Deputy Speaker,
Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces,
Honourable Members.
Our heritage is what gives us our sense of identity and belonging. Each and every person has their own unique story to tell. It’s these stories which, when woven together, tell the tale of a country which, despite its tragic history and centuries of suffering, has emerged to proudly take its place in the world.
It tells the tale of groups of people who, for a very long time, viewed each other with suspicion and anger coming together to form a nation with a unique South African identity. That is our heritage. Heritage Day is a day of celebration of different cultures and the diversity of our people’s traditions, in the wider context of a country which belongs to all who live in it.
We must learn about, and respect, the heritage of each and all of the peoples of South Africa.
Those of us who come from KwaZulu-Natal, will know that 24 September was celebrated in the former KwaZulu Homeland as Shaka Day as it was on this day that King Shaka was assassinated in 1828.
Fred Khumalo writes: “Shaka’s Day, in honour of the man who used his spear to embroider together a diverse collection of tribes and clans into one mighty cultural quilt… had gifted us with one thing that you can’t take away from a people: a sense of history, a sense of dignity.” I will return to these issues of history and dignity shortly.
It is a feature of the democratic and inclusive South Africa that the dates of our national days are set on the anniversary of a specific happening, such as the assassination of King Shaka or the massacre at Sharpeville, but are widened to include a broader theme – such as Heritage Day and Human Rights Day with regard to the two examples I have mentioned.
This inclusivity must be a central part of how we celebrate our county’s heritage.
Perhaps the central lesson that the African National Congress (ANC), the 102 year old organisation I represent here in Parliament, learnt in its long years of struggle was that of unity and inclusivity. Uniting the different ethnic groups from its founding in 1912 to working in the Congress Alliance with the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People’s Organisation and the White Congress of Democrats, the ANC forged non-racialism and respect for all South Africans.
This unity and inclusivity is specifically stated in the Freedom Charter, adopted in 1956, with its striking opening line: “We, the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.” It is in the preamble of our Constitution of the Republic of South Africa that - “we the people of South Africa believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity”; it is expressed in our National Development Plan – “South Africa belongs to all its peoples. We, the people, belong to one another. We live the rainbow.”
I stated earlier that we need to learn about each other’s heritage. We come from a past which specifically sought to prevent that. In order to justify first of all slavery – the enslaving of fellow human beings as mere property and then colonisation – the subjugation of indigenous people and the occupation their land, the European mind had to propagate myths such as the superiority of Europeans and their culture and history and the inferiority of the peoples of Africa.
This continued in the era of apartheid which was built on the myth that white people were superior to black people. Part of this process was the concealment of the existence of advanced African societies such as at Mapungubwe; the propagation of myths such as the assertion that Great Zimbabwe was built by the Phoenicians and other such claims that the Europeans and Bantu speaking people arrived in South Africa at the same time.
How much of this mindset, this stereotyping, still dominates some of our thinking, even sub-consciously? One of the problems of our society and in this regard I refer particularly to people of my own background – white, middle-class South Africans - is a belief in their own cultural superiority; that their way of doing things and their outlook and values are the only ones that are correct.
Our struggle for a South Africa, united in its diversity is a struggle not just to learn about the past, but also not to forget it. We must never forget.
In our past, there was no justice in the justice system. It was a system of injustice which upheld and defended the apartheid state. Constitutional safeguards and rights which we consider the norm today, were non-existent under the previous regime. During the 1960s to 1980’s many people were detained without trial, often tortured and many of them died in detention. Many people will tell their stories of how they became to dread night time approaching, as this was when the security forces were likely to strike.
Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali writes in his poem, “Nightfall in Soweto” that-
Nightfall comes like
a dreaded disease
Where is my refuge?
Where am I safe?
Not in my matchbox house
Where I barricade myself against nightfall.
I tremble at his crunching footsteps,
I quake at his deafening knock at the door.
“Open up!” he barks like a rabid dog
thirsty for my blood.
Nightfall! Nightfall!
You are my mortal enemy.
But why were you ever created?
Why can’t it be daytime?
Daytime forever more?
Apartheid laws were dehumanising and the so-called security legislation was draconian in nature. Many would say that because of this, our country’s story must be one of bitterness and resentment. But we can proudly and humbly say that this is not the case.
One of the problems we face as a country is that of deliberately forgetting. Even though the National Party government was kept in power by white voters, it is today very difficult to find a single person who supported apartheid.
Everyone in South Africa is in love with our first President Nelson Mandela, but it was only a few year earlier that most white South Africans regarded him as a terrorist who was trying to destroy white civilization. I spoke earlier of the Freedom Charter – now just about everyone with the exception of the Freedom Front Plus and the PAC supports the Freedom Charter, but right up until the dawn of democracy white South Africans regarded it as a communist document and, because of state propaganda, they regarded communism as particularly evil.
