SPEECH BY PREMIER
His Excellency
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me take this opportunity to thank the Royal House and the people of the Madabukela tribe most humbly for having invited us to this occasion. It is really a great pleasure for me to be in these surroundings - so natural and so refreshing.
Away from the rigours of offices and constantly ringing phones. As we gather here today proud descendants of King Jobe and Dingiswayo, we do so in the full knowledge that we are a people united in working for a better life for all.
In an age when humanity and our culture are threatened by countless hazards, it gives one hope to know that we still have time to celebrate our heritage.
As we gather here to celebrate a great visionary, a great leader, a military strategist, a nation-builder, we do so under the full knowledge that we are a different people.
We are a people prepared to do extra-ordinary things to attain the goal that comes from creating a better quality of life for all. But above all we meet to right a century-old wrong – that of being forced to deny our past.
Our freedom has made it possible for us to reclaim our history. A history we are proud of. You will surely agree with me when I say that the past regime has always sought blacks as of an inferior status.
Our culture, our history and indeed all aspects of our life have been disfigured, distorted and battered when our culture met the white man's values. Our history is presented merely as a long secession of defeats.
Great nation-builders like Ilembe eleqa amanye amalembe, the great Inkosi uShaka, are depicted as cruel tyrants who frequently attacked smaller tribes for no reason.
Not only is there no objectivity in the history taught us but there is frequently an appalling misrepresentation of facts that sickens even the uninformed student.
Our did not start in 1652 with the arrival of Jan Van Riebeeck. To our father Inkosi Mthethwa, Unyambose ka Jobe ka Khali oka Dingiswayo to reclaim our history and our culture.
Baba, you and your people can help in continuing research so that we know who we truly are.
The nation, with your help, also needs to come to a proper understanding of our history which has been most grievously affected by the ravages and distortions of apartheid and colonialism.
The victory that we have scored against apartheid has laid the firm basis for all the people of South Africa to unite across colour, language, ethnic and religious barriers. It has launched us on the course of realising our true potential. But we do not meet here today as victors to dance to the cries of war.
We meet not to celebrate over any vanquished people. We meet to assert the humanity of persons one to the other; to seek unity and reconciliation; to set shoulders to the wheel in building a better life for all.
We are mindful that the journey to where we are today has not been easy. But all of us persevered because we knew that what we had set out on was the right road. As we reconstruct South Africa and reclaim the whole country for all, we break down all the divisions and attitudes of the past.
We do so while freeing everyone form the last vestiges of oppression and poverty. Freeing everyone from hunger, disease and want.
It is our task to make the most of our freedom, to entrench it in our new epoch as a fundamental and a permanent feature of our very existence.
The challenges facing all of us are to contribute to a complete and rounded picture of the celebration of our heritage. Certainly that complete and rounded perspective cannot be contained only in political speeches, song, dance, poetry and in the construction of monuments.
An integral element of the celebration is that we should feel the greater need, now more than before, to educate ourselves and the world about the role of true visionaries like Inkosi uShaka ka Senzangakhona. It is only by doing this that our children can understand the heroic role they played in uniting our people.
The challenge to all of us is to ensure that we celebrate in all our languages. We must develop a way in which our languages can, through the process, further grow and flourish. So that our experience can be recorded in many different ways, many different voices.
Contributing to a national convention without anyone of us feeling we are not of the collective experience. These celebrations, this cultural festival, must add value to our task of forging our nationhood.
It should help us to display to other nations of the world, as well as to ourselves, our capacity to give humanity what is proudly the product of the composite effort of all our people.
We need, as a nation, to take stock of what we have accomplished and what still needs to be done in preserving our heritage and rewriting our history.
Our success as a nation depends, in no small measures on the conservation of our heritage sites and the preservation of our culture similar to what we are doing today.
It demands conditions in which every sector of society can join hands to make a unique treasure accessible to our nation and its visitors, and to ensure that future generations will have the same privilege. Let us all become part of a living monument in celebration of life.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, in partnership with all sectors of society, we must continue to give absolute priority to HIV/AIDS programmes. We must continue to mobilise popular awareness of the seriousness of the epidemic.
All of us must realise that the epidemic is not only a health issue, but also an economic one. It is an epidemic which we ignore at our peril.
In conclusion, let me once again express my heartfelt gratitude to the organisers of these celebrations for the invitation extended to us to share in celebrating a great life.
As we gather to honour King Shaka, I am aware that the people of Madabukela are glad to have taken that first step towards reclaiming their history.
I thank you.