Assalamu alaikum! Shalom Aleichem! Namaste! Good Evening, Sanibona, Goeienaand!
Thank you for inviting me to join you in celebrating the diversity of our rainbow nation.
The Turquoise Harmony Institute can only be commended for its ingenuity of using tonight’s Iftaar meal as an opportunity to observe our differences in their richness. Your promotion of inter-cultural dialogue and tolerance among ordinary people is laudable. Tonight’s fast breaking dinner is an excellent starting point for everyone to turn the mirror inside, while at the same time learning more about and from people from other religious and cultural backgrounds.
Ramadan is not only about skipping meals. As one of the pillars of the Islamic faith it calls for self sacrifice, generosity, kindness, praying and God consciousness. These are virtues with which all faith groups and cultural groups can identify. A vice that we all also can identify with is self absorption. Then you point the finger at others rather than looking at your own soul. It is quite a nasty disease. Especially when it is you, unlike the H1N1 virus it does not catch us overnight but pollutes our minds on a daily basis until the whole world becomes about us, our needs, our wants, our problems, our culture and our language!
Before we know this mindset spills over into jealousy, hatred, intolerance, stereotyping, racism and sexism. Instead of seeing our good traits we become notorious for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes others learn from us how they should not behave. A philosopher once said he “learnt silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers”.
Historically South Africa lent itself to ethnic and religious self obsession and intolerance. Blacks, coloureds, Indians and whites were born, lived, laughed, cried and died in separate communities. This ignorance and fear of people who are different than us are fertile grounds for creating stereotypes and intolerance.
People, of course, have a natural preference for their own language, customs, traditions and religion. But when this preference becomes a yardstick to measure, assess or judge others, it can be dangerous and immoral, as history has taught us. Blatant racism and intolerance are easily recognised. The problem lies with the more subtle form of intolerance; stereotyping. The danger with stereotyping is that we do it unconsciously. We have to constantly fight prejudices that are based on perceptions created by hearsay, our own experiences and the mass media.
Stereotypes are BIG in the media and film industry; sometimes blatant, sometimes masked as so-called ‘cultural humour’. They may seem humorous but can harm people. We all know them; the jokes about the Jews, Muslims, Indians, blacks, Afrikaners, English, etc. Any smart, highly intelligent individual of good standing will tell you how he or she feels when he or she is tarnished with the brush of being ‘dumb’ or ‘lazy’ or ‘crooked’, whatever the particular stereotype of the cultural or religious group is.
Anthropologist Johan du Plessis points out that in many instances the main culprits in peddling stereotypes are parents. They transmit their experiences and perceptions and stereotypes to their children. “The children, without having tested the prejudices, will carry these as baggage for the rest of their lives until, if, through personal exposure they challenge the stereotypes themselves,” he says. Let us break this vicious cycle of contaminating the minds of our innocent children.
Indeed, self reflection is often not a pleasant experience but its ultimate goal is to bring peace and harmony, not only to ourselves but also to those around us. It brings renewed energy, understanding and inspires us to do better. In our province and our country spring has sprung. In South Africa it is the season that arrests your attention and your imagination. The soft green leaves and vibrant colours that surround you compel you to take a new look at life. It is the season that has become synonymous with the renewal of life and of hope for the future.
In the Zulu culture the month of September or ‘Mandulo’ is associated with a new beginning: this is the time to start afresh and start ploughing the lands to sow the new crops. It is also Heritage Month, the time when you revisit your own roots but also reach out to South Africans from other cultural groups. This time of awakening is an opportunity to renew our commitment to nation building, working together with a common vision of creating a better life for all our people and forging a united South African nation.
The intention to build cohesive, caring and sustainable communities is one of government’s 10 priorities that were spelled out in President Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation address. He reminded us of the lesson we were taught by our country’s first democratic president, Nelson Mandela that; this country belongs to all, black and white.
Premier Dr Zweli Mkhize announced that from this year, the celebration of Heritage Day will be organised with the advice of a variety of stakeholders.
Our South African motto, the celebratory Khoisan phrase Ke e Xarra Ke (“United in Diversity”) serves as a living testimony to the choice we made 15 years ago, to find peaceful and productive ways of resolving our differences. Like Mahatma Gandhi we reject violence as a mean of resolving differences because in his words; “when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does, is permanent”.
Seventeenth century philosopher Baruch Spinoza said, “Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice”. This virtue of peace must be cherished. Without peace and social cohesion, democracy itself will face serious difficulties. Tensions within society are often associated with wide and widening gaps between the rich and the poor.
Relations between and within communities suffer when people lack work and endure hardship, debt, anxiety, low self esteem, ill health, poor skills and bad living conditions. Therefore it is crucial that we, as government use our budgets and fiscal policy to promote social cohesion and reduce poverty. But nation building and social cohesion require partners, ordinary citizens who take government’s hand, who don’t only tolerate each others’ cultural and religious differences but also celebrate their diversity. We must engage with each other and take hands to build our nation together.
In historical terms our democratic South Africa is still a seedling. Let us nurture our freshly planted democracy, by building on the strength of shared experiences, a common vision and commitment to our country. Let us always put our beloved country first.
Issued by: KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
10 September 2009
Source: KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government (http://www.kwazulunatal.gov.za/)
