Lydenburg Thursday 16 December 2004
Madam programme Director,
Members of the Executive council
Honourable Speaker and Deputy Speaker
Chairperson of the House of Traditional Leaders
Members of Parliament and the Provincial Legislature,
The Royalty of our province, Your Majesties Amakhosi ,
leMagosi,
Honourable Mayors and Councilors,
Religious and Spiritual Leaders,
Community and political leaders,
HODs and senior government officials,
Residents of Thaba Chweu Municipality and
Mpumalanga together,
Comrades and compatriots,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our country, South Africa is a land drenched in blood. The reason we have gathered here today is because we are descendants of people who over three centuries and a half, knew no other experience, but conflict and war,
We mark national, reconciliation day as descendants of brave colonial explorers of yesteryears, and as descendants of the warrior people of African aboriginal kingdoms of today's South Africa.
We are descendants of ambitious settlers who conceived of a possibility of another Europe in Africa, and dignified African societies, which resisted foreign imposition and domination.
We are descendants of the warriors of economic skirmishes between the Amandebele and Bapedi, of Bapedi and AmaSwati, of AmaSwati and AmaZulu, of Amazulu and Ama Shangane.
We are descendants of the courageous occupants of the notorious concentration camps of the imperial Anglo-Boer war.
These inexhaustible chapters of our conflictual past, constitute the motionless backdrop against which the heroism of the last ten years of reconciliation and nation building, stand in bold relieve.
The most defining fissure we must always focus our attention on, is the heritage we bear of being a product of colonialisation.
Programme director, we are gathered here today to evoke the great spirits that roam the hills, valleys and expanses of our province to give impetus to the emotional unity of our people.
Almost eleven years ago our country set out on the uncharted road of reconciliation and nation-building as we sought to heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights.
Over the past 10 and a half years we have walked together, on this journey, with hope, with humility, with enthusiasm, with perseverance and with industriousness, because we now know that separate development is not an option, racial hatred has no reward.
In 1994 when we set-out on this road of reconciliation we never pretended that it will be easy. We have stayed together on this journey, because we must continue, day after day and year after year, to change South Africa and Mpumalanga into a people centred country and province.
We knew we had to improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person, and build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations.
As the Mpumalanga Province, we knew then that our journey to reconciliation had to go hand in hand with a commitment to improve the lives of our people. But more importantly we knew that along the way we would pause to evaluate our strategies and change that which we needed to, while re-affirming that which our people tell us worked for them.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here as descendants of brave warriors who traversed these plains, to begin a journey of telling the South African story and to banish racism from our province and from our lives.
The story of Mpumalanga, like other parts of South Africa, is a story of conquest, resistance, triumph, freedom and democracy. Indeed it must be a story of how we as a people triumphed over racism, bigotry and economic inequality to usher in a non-racial, non-sexiest democracy.
I believe that all of us here today, and many of our people throughout the province, are one in declaring that as we begin telling the story, we must declare to all that "never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another."
To paraphrase former President Nelson Mandela, we must ensure that out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.
Indeed we are also gathered to celebrate the achievements of all our people as they continue to make a difference towards the creation of a transformed society based on the basic principles of non-racialism, non-sexism and democracy.
We are gathered here today, not to dance on the graves of the vanquished, but to continue our courageous journey of reconciliation, while building a united nation that shares our unpleasant past and aspirations of a bright future free from hatred.
All of us, together - South Africans of all colours and social standing - made marked progress over the past 10 years in creation a united, democratic, non sexist and democratic south Africa.
As we gather here this morning, we can declare that we knew then - as we know now - that the road we chose was to lead us to a destiny where the majority of our people have, amongst others, better roads and good and efficient public transport.
As we pay homage to all the heroes and heroines in this province, South Africa and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free, let us at the same time assert the humanity of persons one to the other.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must continue to exploit the unity we forged amongst the overwhelming majority of South Africans. We need to continue to work together in constructing a society that cares.
Today democracy and equality before the law are entrenched in our constitution. Women, workers, youth, professionals, people with disabilities, traditional leaders, religious communities, business people and rural communities, all have the right to utilise opportunities that have come with freedom.
Our first Ten Years of Freedom have been ten years of growing unity, ten years of peace and stability, then years of increasingly making resources in the hands of the state available to uplift disadvantaged South Africans, ten years of expanding opportunities to build a better life for all.
Non-racialism, non-sexism and programmes to prevent other forms of discrimination are at the centre of our objectives and our practical actions. Over the past ten years, working together, we have built South Africa into a land of peace and harmony, a land of expanding opportunities.
We managed to do all these things because when we adopted the integrated quality social service delivery strategy, we agreed that a central focus of the plan would be on the most vulnerable in our society, children, the elderly, people with disabilities, women, youth and the unemployed.
As we near the end of the first year of our second decade of democracy, we must clearly focus on the task of creating a non-racial South African through a sustained programme aimed at eradicating the legacy of racism, colonialism and apartheid in all spheres of the South African society.
That is why we appeal to each one of us here today to fight for the deracialisation and eradication of inequality in all areas of human endeavour - the economy, education, media, land, sports and culture and so forth.
We must continue our struggle for the rights and dignity of people living on farms. Farm workers and owners must work together to address the issues of land tenure, violence on farms, farm schools and poverty.
The challenge of creating a better life for all means that all south Africans must unite to eradicate poverty, create work, growth and sustainable development. We must enter into a contract to reduce inequality, promote Black economic empowerment an small businesses.
As government we want to assure all of us that we will the base of economic participants through an enabling environment and support programmes, which promote community =based and co[-operative forms of ownership.
We will continue to address the backlog in sustainable basic water supply, access to basic sanitation and free basic water and water related diseases such as cholera.
And we will spare no effort in addressing the housing backlog, through the provision of household infrastructure, access to land, security of tenure and shelter provision.
Nine years from now, when we look back on what we have achieved in our second decade of freedom, we will want to say that we have built a caring society. We will want to say that we have reduced pain and extended joy.
We will want to say we have rewarded creativity and invested in capacities. We will want to say that compassion has overcome greed. We will want to say that those among us who enjoy the privilege of power or riches have ploughed and not plundered our land.
Working together to create a society in which all can experience an improving quality of life, enjoying equal human rights, with access to opportunities that freedom has brought us, and bound together as a nation by our humanity, we are confident of success.
Together we can and must continue to do more, better in order to create a better life for all!
All of us must say: No to racism in our province, No to discrimination in Mpumalanga.
Let us all dedicate ourselves to building a non-racial, non-sexist, united and prosperous democratic South Africa.
I thank you.