Address by Deputy Minister Andries Nel, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, at the Interfaith Celebrations for Nelson Mandela International Day held at St Edmund’s Episcopal Anglican Church, Chicago, Illinois U.S.A
Programme Director, Mr Cliff Kelly,
Rector of St. Edmund's Episcopal Church in Chicago, Reverend Doctor Richard Tolliver,
Hon. Consul-General, Ms Vuyiswa Tulelo,
The Dean and other members of the diplomatic corps,
Mr Vance Henry, representing Mayor Rahm Emanuel,
Rev Harrell representing Inter-Faith Illinois and other religious leaders,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Comrades and friends of South Africa.
Sanibonani! Ninjani? Dumelang! Lekae? Molweni! Ninjani? Goeienaand! Hoe gaan dit?
Ndi madekwana! Vho vuwa hani? Avuxeni! Ku njhani? Namaste! As-salamu alaykum.
Good evening! How are you?
On behalf of the government and the people of South Africa we express our condolences to the family and loved ones of those who were killed or injured in the shooting at Chattanooga.
Our thoughts are with Archbishop Desmond Tutu who has been hospitalised. We join President Zuma in wishing him a speedy return to good health.
Consul-General, Vuyiswa Tulelo, my wife Kim Robinson and I thank you very much for the honour of attending and addressing this interfaith celebration of the life and struggle of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Madiba.
Thank you Reverend Doctor Richard Tolliver and all religious leaders, for opening the doors of this holy place of peace and justice to us.
Today, Muslims the world over celebrate Eid-al-Fitr - the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting. We join in saying: Eid Mubarak!
On 24 March 1993, a year before he became the first President of democratic South Africa, President Nelson Mandela delivered the following message to the Muslim community on behalf of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress:
"Dear Muslim brothers and sisters. I have always been particularly attached to the Muslim greeting - I thus greet you in the name of Peace.
Peace remains foremost in the minds of every community as we witness the continuance of killings and the growing crime rate.
I am sure that throughout the world joy-filled homes will be marking this Eid ul Fitr with fervent prayers for world peace.
I hope your prayers for peace and justice to prevail in this troubled land are answered. I trust that your sacrifice and discipline during the fast will stand this nation in good stead.
It is on festive days like these that our minds turn to ponder the universality of humanity and the plight of those who have been excluded and denied.
The Quranic injunction to rededicate ourselves to the resolute fight against any and all forms of injustice, tyranny and oppression is universal and strikes responsive chords in the hearts of people of all faiths.
Let us make this the last Eid ul Fitr that we have to celebrate under a system that has systematically trampled on our rights and our human dignity.
Let us make this the Eid ul Fitr of Hope - where the less privileged, unemployed and poverty-stricken can also look forward to sharing the bountiful fortunes of this land."
Tomorrow, 18 July, we celebrate Nelson Mandela International Day. Last year UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon said in his Nelson Mandela International Day message that:
"Apartheid is gone – thanks to Nelson Mandela, countless other individuals and the proud actions of the United Nations. But our planet and its people still face terrible threats -- poverty, discrimination, climate change, conflict and more. Nelson Mandela Day is a call to action. Each of us can celebrate this Day by helping to address real problems in our communities. Together we can give great meaning to our celebration by paving the way for a better future."
Nelson Mandela International Day is an annual call to action for people around the world to make a difference in the communities where they live and work by taking time to serve others.
Nelson Mandela gave 67 years of his life to the struggle for human rights and social justice. The UN asks people around the world to devote at least 67 minutes of their time on 18 July — Madiba’s birthday - to a community service activity.
The theme for the day is: "Take Action, Inspire Change”, or in isiXhosa, Nelson Mandela's mother tongue: ‘Thabata Inyathelo, Wenze uTshintsho'. This highlights the importance of working together to build a peaceful, sustainable and equitable world.
This emphasis of change is appropriate and important because many remember President Mandela as an icon of reconciliation and forgiveness in the sense of bringing together enemies, opponents, parties to a conflict to agree to an amicable truce.
And indeed, who can forget that after 27 years of imprisonment, having been robbed of his entire adult life, Nelson Mandela was able to transcend his personal pain and to lead his oppressors into the promised land of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, prosperous and just South Africa.
Who can forget Nelson Mandela visiting the widow of Hendrik Verwoerd.
Who can forget Nelson Mandela wearing the jersey and cap of an almost all white Springbok rugby team after the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
Who can forget the hand of friendship and partnership that Nelson Mandela extended to FW de Klerk on the eve of South Africa's first democratic elections.
However, Nelson Mandela's life also illustrates that reconciliation has a deeper, more profound and powerful meaning that should constitute the foundation for reconciliation in the first sense of the word: "a re-establishing, reinstatement, restoration, or renewal."
Indeed, the word "katallage" in the Greek New Testament is translated as "reconciliation" in the King James Version of the New Testament.
The Greek word means "a thorough change." The Greek preposition, "kata", meaning "down" and the Greek noun "allage", meaning "change." This noun, in turn, is derived from the Greek verb, "katallasso", which means "to change thoroughly".
In English change that is "deep down" is usually described as "radical change" from the Latin word "radix", meaning "root."
During the two decades since Nelson Mandela was elected President of democratic South Africa in 1994, we have made remarkable progress in the transition from apartheid to democracy.
This transition has been peaceful despite our country's history of violent conflict, colonialism, racism and dispossession.
In nearly every facet of life, advances are being made in building an inclusive society, rolling back the shadow of history and broadening opportunities for all. South Africa has been able to build the institutions necessary for a democratic and transformative state.
