occasion of the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha, Durban
1 October 2006
Programme Director,
Your Excellency, the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh,
And esteemed members of the Indian delegation,
Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Premier of KwaZulu Natal, Sbu Ndebele,
Mayor of Ethekwini, Councillor Obed Mlaba,
Trustees of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation,
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors, High Commissioners and members of the
Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished guests,
Fellow South Africans,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am truly honoured and delighted to have this opportunity to address you in
the presence of the Prime Minister of India, His Excellency Dr Manmohan Singh,
as we observe and celebrate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of a
defining epoch in our history, the Satyagraha campaign, initiated right here in
South Africa a century ago.
On behalf of the government and people of South Africa, we extend our
warmest welcome to the Prime Minister and the rest of the visiting Indian
delegation, and thank you most sincerely for gracing our shores to share in our
salute to one of India's and South Africa's great creations, the Satyagraha,
and pay undying tribute to a truly great human being.
Our emancipation is only 12 years old. It is not so long ago that the
celebration we hold today would not have been possible. It is not so long ago
that it would have been impossible for a Prime Minister of the great country of
India to set foot on our shores. Not so long ago, the majority of us present
here were prohibited by law and the force of arms to determine the future of
our country.
It is in this context that, today, together with the masses of our people, I
am proud to say that, among others, Mahatma Gandhi, the great native son of
India and, at the same time a beloved son of South Africa as well, provided the
unparalleled leadership and example that inspired the triumphant march to
freedom and democracy both in India in 1947, and in South Africa in 1994.
Again, it was no accident that it was India, at the United Nations in 1946
that first put on the global agenda the issue of the imperative to mobilise the
international community to join us in our struggle for our liberation from
racism and white minority domination. In this regard, I would like to
acknowledge the presence among us as a member of Prime Minister Singh's
delegation, and welcome Anand Singh whom, like E.S. Reddy, many of us have
known and worked with for many decades as a frontline fighter against
apartheid, for the liberation of all our people.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi needs no introduction to anybody here and
elsewhere in the world, for he is an international icon, martyr and the
champion of freedom, peace and non-violence. He, more than anyone else,
personifies the spirit, the essence and the meaning of Satyagraha. Accordingly,
as we celebrate the centenary of the birth of this great philosophy and
practice of struggle for human emancipation, we also celebrate the contribution
to our liberation by all our historic leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi.
Having arrived in South Africa in 1893, Mahatma Gandhi's life, like those of
many other leaders who came from India, was to be transformed by a multitude of
events, "racist laws, racist treatment of both Indians and Africans as well as
enduring personal subjugation and humiliation."
However, two events stand out as some of the most defining moments in
shaping the political direction of Mahatma Ghandi, and the launching of
Satyagraha.
The first happened during the South African War, otherwise referred to as
the Anglo-Boer War. During this War, Gandhi and other leaders of the South saw
it opportune to prove their loyalty to the British Empire so as secure equal
rights for their people. Thus, they encouraged participation of their people in
the war on the side of the British troops.
But the blatant racist attitude of the British as well as their policy of
allowing whites to subjugate the Indian-South Africans politically and
economically, before and after the War, made Gandhi and his comrades to begin
formulating strategies of mobilising people for freedom.
The second event was during the Bambatha Uprising in 1906, whose Centenary
we have and are commemorating this year. Gandhi led an ambulance corps to help
the wounded among the Zulu people. He later wrote in his autobiography
that:
"The Zulu 'rebellion' was full of new experiences and gave me much food for
thought. The Boer War had not brought home to me the horrors of war with
anything like the vividness that the 'rebellion' did. This was no war but a
man-hunt. To hear every morning reports of the soldiers' rifles exploding like
crackers in innocent Hamlets, and to live in the midst of them was a trial. But
I swallowed the bitter draught, especially as the work of my Corps consisted
only in nursing the wounded Zulus. I could see that but for us the Zulus would
have been uncared for. This work, therefore, eased my conscience. Enraged by
such experiences, Gandhi decided to dedicate more of his life to the struggle
for the liberation of all our people.
A protest meeting of the Indian-South African people was convened in
Johannesburg in September 1906 as a response to the promulgation of the Asiatic
Bill and the Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act, which made registration of all
Indians compulsory and identified them as a separate racial group, adding to
existing oppressive measures such as the �3 tax on the indentured
labourers.
The non-violent defiance campaign decided at this meeting gave birth to
Satyagraha, as a result of which those who defied the law by striking, burning
passes or simply refusing to register were flogged, jailed and even shot at.
Thousands across the country put their very lives on line by participating in
this non-violent civil disobedience campaign.
In an article in the Indian Opinion in 1907, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that
non-violent acts of civil disobedience were acceptable against any immoral law
that was repugnant or harmful to the people.
As E.S. Reddy has observed in his article, 'The First Martyrs of
Satyagraha':
"Gandhiji often stressed that satyagraha is not mere jail-going. He warned,
during the first Satyagraha in South Africa, as early as 1909: 'A satyagrahi
must be afraid neither of imprisonment nor of deportation. He must neither mind
being reduced to poverty, nor be frightened, if it comes to that, of being
mashed into pulp with a mortar and pestle'."
Reddy says it was clear to the satyagrahi that although satyagraha is a
totally non-violent and civilised form of resistance, the oppressors would try
to break it by resorting to an escalation of brutality, together with 'dirty
tricks' to confuse and divide the ranks of the resisters.
(www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/people/gandhi/3.html)
When two infants died in Natal during the Great March of Indian-South
African workers in 1913, they symbolised the supreme sacrifice of non-violent
protest in the name of noble ideals, struggle and sacrifice for freedom.
