P Jordan: Debate on State of Nation Address

14 February 2007

Madame Speaker,
Mr President,
Deputy President,
Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Honourable members,

The 13 years of democracy have wrought impressive changes on the South
African landscape. These 13 years have meant for the first time in over a
century South Africa has enjoyed relative internal peace. This last decade is
the first in more than hundred years, during which there was no major political
upheaval! These 13 years have meant more than a decade of steady economic
growth! Not sufficient, to be sure, to eradicate the poverty, the joblessness
and deprivation that degrades too many of our people. But, steady growth
nonetheless.

These 13 years have witnessed the steady improvement of the living standards
of the majority of South Africans, especially the poor and the most vulnerable.
Research indicates that between 1998 and 2004, more than two million people
moved up the social ladder. Whereas in 1998 the poorest categories represented
48% of the population, that had come down to 42% in 2004.

During these past 13 years we have seen an expanding floor of rights and
entitlements unfold for the historically disadvantaged.

South Africa's fiscal deficit, which stood at 40% of Gross Domestic Products
(GDP) in 1996, has now been reduced to 1.5% of GDP. In 2004 South Africa
celebrated the electrification of 7,5 million households, that is, 4 million
new electricity connections since 1994. By 2005 access to electricity stood at
71% of all households. These are impressive achievements and to pretend
otherwise is to bury one's head in the sand.

Madam Speaker,

While we must acknowledge and celebrate what we have achieved, yet we are
introspective enough to recognise how much still needs to be done. We on this
side of the house assert and recognise that it is of no comfort to a citizen
who has lost a loved one to crime to know that the rate of murder in South
Africa has dropped dramatically since 1994. It is of no comfort to the citizen
whose home is violated by criminals to know that the statistics indicate a
steady decline in this type of crime.

It is not very helpful to the victim of pickpockets, muggers, thieves and
other robbers to hear that we now have new modern methods of detection that can
lead to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. But, it is equally
unhelpful to use crime as a political football! The challenge before all of us
is how to take the war to the criminals. To sneer at the measures the
government has put in place to do precisely that is to be churlish and
petty.

Madam Speaker,

This government, elected with an overwhelming mandate in 2004, has reached
its mid-term. That mandate included the acceleration of the growth and the more
equitable economic development of our country and its people; as well as the
promotion of social cohesion and the nurturing of a shared national
identity.

The issue of national identity has assumed a special significance in our
country because of our very fractured and conflict-ridden past. Who we aspire
to be as a country and society was summed up in the Constitution we
collectively adopted in December 1996.

The admirable principles contained in that document represent a commitment
by all of us to strive for greater mutual understanding and acceptance, not
despite our differences, but rather by embracing the diversity of the South
African people as one of our great strengths. I consequently want to underscore
the President's call for pluralism and inclusivity, not as a grudging
recognition of difference, but as the positive affirmation thereof as both
healthy and edifying.

It is that understanding of the spirit of our Constitution that persuades me
to take issue with the Honourable Rev. Meshoe for his misguided homophobic
attitudes, which he once again voiced in this house yesterday. The suggestion
that there are some South Africans who should enjoy fewer rights than others by
virtue of their sexual orientation, clearly runs counter to the letter and
spirit of our Constitution.

Equally reprehensible is the idea that the rituals observed by some of our
people can lightly be castigated as "savage", "barbaric" and "uncivilised".
Each individual South African's personal preference regarding these matters is
not at issue. Whether I approve or not, these are constitutionally protected
rights which we are all obliged to respect and defend. The year 2007 marks a
number of important anniversaries in both the continental and South African
calendars. Fifty years ago, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country
to reclaim her independence. Under the leadership of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and the
Convention People's Party, Ghana took her place among the family of free
nations, helping to accelerate the pace at which the people of Africa undid the
outcome of the 1884 Berlin Conference when our continent was shared out among
rapacious colonial powers.

South Africa will join the other countries of Africa in marking this
significant milestone. The 50 years of progress since Ghana's independence have
not been without serious reverses and tragedies. Under the leadership of the
African National Congress (ANC), South Africa has made a sterling contribution
towards healing the wounds of our continent. This year, for the first time in
more than 45 years, the people of Congo have been able to hold free and fair
elections.

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF), created by our democratic
government after 1994, has become one of the greatest factors for peace and
stability in the continent. The men and women of the SA National Defence Force,
wherever they have been deployed, have done us proud. Democratic South Africa's
role on the African continent is not premised on flexing of our economic and
military muscle to bully and browbeat others to do our bidding. Patient, quiet
and often unseen persuasion and discussion is how South Africa goes about its
diplomacy and how it attains results.

