Address by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Paul Mashatile, on the occasion to honour the women and children who perished in the concentration camps during the South African War; War Museum, Bloemfontein
Director of the Programme,
The MEC for Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, MEC Dan Khothule
Other MECs here present,
The Executive Mayor of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, Councillor Thabo Manyoni,
Representatives of local government, here present.
Mr Tokkie Pretorius, the Director of the South African War Museum and your management team,
Community leaders,
Our Military Veterans,
Honoured guests,
Members of the media,
Ladies and gentlemen.
We meet here today to take yet another important step in our ongoing endeavour to craft a new and inclusive narrative of where we come from as a nation and where we are headed.
In particular, today we are honouring all those South Africans; especially women and children, who perished in the concentration camps during the South African war.
Without discriminating any of them, we are immortalising their memory. We are remembering and recording the role they all played in that brutal war. We are acknowledging their collective suffering. We are also taking a stand that; never again will the people of our country, in particular its women and children, suffer the brutality and injustice of war.
Equally today we are also closing a painful chapter for many of the families, relatives and friends whose loved ones not only perished in the concentration camps but also suffered the indignity of having their memory being erased and their stories never told.
Today we are embracing especially all those women and children, black and white, who suffered in the concentration camps.
We are declaring boldly that all of them, without exception, form part of our history and our heritage. We are also declaring that we shall not forget. As we know the history of our country is full of tragic events. Many of them represent domination and conquest of one by another, discrimination, humiliation and even torture.
It is our duty as this current generation to fully reflect on the journey we have travelled as South Africans, even though parts of this journey may be painful. This we must do as part of ensuring a thorough process of national healing. This we must also do so that we can learn from these events, so that we can better understand our present and better plan for our future.
It is upon reflecting on such tragic events that as nation, as a people, we are able to say without fear of contradiction that; we have come a long way. Ours is indeed a story of the triumph of the human spirit.
As we also know, many of the stories of South Africans, in particular black South Africans, who shaped our history and our present remain untold. It is equally our duty to tell these stories so that they too can form part of our country’s collective history. We are therefore encouraged that work continues to be done to tell the stories of the involvement of black people in the South African war, in particular.
We look forward to more work that will seek to tell the many untold stories about our past and about the contribution of certain sections of the South African society to where we are today.
In this regard we are delighted to announce that we are working with the Department of Basic Education to ensure that the correct, complete and inclusive history of our country is taught in our schools.
By telling an inclusive story of where we come from as a nation we are reaffirming that indeed, as South Africans, despite our diversity, we share a common heritage that continues to bind us together.
We are also reaffirming that we are one people, one nation, united in our diversity.
We are equally making the point, once more, that; because of our common heritage we have a shared future that together we must work towards.
This is the future so eloquently articulated in the National Development Plan, Vision 2030: “where we say to one another: I cannot be without you, without you this South African community is an incomplete community, without one single person, without one single group, without the region and the Continent, we are not the best we can be.”
Programme Director, as we move forward along the journey towards social cohesion, national building and national healing we must continue to create platforms for South Africans, from all works of like, to dialogue and engage among one another on the kind of society we seek to build; a country we can all be proud to call home.
Museums and interpretation centres offer that kind of platform for engagement.
I trust therefore that the new facilities and exhibitions in this museum will be used, among others, to encourage communities from this area and indeed from other parts of the country to continue the conversation on the kind of future we are building.
As we know, as South Africans we have distinguished ourselves world-wide as a people that have the ability to use dialogue to reach out to another and find solutions to difficult problems.
Let therefore the conversations that take place within the walls of this museum, contribute towards a better understanding of our common history as South Africans.
Let these conversations also enhance the national debate on how together we can build a socially inclusive society.
We must do this inspired by the declaration of that historic National Summit on Social Cohesion and Nation-building we convened in Kliptown in 2011, where we stated that: “We depart from this historic venue united in our commitment to building a nation that is caring dignified and with a great sense of humility and mutual respect for one another.”
At the Summit we went further to declare that; “As representatives from all walks of society, we are determined to fulfil the vision of the National Development Plan Vision 2030; to create a home where everybody feels free yet bonded to others, where everybody embraces their full potential”.
Let the memory of those who suffered during the South African war, inspire us to build better and prosperous future for all.
Thank you!
