PREMIER'S ADDRESSES
Programme Director Councillor Lubede
Your worships executive mayors Comrade Jerry Ngomane and Comrade Isaiah Khoza
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen.
Allow me to thank most heartily the organisers of this occasion for having invited us to this very important summit.
Important because the issue of racism and discussions around this scourge is one of the most contentious issues on our national agenda. It is therefore pleasing to see a start being made to place this matter on our agenda in the province, in our regions, our districts and our urban and rural communities.
This summit must form part of our preparations for the World Conference Against Racism in August this year.
Programme director, our own national struggle against racism takes place in the context of the African Renaissance and the global struggle against racism, for equality, justice and human dignity. On Monday morning a headline in the letters page of one of the national newspapers caught my attention.
THE MAJORITY OF US BLACKS ARE RACISTS, the headline pronounced. It made me sit up. On reading further I was even more astounded by the writer's assertion.
"The only manner in which we can combat racism in our land is through not preaching about it. By doing so we fan its flames". That's what the writer of the letter says.
Maybe it is time that we remind those like the writer of the letter that racism has been a fundamental organising principle in the relations between black and white in our country, ever since Dutch immigrants settled at the Cape of Good Hope.
As the dominant group in our country, the white minority worked to structure all aspects of our national life consistent with the objective that the whites should always remain the dominant group and the black majority, the dominated.
Throughout this period of over three hundred years, this work, focused on the deliberate construction of a racially divided society, was done explicitly on the basis of a racist ideology, legitimised by its open and consistent adoption as official state policy.
Our own specific history has created a situation that constitutes a common legacy and challenge.
The social and economic structure of our society is such that the distribution of wealth, income, poverty, disease, land, skills, occupations,intellectual resources and opportunities for personal advancement,as well as the patterns of human settlement, are determined by the criteria of race and colour.
An important part of this legacy is that the imposition of the ideology of the dominant group has led to the weakening of the self-respect, pride and sense of identity of the dominated.
This results in the incidence among some of the dominated of self-hate, denial of identity and a tendency towards subservience to a definition of themselves as would have been decided by the dominant power.
Clearly, it will take time for us to wipe out this legacy. The struggle waged by the black majority against colonialism and apartheid, supported by some principled white compatriots and the rest of the world, has,
in the first instance, been aimed at ending the relationship of dominant-and-dominated, as between white and black, and achieving equality among all South Africans, in all spheres of human life and activity.
Programme director, since the discussion on racism started in earnest before the anti-racism conference last August, several arguments have been advanced on why we should not talk about this scourge.
There are those who like Cameron, the writer of the letter, argue that such a discussion, about racism can only lead to the division of our country into mutually antagonistic racial camps.
They claim that such discussion will encourage racial conflict, destroying the progress we have achieved towards national reconciliation, towards the birth of a happy rainbow nation.
It has been argued that those who point to the
persistence of racism in our country are themselves racist.
Those who propagate affirmative action are accused of seeking to
introduce reverse racism, or, more directly, of resort to anti-white
racism.
Some assert that the word racist is merely a label used by some people to insult others or to shut up those who criticise government.
Others argue that those who are most vocal in seeking to suppress discussion of this issue are those who benefited from centuries of colonial and apartheid racial domination
They contend that the privileged do not want this discussion because they want to maintain their privileged positions at all costs. They claim that this group advance arguments that racism does not exist, except for isolated incidents
To these people the bulldozing of farm-labourers' shacks at Roossenekaal is an isolated incident. The beating to death of a churchgoer in Groblersdal is an isolated incident. They say to us don't worry when a farmer paint someone silver or white. It is just one small incident.
They tell us not to worry when a farmer refuses his tenants to bury their dead on a farm they had occupied for decades. It does not matter to them that the farmer dumps the grieving family outside his gate in the middle of winter.
To them it is not racism when white parents remove their children from a school simply because the school has now thrown open the doors of learning.
You know, such arguments add to the acrimony, the unpleasantness and, therefore, the difficulty of conducting a rational and even-tempered discussion on the question of racism. As we engage in discussion today we need to do so with open minds.
All of us will have to make a supreme effort to allow all points of view to be heard and discussed in an atmosphere that permits the free exchange of views.
