E Rasool: Provincial Women's Month Programme launch

8 August 2007

Thank you very much Minister Mqulwana, Programme Director, leaders of
government, leaders of civil society, leaders of the private sector, veterans
of our liberation movement, representatives of communities all over the Western
Cape.

I want to say to you that it would have been pleasant, as we were intended
for the entire cabinet, the Heads of Department, senior management service to
sit here in front of you today, so that you can judge whether we are making
progress in terms of women's leadership and women empowerment within
government.

But as Minister Mqulwana said, she should have left already for a march and
she should feel free to go at anytime because I know that Minister Ramatlakane
is already waiting for the memorandum that will be handed over, that is where
he is. We have left Minister Brown to address the women in treasury, because
they are dealing with how to unfold women's budgets, or budgets, which are
sensitive to the concerns of women. Minister Essop and few others are in the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) and so the list goes on.

The point I want to make, is that as we sit here today, government is
working at a political level, managerial level, operational level and at a
service delivery level.

Yet people are sometimes in doubt that this government is working, that it
is delivering and that it is stable because everyday in the news papers there
are those who want to give the impression that this government is falling
apart. What month are we in? You know it is women's month and you know that
during women's month we must deal with serious challenges facing women. But
there are others who see this as a month of August, the month before
September.

They are not concerned about the status of women. They are only worried
about how they can grab power in September. The only way they can grab power is
to convince you that those who have power are unstable. And I can tell you, you
have nothing to worry about, we are working, and we are focusing on what is
important for women and all other vulnerable people in our province and that is
why you have been invited here today, so that we can deliberate on those issues
that specifically affect women.

As Minister Mqulwana has said, we have set a vision for the Western Cape. We
say a Western Cape a home for all, die Wes Kaap is n tuiste vir Almal, Intshona
Koloni likhaya lethu sonke. Why are we saying that?

We are not saying that it is a home for all. We are saying it must become a
home for all. We are not saying that as everyone sitting here is accepted as
the Capetonians. We are saying we must create conditions so that we can all be
citizens of the Western Cape. We are not saying that the problem is only racial
divisions in terms of Africans, Coloured, Indians and whites. We are not saying
that the problem in the Western Cape is only Linguistic, English, Afrikaans and
Isixhosa. We are not saying it is only religious between different religious
groups that we have got to build unity.

In this month of August as Minister Mqulwana said, through out the 365 days
of the year, our biggest challenge is to ensure that the Western Cape also
becomes a home for women. We may have racial tensions in the Western Cape, but
the courts are not full of Black people who have been assaulted by White
people. We may religious differences in this province, but the mortuaries are
not full of those who were killed because they were from another religion. We
may have language problems, but I have not heard of a Xhosa speaker assaulting
an Afrikaans speaker.

The fact of the matter is we know that there are women who are beaten by
men. There are women murdered by men, women raped by men, women abused by men.
The mortuary shows us that evidence. The hospital shows us that evidence and
the courts show us that there are some who silently bare the scars in their own
houses.

On this women's day I want emphasise again, that the Western Cape must
become a home for all, that it must especially be a home for women because the
mortuaries, the hospitals, the courts, police stations and the silence in the
homes tell us that the Western Cape probably is not a home for women. They do
not feel safe, they are not equal, they are not recognised, they are hidden,
denied education, denied opportunities, denied the ability even is some cases
to have their voices heard and their face seen. And if we want to make the
Western Cape a home for all, we have to deal with issues related to the rights
and equality of women in this province.

I read a very important quote that I want to share with you, by someone
called Richard Rorty, because I think it begins to give us a way forward about
how we can make the Western Cape a home for all but especially for women.
Richard wrote this and I quote,

"In my utopia, human solidarity would not be seen as a fact to be recognised
by clearing away prejudice or burrowing down to previously hidden depths but,
rather, as a goal to be achieved. It is to be achieved not by inquiry but by
imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers.
Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created. It is created by
increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and
humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people."

