Netherlands you face these challenges: much of the tolerance, much
of the acceptance, much of the openness that goes through the entire South
African Constitution has been derived from what we have understood to be the
finest modelling that has been done in the Dutch society and in the Dutch
nation. We have held it up as a nation of openness and of tolerance that we
would want to model ourselves on and I think that what we need to be able to
understand is that we rely on the Dutch in the next 150 years of diplomatic
relations to remain a voice for open and free trade particularly between Africa
and Europe for multiculturalism, for tolerance, for building an interface ethos
and for making sure that we also become an advocate for Africa and its
advancement.
We know that you are facing your own challenges as intolerance tries to
creep into every society across the globe, as acceptance becomes less
attractive to many people and as ghettos become more attractive to many people.
It is a pity that it ought to be to the Dutch society with assassinations and
acts of intolerance but I believe that that's the kind of work that we've got
to continue to do amongst ourselves and between ourselves and so for us it is
an enormous pleasure to celebrate this 150 years of diplomatic relations
between South Africa and the Netherlands. It's an enormous pleasure for us to
do it from the base of Cape Town where this relationship started.
I think in fact we have for many years found in the Dutch a people in
solidarity with us, a people worth looking up to and a people worth imitating
in the way in which they constructed the openness of their own society and in
that I believe that there is indeed no need to want to change the past because
the past has been the greatest teacher for the kind of present and future that
we want to have and that I think is the concrete benefit above all else of our
relationship for 150 years of formal diplomatic relations with the Dutch and
particularly a long history of 350 years with Dutch people.
So thank you very much for inviting me and indeed I think we encourage all
people such as yourselves that once you reach the age of retirement and your
government finds no more use for you, that not only should you come and retire
here but whatever pension funds you may have, you may invest in very profitable
endeavours right here in Cape Town in the Western Cape.
Property is doing very well. A house you can buy for R1 million now and you
can sell it for R3 million soon and I think that that is the invitation that we
have and so the unfortunate species in the diplomatic world, Ambassadors and
High Commissioners to South Africa, tolerate Pretoria but retire in Cape
Town.
Thank you very much
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
19 February 2007