The contrast between our country’s past and our future is stark and dramatic. We have struggled and we have overcome. We have succeeded in building a constitutional democracy that is often hailed as one of the most progressive in the world. We have gone from a brutal and dehumanizing regime of control to building a society based on human dignity, freedom and equality. We have made significant progress towards eradicating inequality and injustice and building a more equal society.
Since the advent of democracy, government has consistently worked on improving the lives of all. Today, more people have access to safe drinking water, and more than 12.5 million people now have a place to call home, as government has invested more than R100 billion in building new homes since 1994. There have been major improvements in access to health care since 1994. We have more children going to school, with the number of children enrolled for Grade R increasing year on year.
This does not mean that there are no challenges - in particular poverty, unemployment and inequality. It means that the gains that we’ve made far outweigh the challenges that remain. And we must take pride in the fact that we have made massive gains in our society and towards building a more equal South Africa.
Chairperson, heritage is also about social cohesion. In its 1992 document, called “Ready to Govern: the ANC’s policy guidelines for a democratic South Africa” it states that –
“We have to develop a truly South African vision of our country, one which is not distorted by the prejudices and sectarianism that has guided viewpoints on race and gender in the past. We have to rely on the wisdom, life experiences, talents and know-how of all South Africans, women and men. There can be no "apartheid" in finding solutions to the problems created by apartheid.”
What does it mean to be South African? I have been asked to deliver a lecture tomorrow at the University of North West, in Mafikeng in honour of the late professor of law, Prof Carmen Nathan. In reading about Prof Nathan’s life, I was struck by the following – Prof Nathan was a white, English-speaking person who had worked for a long time in North West. She had mentioned in her will that she wanted a “Tswana/Jewish Burial.” And her wish was granted, with a funeral she herself could not have imagined. Over 4,000 people showed up at the village of Motswedi in the North West province. The village is rather remote, being 70 kilometres from the nearest town, which is Zeerust, so the rabbi had to be flown in by helicopter. Prof Nathan was buried in Motswedi, along to the sounds of both a Tswana gospel choir and the saying of traditional Jewish prayers. And so every person in this country has their own unique South African story to tell.
Speaker, I conclude: What is heritage? Heritage is memory. Heritage is what we leave behind when we are no longer here. The question really is - what do we leave behind? Perhaps the very best we can leave behind is an unwavering commitment to the Constitution and its guarantees. We must also leave, as our legacy, a steadfast belief in democracy and the rule of law. We must entrench a culture of, and respect for, human rights and the dignity, freedom and equality of all our people.
We must respect the institutions of our democracy, one of which is Parliament. In this regard I would like to reflect on recent events and the conduct of both some Members and commentators.
The Speaker of the National Assembly has recently been subjected to considerable criticism. When the President was in the Assembly to answer questions the Speaker was criticized by commentators, such Judith February, for not allowing an additional follow-up question after the four had been asked. However, the fact of the matter is that the Rules of the National Assembly do not allow for this and the Speaker has absolutely no discretion in this regard. Surely one would expect that people familiarize themselves with Parliamentary Rules before the expressing expert opinions on it?
Yesterday, the Speaker was accused by a Whip of the DA of taking instructions from Luthuli House, because she did not force the Deputy President to answer a specific question. However, the same member and his Chief Whip both know full well that the Rules and the practice do not provide for this – members of the executive must respond to questions, but there is no policing how they respond.
Even Tuesday’s ‘Motion of No Confidence – debate’ was a desperate attempt by the Desperate Alliance to reclaim the opposition initiative from the EFF by attacking the Speaker without having anything really substantial to say. In attacking the legitimacy of Parliament for short term gain, we are damaging the pillars which support our democracy. Indeed the DA seems to becoming the EFF-lite or should I say the EFF-white!
We have fought too long and too hard to make a mockery of this institution.
Obstructing speakers by taking perpetual points of order when a member feels they are being insulted and then, the following day, insulting someone and refusing to withdraw the insult is showing disrespect to Parliament; showing a middle finger to the Deputy President in this House as the chief whip of the EFF has admitted and continuously walking out of its proceedings when you don’t get your own way is being fundamentally disrespectful of the struggle and each and every life lost during the struggle. Where is the sense of history, where is the sense of dignity?
The liberation struggle has taught us that the impossible is possible, despite the odds. We’ve learnt that achieving a desired goal takes time, enormous commitment and courage. We have learnt that as long as inequality exists our work is not done. We’ve learnt that we are better together, united in our diversity, celebrating that we are all children of the African soil.
I thank you.
