PREMIER'S ADDRESS
Master of ceremonies
Members of the Provincial Executive
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Officials and members of the African National Congress
Members and Officials of Cosatu
The SACP
Sanco
And the Mass Democratic Movement as a whole
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Today we meet here mark Human Rights Day as do so, let us we pause and give praise and honour to all those who lost their lives in the fight against the inhuman system of apartheid colonialism. Our right and privilege to come together here has been won in lifetime by the blood of the innocent.
Gert Sibande, Sol Mkhize, Sthuli Hleze, Portia Shabangu, Elmon Mathonsi, Victor Khayiyana, Clyde Morgan, Phillip Radebe, Mthunzi Vilakazi, Christine Methule, Solly Maseko and many others.
Comrades who laid down their lives to defend the dignity and integrity of their being as a people. They died so we may have a right to live
Our dream remains that of building a new nation, a non-racial, non-sexist South Africa. As we gather here again a few months ago the people have again expressed their faith in us as the ANC government by voting overwhelmingly for ANC led Local Government.
Allow me to use this opportunity to thank all the people of this province, in particular those supported the movement, who made this victory possible.
Those men and women, young and old, black and white together, have once again renewed our mandate to accelerate change. By printing a cross on the ballot paper, they were saying no more with racism, no more with apartheid, no more with poverty.
Our meeting today is a testament to the struggle of those who have gone before us. It is a legacy for those who will come after. Those who struggle and fought bloody battles for the equality of all humanity.
They did so, with brevity because they clearly understood the problem of this 20th Century, the problem of the colour line. The problem of the colour line was not only a problem for South Africa, but the rest of the world.
In Europe we saw the rise of fascism, in the United States we witnessed the fight for civil rights and the brutal atrocities perpetrated by the Ku Khux Klan.
In Africa we saw wholesale land theft and the subjugation of people to the most inhuman and barbaric treatment. This was done simply because the inhabitants of those countries were of a different shade than those who thought of themselves as the very givers and takers of life.
Our struggle against apartheid and colonialism was met with more brutal force. It is almost like yesterday when Africans from the Caribbean, the United States and Africa got together in London for the first-ever Pan African Congress.
At that conference one hundred years ago, in the year 1900, the determination and the clarion call was made: The problem of the 20th Century is the problem of the colour line!
What was said at the Pan African Congress in 1900 proved to be very correct the problem of the 20th Century remained the problem of the colour line! And indeed the 1900s did emerge as 100 years of the expression of racism.
In Europe we saw the rise of fascism, in the United States we witnessed the fight for civil rights and the brutal atrocities perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan.
Master of ceremonies, in South Africa we saw the crude institutionalisation of racism in the form of Apartheid. Our lives were regulated from the cradle to the grave by a set of laws that one could only describe as brutal.
The ANC has since its birth in 1912 fought a struggle to rid this country of racism. A deliberate and sustained struggle to rid our country of the constructed superiority of white people over Africa, coloured and Indian people. Amongst these were the Group Areas Act of 1950 that forcefully removed our people from their chosen land,
Through the immorality Act, they determined who we could marry. Certain jobs categories were reserved for whites for no other reason except that they were white. Black people were prevented from going to the polls for no other reason except that they were black.
In their haste to make the lives of black people as intolerable as possible, they passed one legislation after the other, especially in the 50s. Through the Group Areas Act they determined where we could be born, where we could grow up where we cold live and where we could die and be buried.
The Pass Laws restricted the movement of black people around the country. As if that was not enough they embarked on an even bigger crime though control. Through the Bantu Education Act, they determined that we could not rise above the level of being hewers of wood and drawers o f water for white people.
Our people could not take this longer. They said, "Enough is enough". It was on this very same day that our people decided to take to the streets in defence of their rights.
On this day a call was made to all Africans to leave their passes at home and to surrender themselves to the police. Our people came out in their massive numbers in support of this campaign. In that peaceful march, on the 21 March 1960, at Sharpville an unimaginable horror occurred.
Over 69 heroic people, men and women and our children were killed and 186 wounded by the police.
These people died fighting for their human rights. Human rights that they were entitled to in the country of their birth, their origin. Their right to life, rights to live was taken away from them.
Racism was intensified to every corner in South Africa by the apartheid regime. But today we pride ourselves, we give praise to those heroes, we lower our banners in memory of outstanding comrades who laid down their lives, so you and me can be free.
Since 1994 when democracy was ushered in by the African National Congress when it took over the power to rule, the people of this country were guaranteed their rights.
"Never, never and never again shall such atrocities happen again, never shall this beautiful land experience the oppression of one another."
As ANC led government we have committed ourselves to make sure that racism is an issue of the past. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to deal with and redness virtually what happened undo apartheid, especially the conflict that resulted in violence and human rights abuses.
And the Human Rights Commission was set up to entrench constitutional democracy that was committed to promote respect as well as to protect human rights for everyone without fear or favour.
Therefore, the question we all must answers is what challenges face our movement, our government, and our people in this twenty-first century.
The problem of the old century still constitutes a challenge both to ourselves as Africans and to the rest of humanity. Our problem is still a problem of colour lines.
As we mark Human Right Day, our own determination and clarion call must be: End racism: Build a caring nation, Build a Better Life.
The complete emancipation of the peoples of Africa - the heart of the problem of the colour line - has not yet been achieved. The people of Africa, including our own, continue to be immersed in poverty. Farm workers still continue to be tortured by their employers
Millions of Africans continue to lose their lives as a result of preventable diseases, including AIDS. Racism is some former white model c schools still persist. African people still face problems of unequal access to socio-economic institutions such as banks, courts, tertiary institutions etc.