Programme Director, as we begin to engage one another at this summit, let us acknowledge that among the white community there are honest patriots who are eager to see the creation of a truly non-racial South Africa. They treat their tenants and those who work for them with utmost respect.
Acknowledging that even the poorest of their workers has been created in the image of God. These people provide decent housing for their servants, allow them a stake in the business; provide schooling for the children of those who work for them and so forth.
The practice of racism is both anti-human and constitutes a gross violation of human rights.
Most of you may sit uncomfortable with my constant reference to whites and blacks. In South Africa and in Mpumalanga racism as it has been practised through the centuries, the black people have been the victims of racism rather than the perpetrators.
Accordingly, what we have to deal with is white, anti-black racism, while giving no quarter to any tendency towards black, anti-white racism, whether actual or potential.
Racism is manifested in a variety of ways, these being the ideological, existing in the world of ideas, and the socio-economic, describing the social, political, economic and cultural power relations of domination of and discrimination against the victims of racism.
For many centuries racism has been a fundamental defining feature of the relations between black and white, a directive principle informing the structuring of these relations.
Programme director, I believe that the primary aim of the conference is to find solutions and not to engage in semantics. It is precisely because we needed to start our search for a solution that we legislated against racism.
A constitutional and legally guaranteed right to equality and non-discrimination is very important in the fight against racism. Similarly, the legal possibility and right to redress in case of such discrimination is also critical. But that is not the be-all and end all. There are other things we can do.
The central mission of government and all peace-loving South Africans remains the creation of a democratic, non-racial, non-sexists and prosperous Mpumalanga and South Africa.
Substantive progress has been made in the last six years with regard to the elimination of the race and gender disparities we inherited from the apartheid system.
Our programme to create a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society is central to the restoration of human dignity and peace and security for all in a South Africa that truly belongs to all of us black and white as set out in the Freedom Charter.
As patriots we should intensify the struggle for the deracialisation of South Africa and Mpumalanga against racism for the creation of a non-racial society.
We must conduct a sustained and multi-faceted programme for the building of a united and non-racial South Africa. This programme will include such facets as a mass campaign to raise public consciousness on racism.
The programme should aim at encouraging an atmosphere of zero tolerance of racism, tribalism and xenophobia and to unite the people of Mpumalanga in a determined effort to end all racial disparities in our society and all manifestations of the legacy of apartheid.
Socialising institutions such as the family, schools and religious formations must be actively involved in fighting racism and racist practices wherever they manifest themselves.
Our municipalities and our district councils must help in the running of public education programs to inform our people about their rights not to be discriminated against on the basis of race, gender or any other difference and the laws and institutions at their disposal for redress.
We must take forward the fight to protect and 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.
We must be wary of those who oppose our fight against racism. It is easy to identify such people. They are eager to block fundamental social transformation,
They also undermine the capacity of the state of decisively intervening to effect transformation, arguing that things should be left to the market and that the state should be minimalist.
We know them because they are part of a minority that protects, at all costs, existing ownership patterns, including privileges accorded the white community under apartheid, using threats of investment strikes and "brain drain" as means to drive this agenda.
Defeating this agenda is a fundamental revolutionary task of all of us.
It will also require the intensification of the struggle for the self-liberation of black people in general and Africans in particular from the psychological shackles of colonialism and apartheid.
This liberation includes the deepening of social consciousness and patriotism amongst all South Africans, especially people in Mpumalanga..
Our programs must also seek to build confidence and pride amongst black people in the province. Pride in our language, culture and history, to reverse the cultural domination of generations of colonial and apartheid rule.
Finally, Programme Director, let us state for all those who argue otherwise, our transition to a non-racial democracy in 1994 and the subsequent creation of the constitutional and legal framework have not ended the inherited racist, discriminatory and inequitable divisions of our country and people. Despite our collective intentions, racism continues to be our common bedfellow.
All of us are therefore faced with the challenge to translate the dream of a non-racial society into a reality. Fortunately for all of us, we have the advantage that the overwhelming majority of our citizens, whether we are white or black, or black or white, we are true citizens of Mpumalanga. But above all we are true South Africans.
I have no doubt that as patriotic citizens of South Africa black or white - we will succeed in our struggle against racism.
I thank you.