ADDRESS BY COMRADE NJ MAHLANGU
Comrades,
As we gather here today can we please observe a moment of silence in honour of a a freedom fighter, a thinker, a writer, an organiser and a leader of our people over many decades, Comrade Govan Mbeki.
Thank You.
We gather here today Comrades, as members of the Alliance, the Mass Democratic Movement and Non-Governmental Organisations to declare for all the world to know that we are indeed united in action for a non-racial province, country and world.
As volunteers we join millions of others to form a world army of peoples united against racism, for the construction of a common universe of democracy, non-racism, non-sexism, human dignity for all and prosperity for all.
One of the critical national and international challenges that confront us as a province, a country and a people is to succeed in the objective of creating a truly non-racial society.
There is no society on earth where the phenomenon of racism has been as much an integral part of the everyday life of a people, which has permeated all levels of a people's being and self-perception, as it has been in South Africa.
Our approach to non-racialism has evolved over ninety years of struggle for freedom, democracy and dignity.
Its defining feature is seeking to build the future in the present through united action. In the course of colonialism and apartheid our people resisted assaults on their dignity, but did not surrender to the temptation of advocating black racial domination.
Instead they reached resolutely and optimistically for the antithesis of apartheid - the ideal of non-racialism: of unity in action against racism among diverse peoples.
Throughout our history we have always sought to nurture and build this humanist response to a system that sought to deny our humanity.
Comrades, racism is a system of power relations in which one racial group dominates others with the purpose of inequitably distributing social and economic goods and services within a common society, employing race as the determinant criterion of access.
In the words of the late Comrade Oliver Tambo:
"Racism, one of the great evils of our time, bedevils human relations, between individuals, within and between nations and across continents. It brutalises entire peoples, destroys persons, warps the process of thought and injects into human society a foul air of tension, mutual antagonism and hatred. It demeans and dehumanises both victim and practitioner, locking them into the vile relationship of master race and untermenschen, superior and underling, each with his position defined by race"
This is in sharp contrast to what Gerard Mellier, the then Mayor of Nantes, a major slave-trading centre, had to say about blacks.
"At bottom, the blacks are naturally inclined to theft, robbery, idleness and treason. In general, they are only suited to live in servitude and for the works and the agriculture of our colonies"
Racist ideology regarded Africans as less than human thus providing moral sanction for these crimes against humanity. Among the broader public in the respective societies, racist ideology also served to legitimise the actions of its perpetrators. The scars of apartheid and racism remain with us even today, seven ywears after attaining our liberation.
That is why when we celebrated victory over white minority rule in 1994 we also said the struggle continues!
We said the struggle continues because the defeat of racist rule was but the beginning of a long journey towards the creation of a truly non-racial country.
We said the struggle continues because the birth of a democratic South Africa gave us an additional combat base from which we would sustain our offensive to eradicate all expressions of apartheid injustice everywhere else in the world.
Copmrades, we march today because we are united against the demon of racism.
But then this march, and others throughout the country, will have no meaning unless it unites around the call - Peoples of the world unite in struggle against racism until victory is achieved!
Similarly, the inter-governmental conference presently underway in Durban will have no meaning unless it unites around the call - peoples of the world unite in struggle against racism until victory is achieved!
Neither will have succeeded unless the Anti-Racism conference result in programmes of action that directly and urgently address the plight and the fate of those whom an irreversible history has defined as the progeny of slave parents, the children of the colonised, the offspring of the racially oppressed, those whom South African apartheid and global apartheid described and treated as sub-human.
We must as a province ensure that we bring an end to the incidences of racial discrimination and racism in the farming communities. That is why we need to declare that we shall not rest until we have created a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society.
That is the only way we can the human dignity and peace and security of all in a South Africa that truly belongs to all of us – black and white as set out in the Freedom Charter. This implies that there must be zero tolerance of racism, tribalism and xenophobia.
We must seek to unite the people of south Africa in a determined effort to end all racial disparities in our society and all manifestations of the legacy of apartheid. We must fight racism and racist practices wherever they manifest themselves.
Must assert the human dignity and non-discrimination of vulnerable sectors such as children, farm and domestic workers, women, people living with HIV/AIDS, youth and the disabled.
After all AIDS knows no colour!. Above all a world free of racism requires us to acknowledge the past and change the present.
Our vision is a society founded on the principles of the Freedom Charter: a society of justice, equality and peace.