Millions of families cannot feed themselves because they have no jobs, no land they can till and what they produce and sell cannot guarantee them a decent standard of living.
Thus does it become necessary and possible for us to say that: The challenge facing the 21st Century is the solution of the problem of the colour line!
We must end racism, build a caring nation, Build a better Life. It will take our country a long time before it wipes out the apartheid legacy of racism in our country. We must therefore continue to intensify the struggle against racism for our evolution into a non-racial society, a central part of the historic mission of the ANC from its foundation.
(As) We the people of this country, black and white, as well as many other people on our Continent and the rest of the world, are confident that we will not fail to discharge our responsibilities in the concerted struggle for Africa's Renaissance.
Since 1994, we have produced a new constitution, which protects all South Africans black and white -, from racism.
Apartheid legislation has been replaced by progressive legislation that seeks to advance the interests of the majority of South Africans irrespective of race. Yet racism still continues in all spheres of South Africa life.
The conditions of farm workers on many farms throughout the
country testify to the enormous challenges that lie ahead.
Last year, at Rossenekkal a white farmer shot at a black old men and killed
his donkeys and many more cases around PietRetief, Wakkerstrom, Standerton,
Balfour and Griblersdal.
Surely we cannot allow such a situation to go on. The challenge is for us to continue the fight for change to deracialise South African society. Workers need to organize together, as workers, regardless of race against continued exploitation of their class.
Women need to work together as women, regardless of race, to fight against the conditions of patriarchy and violence that persist in South Africa today.
Young people must embrace a common programme that ensures that their futures are secure and they have the opportunities that their parents and grandparents fought for decades.
Business people must work towards the empowerment of all in our country to ensure that ownership in the economy is deracialised.
Workers need to organize together, as workers, regardless of race against continued exploitation of their class.
Women need to work together as women, regardless of race, to fight against the conditions of patriarchy and violence that persist in South Africa today.
Young people must embrace a common programme that ensures that their futures are secure and they have the opportunities that their parents and grandparents fought for decades. Business people must work towards the empowerment of all in our country to ensure that ownership in the economy is deracialised.
The ANC encourages those in opinion- making positions to constantly ask the question: how do we promote the advancement of deracialisation in everything that we do?
We make all these calls with the understanding that racism will not end its own; but rather requires the concerted effort of all of us, in a day-to-day fight for change.
And we must all understand that our fight against racism cannot be won without a fundamental change in the material conditions of the majority of people in the country. While Sun City, Solomon and Goba exists, it is difficult to talk about non-racialism. While we see the poverty of our people in Dondoni, Feni and Diepdale, we cannot we dare not say our people are free from racism.
As long as poverty and crime, joblessness and violence continue to ravage our communities, it is difficult to envisage racial equality. It is therefore the practical and everyday advances that we make as a nation that will determine a future free of racism. It is the everyday interaction that South Africans have with one another, our respect and care for each other that will make us rise up beyond racism.
Towards the end of the year, South Africans will vote in the local government elections.
These elections are significant because for the first time in our history, traditionally black and white neighbourhoods will be joined together in common municipalities. For the first time, local issues that affect different communities will be represented in one locality.
It is critical that all South Africa participate in ensuring that these municipalities are able to truly transform the conditions of people on the ground. Towards the end of this year, another important event will take place in South Africa.
Our country has the honour of hosting an International Conference on Racism and will thus have the opportunity to also share our challenges with the rest of the world. This would enable us to have a broad-based programme of action against the cancer of racism as we enter the first year of the African Century.
In conclusion, master of ceremonies, let us all remember that Human Rights are human rights for all. No one has more human rights than the other. Not for us people like Snowball in Animal Farm who will say: All animals are equal but others are more equal than the others.
Children have rights too. Those of you who assault and injure children, please stop it. Those of you who think it is OK to rape. Pasop. You are playing with fire. DON'T HURT OUR CHILDREN.
If you rob your mother or your granny or your grandfather who is a pensioner of his/her money you are a thug. DON'T LET OUR GRANNIES OR OUR GRANDFATHERS SLEEP IN THE COLD OR IN THE RAIN.
If you have a habit of forcibly having sex with our daughters, our wives or our mothers, Udlala ngegetsha kuziliwe. DON'T RAPE OUR WOMEN. A few days ago I reminded some people of the devastation of the floods. They floods were devastating. Lives were lost. Properties were destroyed.
Have we ever stopped to ask how people with disabilities coped with all that misery, pain and destruction?
I still believe that people who suffered most from this destruction are the poorest of the poor. But then the poorest of the poor those with disabilities - those who on a daily basis are subjected to misery, hunger and starvation most probably came off the worst.
Negative attitudes by some of us towards people with disabilities are contributing to the disempowerment of people we consider lesser than us.
On its own this selfish and unnecessary attitude contributes to the lowering of the self-esteem of some of the people with disabilities. The result is withdrawal from functions they are constitutionally and physically capable of doing .It is no wonder that there is withdrawal of an exclusion of people with disabilities from the areas like education, employment etc.
May I announce that we will soon release an integrated Public Awareness and Education Strategy aimed at informing and eradication stigma attached to people with disabilities. This will enable us to systematically deal with and defuse all myths around disabilities.
Our commitment to protect the rights of all peace-loving citizens in the country, regardless of their colour, gender or physical ability should not only be something we say at gatherings or at rallies.
It should be something that is deeply embedded in our minds and in our hearts. As we build an African Century, as we build a world that resolves the problem of the colour-line, let us borrow from the perspective of the ANC's late President O.R. Tambo who said at a Conference against racism, apartheid and colonialism in 1980, that
We should continue to march together, conquering one victory after another. The future belongs to all of us."
I thank you.