Address by Minister EN Mthethwa, MP on behalf of President Cyril Ramaphosa on the occasion of Reconciliation Day, 16 December 2022.
Theme: “National Unity, Healing, and Renewal”.
Fellow South Africans,
Dumelang, Molweni, Sanibonani, Goeie Dag, Thobela, Lotjhani, Ndi masiari, Nhlekanhi.
We will soon be at the end of what has for many been a difficult year.
In our communities, at our places of work and study, and in our homes, South Africans have had to confront many challenges.
We have had to deal with the devastating effects of the COVID pandemic, with rising food and fuel prices, with catastrophic flooding in parts of the country and with ongoing load shedding.
It is therefore particularly distressing that, amidst all these challenges, there have been several incidents of racism and intolerance.
We have witnessed racists acts in our universities, schools and other public places.
While it is deeply disturbing that these attitudes continue in our society, we must take encouragement from the fact that the perpetrators of racism have found neither sympathy nor condonation from broader society.
Time and again, our nation has shown its true character in times of need.
In the darkest days of the pandemic, during last year’s unrest and in the aftermath of the floods earlier this year, South Africans came together.
Communities reached out to each other.
The same can be said for the incidents of racism that took place this year. Civil society mobilised against the racists.
Pressure was placed on the institutions involved to take swift and appropriate action. Acts of racism will not be suppressed, buried, or rationalised.
They will be publicised, filmed, and put on full public view for all to see. This speaks to the energised and conscientised society we have become. We are a society that stands firmly for justice.
Non-racialism and non-sexism and respect for diversity begins with our Constitution, but it does not end there.
On this Day of Reconciliation, we reaffirm our commitment to live by the values of non- racialism and non-sexism.
No matter how great the difficulties we may be facing, we cannot turn on each other.
It is up to each one of us, whether as families, as parents, as educators or as communities to do more to build bridges of understanding.
It cannot be that bringing about reconciliation should be the responsibility of the formerly oppressed.
Instead of retreating into our cocoons of race, language, ethnicity, and class, let us use today, and indeed every day, as an opportunity to play our part.
The actions we may take may seem small, like learning a South African language we do not know, or they may be significant, like joining the government’s land donation programme.
As much as it is government’s responsibility to promote and advance national reconciliation through progressive policies and education, reconciliation must begin with the individual and with our own attitudes.
While challenges still remain, the South African people want to live alongside each other in peace.
We should not despair at the actions of the few who still cling to the attitudes, behaviour, and language of the past.
The great writer Alan Paton once said that reconciliation is not about forgiving and forgetting as if nothing wrong had ever happened.
It is about forgiving and going forward; about building on the mistakes of the past to create a new future.
Despite the national trauma and great crime that was apartheid, we have come a long way in bringing about reconciliation amongst South Africans.
Today, and every day, let us look to the future with optimism.
It is our collective hope that the new year will bring peace, progress and prosperity for every South African man, woman, and child.
In a society of common prosperity there is no room for prejudice of any kind. It is the society we must hasten to build, working together.
I wish all South Africans a blessed and peaceful Reconciliation Day.
I thank you for your attention