Rorty tells us human solidarity is not achieved by enquiry, not by means of
research, not by means of asking questions, not by means of statistics. It is
achieved by imagination. The imaginative ability to put ourselves in the
position of those who are different, to ourselves and to see them as fellow
sufferers. Sometimes you do not suffer yourself, but you have to put yourself
into the being of someone else, to imagine their suffering. Solidarity is also
not discovered by reflection, it must be created, you must build it, and you
must work for it. Rorty says that solidarity is created by increasing our
insensitivity to the deepest of the pain and humiliation of other unfamiliar
sorts of people.

In this case of women, the point that I am making, is the point that the
President made when he was here for Imbizo, when he listened to people
debating, Coloureds, Africans, Whites, Indians in one room. The President gave
us one task, President Mbeki said I can give you many theories about how to
build non-racialism, and this case I would say to build non-sexism. I can give
you many ideas of building equality between groups of people, in this case
between men and women. But he said I want to give you a simple exercise, why do
not Coloureds, Africans, Whites, Indians, put yourself in the shoes of the
other one, and try to imagine how they feel? And then maybe, you will be able
to understand them and be able to live with them.

Today we must make that call; we must make a call to men. Put yourself in
the shoes of women, try to imagine the pain and humiliation with every word we
say to women, with every act we do to women, with every silent sulk we give to
women, with every emotional blackmail that we do to women, try to imagine the
humiliation that must be felt, the loss of confidence that must be felt, the
inequalities that must be felt, the pain and the suffering that must be felt.
Sometimes we believe we can just do what we want to, your partner speaks to you
and you ignore her completely. And we think we can just do it, as if there is
no consequence in the soul of the person that we just ignored. Sometimes our
partners are excited about wanting to tell us something and you are so
preoccupied with our own lives that we do not even listen properly. We do not
even put ourselves in the shoes of women, to understand what pain we give when
we do not listen.

Sometimes when we come home both of us have been working, we believe that it
is our right to go to the television or the newspaper and it is their job to
look after the children and the food. And we do not even begin to imagine what
message we are sending out, of humiliation, of pain and of slavery that we are
sending out. So the point is if this province is going to become a home for
all, then more men must begin to imagine what goes on in the soul of a woman
when we do what we do everyday. When we appropriate for ourselves the right to
come home, when we want to and to beat our women when they come home late, when
we have for ourselves the right to refuse but beat them when they exercise the
right to refuse whether it is for sex, or money or whatever else the case may
be.

While all of those things go on, we do not have a home for all, in fact the
house in which the family he lives is not even a home for the woman. She is not
even tolerated there. She is abused there. She is not an owner of the home. So
the question we must ask is how do we move towards this home for all for women?
And the starting point must be, by asserting that women is South Africa are not
asking men for favours, they are not asking us to be kind to them. Women have
earned the right to be free and equal in this country, because 51 years ago,
they had the courage to march to Pretoria, when men were either in jail, going
into exile or sometimes too lazy or afraid to get up and take the bus or the
train to Pretoria to march to the Union Buildings.

Women have produced leaders, from all communities, whether it is Helen
Joseph, who had to give up her privilege as a white person to become a leader
of liberation. Whether it is the women had to fight back the barriers of
religion like Amla Rachalia and then become a leader or whether it is the
enormous number of African leaders like Lilian Ngoyi, and many others who have
taken the lead in the struggle, sometimes in support of men, sometimes behind
men, but many times in front of men, where men were sometimes too strategic and
sometimes too lazy to take the lead.

So the point that I am making is that South Africa probably stands out in
the world as a country where women have earned the rights to be equal. They
were equally at the forefront in the struggle for freedom and have won our
liberation for us. Therefore, 13 years into democracy to still struggle with
this thing about whether women should be equal, whether they should have all
the rights, whether they should be safe, goes against the contribution that
women have made in the struggle for liberation. And that is why women's day is
important.

It is not to try and commercialise it buying gifts for each other, which is
the paradigm of kindness when you buy presents for each other. The best gift we
must give is to give women what they have earned, equality, fairness, safety,
justice and dignity. That is the gift that must be given. Flowers are nice,
they are romantic and there is place for it, but they are not a substitute for
equality, for dignity, for safety and for freedom. Chocolates are nice, but
they are not a substitute for equality, for dignity, for freedom and for
liberation. Perfume is nice but sometimes men buy it for themselves, they put
it on the women but they buy it for themselves.