Further, Gandhiji was profoundly affected by these and other deaths and
wrote tributes to four martyrs: Sammy Nagappan, a teenager who died of
pneumonia after being forced to break stones in bitter cold; A Narayanswami,
who was not allowed to land for two months when he returned from illegal
deportation to India, though shivering on the open deck without adequate
clothes; Valliamma Moonsamy, the 16 year-old girl who refused to seek parole
despite her serious illness from incarceration in Pietermartizburg and died
after completing her sentence; and the indomitable Harbn prison.
(Extracted from Reddy, E.S., 'The First Martyrs of Satyagraha', ibid)
From Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg; from the plantations of Tongaat and
Verulam to the mines of Newcastle and the farms of Umzinto, countless Indian
heroines and heroes became martyrs. While some were professionals and
homemakers, the majority were indentured labourers, workers and peasants whom
Gandhi described as the "salt of the earth".
In the Preface to his book 'Satyagraha in South Africa' published in 1928,
Mahatma Gandhi wrote about what he called "the beauty of Satyagraha", and
said:
"It comes up to oneself; one has not to go out in search for it. This is a
virtue inherent in the principle itself. A dharma-yudda, in which there are no
secrets to be guarded, no scope for cunning and no place for untruth, comes
unsought; and a man of religion is ever ready for it. God helps when one feels
oneself humbler than the very dust under one's feet. Only to the weak and
helpless is divine succour vouchsafed... The reader will note South African
parallels for all our experiences (in India) in the present struggle to date.
He will also see from this history that there is so far no ground whatever for
despair in the fight that is going on. The only condition for victory is a
tenacious adherence to our programme."
He concluded the book with these words: "I will consider myself amply repaid
if I have in these pages demonstrated with some success that Satyagraha is a
priceless and matchless weapon, and that those who wield it are strangers to
disappointment or defeat."
Over the years, the work of this great human being as expressed through
Satyagraha, with its unshakable advocacy of respect for honesty, the truth,
loyalty to principle, and perseverance in the struggle for justice, was to
influence generations of brave men and women as they also fought for their
freedom.
Indeed, the voice that symbolised the American Civil Rights Movement, which
celebrates its golden Jubilee this year, echoed the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi
that inspired Martin Luther King Jr, as well as many others across the world,
to follow in the humble footsteps of that extraordinary lawyer and human
being.
For the timeless lessons of Gandhi are so evident in the words of Martin
Luther King Jr when he said:
"If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought, and
acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and
harmony. We may ignore him at our own risk."
(The Words of Martin Luther King, ibid, p.57)
And surely today, as we confront the spectre of violent national conflicts,
war and international terrorism, we can only ignore Mahatma Gandhi's vision and
message at our own risk. For the human solidarity, human dignity, self-respect
and equality among the peoples, for which Gandhiji fought and died, are the
core values that we need to pass on to the generations that follow us so that
they may live lives of peace, harmony and prosperity.
And those generations will salute us too if we tackle the challenges of the
21st century with the same vision for social justice, peace and harmony.
A century after Satyagraha began in the old colonial Transvaal, we will
tomorrow, on Mahatma Gandhi's 135th birthday, have the privilege to meet Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and his delegation to discuss the further measures we
must take to raise to higher levels our concerted effort to strengthen our
bonds of friendship with India, which is, to us, not only a genuine strategic
partner, but also a second home all our people.
In this regard, let us reflect on the prescient words of Mahatma Gandhi when
he addressed a Satyagraha meeting in Johannesburg in 1908:
"If we look into the future [of South Africa], is it not a heritage we have
to leave to posterity, that all the different races commingle and produce a
civilisation that perhaps the world has not yet seen?"
(Reddy, E.S. and Gandhi, G.)
During this time that we, South Africans have defined as the Age of Hope.
The challenge for us is how to produce a heritage where all different races,
creeds, faiths and religions commingle and produce a civilisation that indeed
the world has not yet seen.
In 2001, the world family of nations gathered here in Durban at the United
Nations Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and
Related Intolerances.
Yet, instead of being sisters and brothers and friendly neighbours in this
journey of life, we see the rainbow tapestry of the human family being
unravelled because of racial hatred, religious intolerance, ethnicity,
xenophobia, sexism and terrorism.
At the same time, because of the refusal of especially the most privileged
in the world to open their ears, hearts and minds to the unconquerable voice of
the Mahatma, billions of people continue to live in abject poverty and
underdevelopment despite the fact that human society disposes of enough
intellectual and material resources to address these challenges.
Today, as we reflect on the past struggles, may we also look ahead tomorrow
to see how the strategic partnership between India and South Africa can be
imbued with the Gandhian philosophy so that we may create a sustainable human
family where satya, truth, will prevail, underpinned by the universal values of
human solidarity, human dignity and self-respect, which must inspire the
building of modern human society.
The peoples of India and South Africa have been engaged is united action for
freedom, equality and human dignity for well over a century. We are immensely
proud that we share with our sister country, India, a common hero, leader and
noble giant, Mahatma Gandhi.
As we continue to act together, among other things to contribute to the
emergence of a just global order, confronting the disequilibria and imbalance
of power exacerbated by the process of globalisation, we must remain as Mahatma
Gandhi said, "strangers to disappointment or defeat."
May Mahatma Gandhi's Phoenix Settlement of 1904 be a symbol to inspire a
prosperous renaissance in our countries and across the developing world, so
that the African phoenix and the Indian phoenix rise from the ashes of
colonialism and apartheid and reach for a destination defined by democracy,
peace, true friendship, prosperity and a better life for all our peoples.
Once more, a warm welcome to our dear friend and brother, Manmohan Singh, as
well as his esteemed delegation!
Long live Satyagraha!
Long live the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi!
Long live the indestructible friendship between the peoples of India and South
Africa!
Thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
1 October 2006