Those who imagine that shouting and extravagant gestures can change anyone's
mind would do well to examine the interesting diplomatic breakthroughs of
recent days and contrast those with the impasse some very powerful countries
are locked into at present. Here at home we will also have occasion to note and
commemorate our own national figures associated with South Africa's own
struggle for freedom.

In 1947 the presidents of the African National Congress, the Natal Indian
Congress and the Transvaal Indian Congress concluded an agreement, later dubbed
the Three Doctors Pact, in terms of which their three organisations agreed to
take united action on issues of common concern. That pact laid the basis for
what was to grow into a powerful mass movement during the 1950s, the Congress
Alliance, which still serves as the lodestar for the Tri-partite Alliance of
today.

Chief Albert John Luthuli, then president of the ANC and South Africa's
first Nobel Peace Laureate, met his still unexplained death 40 years ago, near
his home in Groutville, KwaDukuza. Inspired by his patriotism and deeply held
Christian principles, Chief Luthuli had led the liberation movement for
thirteen years. And, as he recalled in his autobiography, for decades the
oppressed people had very patiently knocked at a barred door, without response.
In marking the passing of this great patriot, South Africa will be honouring
both the man and the values and principles he had fought for all his life; the
very values contained in our democratic Constitution.

Ten years later, in 1977, yet another great patriot met an untimely death.
While the circumstances of Steve Bantu Biko's death absolutely explain how he
was literally tortured and beaten to death by his jailors, the courts of those
days held no one accountable for his murder. Perhaps some of the honourable
members should be reminded that while the Judges of the apartheid regime might
well have been very sober, they were anything but honourable!

The brutal murder of that young patriot shocked the world; the callousness
of a judiciary that refused to hold anyone to account for that dastardly deed,
bears testimony to the moral bankruptcy of that regime. The thirtieth
anniversary of Steve Biko's murder will be appropriately marked, not to point
fingers at anyone, but by way of affirming the democratic and liberation thrust
of the politics he represented.

The massive assault of media freedom that coincided with the murder of Biko
should also serve as a timely reminder to us all of the high price exacted from
the people of the country for the freedom the media in our country today
enjoys. Thomas Paine once wrote that we esteem too lightly that which gain
rather cheaply. The tears, the blood and the very lives of the martyrs who were
sacrificed so that our journalists, editors and newspaper owners today no
longer have to nervously peer over their shoulders before putting pen to paper,
testify to what media freedom in South Africa really cost.

How many of our latter-day journalists ever consider that cost?

It was in that spirit that I responded to a query from the Afrikaans
magazine "Huisgenoot", about Bok van Blerk's song 'De La Rey'. Whatever "coded
message" others might attribute to van Blerk's song, he says it has no
contemporary political relevance. I reiterate my best wishes for the success of
his song, and may he compose and sing many more.

Madam Speaker,

South Africa has left behind us the previous bilingual dispensation that
entailed the promotion of only English and Afrikaans to the exclusion of the
other languages spoken in our country. Government has accepted its obligation
to promote and advance all South Africa's official languages. I once again
emphasise that Afrikaans, like all the other official languages, will be
actively promoted and protected by the government, the hysteria in certain
quarters notwithstanding!

The re-affirmation of this country's African identity by the correction of
the corruption of African names, the resurrection of African names that were
arbitrarily abolished or replaced by previous regimes, is not a threat to any
of our language communities. And, contrary to the popular urban legend, the
overwhelming majority of name changes approved by myself and previous ministers
entailed not Afrikaans names, but African names that had been misspelt,
corrupted or other wise done violence.

As we cast our eyes back over these past 13 years of democracy, all South
Africans, all of us, on either side of this august house, can justly say:
"Not bad, not bad at all!" We are indeed creating a better life for our people!
We are contributing to the creation of a better world.

With your indulgence, I want to end off, Mr Chairperson, with the word to
the honourable leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA). We have been told that
the honourable Leon will be leaving political life during the course of this
year. And I want to wish him well in his future endeavours. But, I want to say
as well that we will sorely miss him on our side of the House. It is true the
honourable Leon raised the DA, which used to sit over there, four lonely
members, to what they are today.(An Hon Member: Seven) They were seven, were
they? Oh, I didn't see the other three. Sorry! - to what it is today . But if
you think about what his impact has been on our side of the House? We, the ANC,
came in here in 1994 with 63% support from the electorate; our support now
stands at over 70%! And for that we want to thank him.

Thank you very much, honourable. Tony Leon.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
14 February 2007
Source: Department of Arts and Culture (http://www.dac.gov.za)