I have been shocked, speaking about that matter; I have been shocked to look
at the statistics of Tik, because suddenly, you have a drug that women are also
becoming drawn to. About 30% of those who use Tik are women. And the question
that is asked of women, why are you using Tik? And again, we have to reflect on
the answers that many of you have given. They say it is because it makes you
thin. What does that mean? It means that there is a lot of pressure on women to
look like Kate Moss or whoever the case may be, while men are permitted by
society to be fat.

So we must recognise the pressure that we put on women, this pressure to be
thin, to be a model, otherwise we have the right to cheat. Otherwise we have
the right to take another wife, otherwise we have the right for divorce,
otherwise we have the right to beat them, because when I married you, you were
thin but look at you now. What we do through that act if we can only imagine
the humiliation, imagine the insecurity, imagine the pain, imagine the
suffering, imagine the pressure, we should be able to act differently. And I
think that needed to talk about these issues because you cannot ignore a
statistic that says that many women only take Tik because someone told them
that if you take it will let you loose your appetite or weigh less or whatever
the case will be it is not true because what you are losing is not the
weight.

What you are loosing is yourself, your dignity, trying to hold on to a
husband who may have already decided that he wants to be unfaithful. The answer
is not Tik. The answer is what you do about the relationship between husband
and wife, between partners in a relationship. And we have got to open up these
discussions otherwise it can never be a home for all in the Western Cape
especially not for women.

I want to emphasise the point that what we are dealing with here is
patriarchy, it is the domination of men over women, not necessarily only
personally, but in the structures of society, in the structures of our
religion, in the structures of our social institutions, in the structures of
the work place, in the structures of government, in the structures of
everything that moves in the world. All of us in South Africa have become very
good detectors of racism.

Even if someone does not use the word Kaffir, we can understand when there
is something racist about what is just being said. Even if they kill you with
kindness we can understand when they are patronising you in a racial way. We
have to be able to get sense that also alerts us to sexism and patriarchy. For
sometimes we feel flattered when they say kind things to us but sometimes we
must know they are patronising us.

Sometimes we get carried away by a priest or imam who stands up to say that
woman are the most honoured in our religion, our religion has put women number
one, but everything that is done is to say: know your place, bring the food, we
do not want you to be heard, you should be seen but not heard.

For your protection, do not go out, for your protection, do not work, for
your protection, do not go to university. It is all covered up in this kindness
to women, for their protection, I mean that must be the constrict of the
century that women must deny themselves opportunities for their own protection.
How do we uncover? How do we roll back this patriarchy because while it might
sound kind, it actually pushes women back. Because there are many men who
believe that it is their right to be beat women and they will want to point to
the scriptures to try and prove their point.

We need leaders of faith categorically to say it is unacceptable, it is not
allowed, we disagree with people who interpret the scriptures in a way that
allows them to oppress women. They have to say it because it because we know
what is happening in our homes, just to make sure that she is disciplined.

There are some who do not lift the hands but their tongues are sharper than
any hands can be. Because they know that human beings thrive on confidence, on
self-esteem, the self-belief in your own self in your own worth. And so the
tongue is used to strip you of every bit of confidence, every bit of esteem,
every bit of self-belief. It is probably sometimes more dangerous than the
first.

The silent threat that I can walk out when I want to, I can cheat when I
want to, is probably one of the greatest disciplining tools in the hands of a
man. And it is difficult to lay a charge. So how do we deal with it and that is
not only about what the police can do? Minister Mqulwana has said that, these
are not challenges for the police, these are not only challenges for the court,
these are challenges that require that women themselves come together, to speak
about it, because sometimes you know it is so easy to divide and rule
anyone.

I think it is easier to divide and rule women. The men cheat with someone
else but why beat up the woman? So how do we create human solidarity So that
those in pain can cross the divisions and find the common platform to overcome
the pain? So the Coloured woman in Mitchell's Plain, the African woman in
Khayelitsha and the White woman in Muizenberg, all get beaten and violated but
they never come together because for them, their racial division is more
important than the solidarity as women.