The Constitution enshrines a rights-based approach and envisions a prosperous, non-racial, non-sexist democracy that belongs to all its people.
Healing the wounds of the past and redressing the inequities caused by centuries of racial exclusion are now constitutional imperatives. Access to services has been broadened, the economy has been stabilised and a non-racial society has begun to emerge.
Millions who were previously excluded have access to education, water, electricity, health care, housing and social security. More people are working today than in 1994, the poverty rate has declined and average incomes have grown steadily in real terms.
However, twenty-one years into democracy, South Africa remains a highly unequal society where too many people live in poverty and too few work. The quality of school education for many black learners is poor. The apartheid spatial divide continues to dominate our landscape and scar many of our cities and towns.
A large proportion of young people feel that the odds are stacked against them. And the legacy of apartheid continues to determine the life opportunities for the vast majority. These immense challenges can only be addressed through a step change in the country's performance.
To accelerate progress, deepen democracy and build a more inclusive society, South Africa must translate political emancipation into economic wellbeing for all. It is up to all South Africans to fix the future, starting today.
Our National Development Plan: 2030 is a response to these challenges and it envisions a South Africa where everyone feels free yet bounded to others; where everyone embraces their full potential, a country where opportunity is determined not by birth, but by ability, education and hard work.
Realising such a society will require transformation of the economy and focused efforts to build the country's capabilities.
To eliminate poverty and reduce inequality, the economy must grow faster and in ways that benefit all South Africans. But a plan is only as credible as its delivery mechanism is viable. We need a capable developmental state to implement our National Development Plan.
A developmental state needs to tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality. A South African developmental state must intervene to support and guide development so that benefits accrue across society, especially to the poor, and build consensus so that long-term national interest trumps short-term, sectional concerns.
A developmental state needs to be capable, but a capable state does not materialise by decree, nor can it be legislated or waved into existence by declarations. It has to be built, brick by brick, institution by institution, and sustained and rejuvenated over time. It requires leadership, sound policies, skilled managers and workers, clear lines of accountability, appropriate systems, and consistent and fair application of rules.
Building this state and leading society on the path of fundamental socio-economic change are imperative.
Nelson Mandela reminded us that: “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice… (Poverty) is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”
We are reminded of President Barack Obama's words at the funeral of Rev. Clementa Pinckney of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston:
"He embodied the idea that our Christian faith demands deeds and not just words, that the sweet hour of prayer actually lasts the whole week long, that to put our faith in action is more than just individual salvation, it’s about our collective salvation, that to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless is not just a call for isolated charity but the imperative of a just society."
In some Christian traditions reconciliation is sacrament in which repentant sinners are absolved and gain reconciliation with God and the Church, on condition of confession of their sins to a priest and of performing a penance. Ultimately, reconciliation cannot be the sole responsibility of the oppressed.
In both South Africa and the United States our racist past has a grip on the present. We cannot allow it to determine our future.
As we mark Nelson Mandela International Day we remember Rev Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Rev DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Rev Daniel L. Simmons, Rev Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson - victims of the racist terror that was unleashed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.
In the Holy Quran in chapter 49 verse 13, it is said: "O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other)."
The motto that appears on South Africa's coat of arms is: ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke. It is written in the Khoisan language of the ǀXam people and translates literally to "diverse people unite." But unity in diversity must be based on justice and the conviction that all lives matter.
Indeed, the philosophy of African humanism Ubuntu teaches us that: “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” or "motho ke motho ka batho" or a person is a person through other people.
We thank Reverend Tolliver for opening the doors of St Edmunds Episcopal/Anglican church to us tonight for this special occasion. Through your actions you embody Ubuntu and the theme of Nelson Mandela International Day: ‘Take Action. Inspire Change.’
We are inspired by the work of the St Edmunds Redevelopment Corporation, a not-for-profit community development corporation that has provided housing in the Washington Park neighbourhood since its establishment in 1990 and by the establishment of the tuition-free Charter International School at the Church in 2000.
These are examples of Nelson Mandela Day every day. They also illustrate the role that churches can play in society as active solution-finders to challenges confronting society today.
Let me also take the opportunity to thank the city of Chicago and its people for being active participants in the global Anti-Apartheid Movement. Much of that effort is documented in the Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement Collection at Columbia College.
Rev. Tolliver, Rev. Narain and the church, on behalf of the people South Africa, thank you for the role you played during the Anti-Apartheid Movement. We know that Saint Edmunds was amongst the first churches in Chicago to put up the Free Mandela sign. Our people will never this forget this solidarity.
President Barack Obama said recently of the black church: "Over the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors, where slaves could worship in safety, praise houses, where their free descendants could gather and shout “Hallelujah…”, rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement.
They have been and continue to community centres, where we organize for jobs and justice, places of scholarship and network, places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harms way and told that they are beautiful and smart and taught that they matter.
That’s what happens in church. That’s what the black church means - our beating heart, the place where our dignity as a people is inviolate."
On behalf of President Zuma, the government and the people of South Africa, we thank the people of the United States for standing by us in the struggle against apartheid, not as an act of charity but an act solidarity and justice.
We trust that you will continue walking with us on the path that Nelson Mandela showed. We pledge to continue walking with you as you also struggle for a more just society.
Let every day be a Nelson Mandela Day. In the words of James Weldon Johnson, we will lift our voices with you and sing:
"Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won."
Ngiyabonga. Ke a leboga. Ndiyabulela. Baie dankie. Thank you.
Enquiries:
Mpho Lekgoro
Cell: 071 607 3081
Email: mphol@cogta.gov.za