The woman who gets beaten and speaks Xhosa, the one who speaks Afrikaans,
the one who speaks English, the language difference is more important than the
fact that they need a common approach to the violence that they all suffer and
the abuse and the humiliation. Muslim women, Christian women, Jewish women know
the humiliation of physical abuse, but no one speaks to each other.

No religion could want a man to beat a woman. But Christian women do not
speak to Muslim and Jewish women because the Muslim, the Jewish do not speak as
long as what is happening in Israel and Palestine persists irrespective of the
suffering here. How do we create the common platform? How do we create the
common platform that creates one powerful voice for all women beyond cultural
and racial barriers in order for us to begin to turn around this patriarchy
that is in society?

The Western Cape government knows that you may theoretically understand what
the women go through, as I theoretically explained to you on my understanding
as a man. But unless you have a critical mass of women in leadership,
politically, managerially, operationally, you are not going to get a critical
mass understanding of what to do. Sometimes women think that to get on in life
they must act like men. That is not what society needs. Women do not have to
act like men to excel in life. Society needs the balance between what women
bring and what men bring. Things go wrong for all women when women also believe
that it is their job or they are free to humiliate other women. That is why in
rape cases for example alleged rapists increasingly ask women lawyers to
cross-examine the victim. They are trying to confuse the justice system. So
women have to speak to each other.

You can be Coloured, you can be White, you can be Indian, you can be African
but you have got to speak to each other about the common experiences. You can
be Xhosa speaking, English speaking, Afrikaans speaking but you have got to
speak the common language that women speak. You can be Muslim Christian, Hindu
or Jewish but you have to speak across the divisions that exist. That is why as
government, we are building a critical mass, we are not there yet, but Minister
Mqulwana will be able to say that this month we have come to a very important
milestone in government in the Western Cape. Local Government and Housing for
the last two years has been led by a woman. Economic Development and training
for the last few months has been led by a woman, and surprise! Surprise!
Agriculture is now led by a woman, the major change that we made this month, is
that the Acting Director General of the whole Province, for the first time in
the Western Cape is now a woman. And that must begin to create the imaginative
capacity within government to understand women, to imagine the pain and
humiliation and act on it.

There are many fancy things that we can say about who we patriarchy and
sexism and related issues. But you know, I grew up as a Muslim, I therefore
want leave you with a verse from the Quran in which God says I have blown of my
spirit into you. I have found there is a very fascinating thing that for me,
more than the theory was the basis of non-racialism, that we all carry God
spirit but I was very surprised a few months ago when I stumbled upon the first
epistle of John which says "who lives in love lives in God and God in them" and
then it ends up by saying, "this you must know, I have given you of my
spirit."

In the Old Testament, which the Jews read, in Isaiah there is much the same
message about God, placing his spirit into every human being. Now if Muslims,
Christians and Jews all agree that every human being carries God's spirit in
them, if each one as we sit here, is a bearer, of a part of a great spirit of
God then we must treat each other not simply as human beings but as those who
carry part of the spirit of God. That must be the basis for human solidarity,
that we recognise the Devine in each one of us, in each other, irrespective of
your colour, your language or your gender.

The respect that we must have for each other is the respect that comes
because we also respect the Divine in you, no matter how angry we get, we get
angry with each other before you can do anything about that anger, you must
recognise the Divine of the one that you are angry with. That must be the thing
that holds you back from the violence, from the abuse, from the rape and from
all those kinds of things. You do not violate, God says you do not violate
those who carry the spirit of God. I am hoping that the things that I have said
open up a debate, so that we all know that as we sit here as the one goes back
to Gugulethu, the other one to Mannenburg, the other one to Parow, the other
one to Rylands that maybe what we have created here is the ability to start
speaking to each other about the common things. It is not only happening in
your own community, it is not only happening in your own religion, it is not
only happening in your own race, it is not only happening in your own language
group, more importantly, it is not only happening to you, only when we speak
about it can we do something about it.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Western Cape Provincial Government
8 August 2007