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Address by the President of South Africa,
Thabo Mbeki on the Occasion of His Inauguration and
the 10th Anniversary of Freedom, Pretoria, 27 April
2004
Your Majesties
Your Royal Highnesses
Your Excellencies Heads of State and Government and
Leaders and Members of delegations
Chairpersons of the African Union and the African Commission
Secretary General of the Commonwealth
Esteemed Members of the Order of Mapungubwe, the Hon
Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors and High Commissioners
Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete
Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson
My mothers, Epainette Mbeki, Albertina Sisulu and Adelaide
Tambo
Distinguished guests
Fellow South Africans
The bright autumn sun smiles down on our people as
we mark South Africa's Freedom Day, inaugurate the President
of the Republic and celebrate our country's First Decade
of Democracy.
We feel immensely honoured that on this happy day we
have been granted the privilege to host the distinguished
leaders and representatives of the peoples of the world
who are with us here at this seat of our democratic
government.
All our people extend a warm welcome to all our guests,
as well as our deep-felt gratitude to you all, that
you put aside everything to lend weight and dignity
to our celebrations.
Your presence among us when we confronted the apartheid
crime against humanity gave freedom the possibility
to emerge triumphant. Your presence among us today expands
our joy that freedom's opportunities have given us the
possibility to begin the long walk to a life of dignity
for all our people.
For too long our country contained within it and represented
much that is ugly and repulsive in human society. It
was a place in which happiness could only break through
in short ephemeral bursts, briefly streaking across
our skies like a dying comet.
It was a place in which to be born black was to inherit
a lifelong curse. It was a place in which to be born
white was to carry a permanent burden of fear and hidden
rage.
It was a place that decreed that some were born into
poverty and would die poor, their lives, in the land
of gold and diamonds, cut short by the viral ravages
of deprivation. It was a place where others always knew
that the accident of their birth entitled them to wealth.
Accordingly, these put aside all humane values, worshipping
a world whose only worth was the accumulation of wealth.
It was a place where to be born a woman was to acquire
the certainty that you would forever be a minor and
an object owned by another, where to be a man was to
know that there would always be another over whom you
would exercise the power of a master.
It was a place in which squalor, the stench of poverty,
the open sewers, the decaying rot, the milling crowds
of wretchedness, the unending images of a landscape
strewn with carelessly abandoned refuse, assumed an
aspect that seemed necessary to enhance the beauty of
another world of tidy streets, and wooded lanes, and
flowers' blossoms offsetting the green and singing grass,
and birds and houses fit for kings and queens, and lyrical
music, and love.
It was a place in which to live in some places was
to invite others to prey on you or to condemn oneself
to prey on others, guaranteed neighbours who could not
but fall victim to alcohol and drug stupors that would
dull the pain of living, who knew that their lives would
not be normal without murder in their midst, and rape
and brutal personal wars without a cause.
It was a place in which to live in other neighbourhoods
was to enjoy safety and security because to be safe
was to be protected by high walls, electrified fences,
guard dogs, police patrols and military regiments ready
to defend those who were our masters, with guns and
tanks and aircraft that would rain death on those who
would disturb the peace of the masters.
For too long our country contained within it and represented
much that is ugly and repulsive in human society.
It was a place in which those who cried out for freedom
were promised and rewarded with the gift of the cold
and silent grave. To rebel for liberty was to invite
torture, prison, banishment, exile and death.
To say that South Africa belongs to all who live in
it, black and white, and to say that those classified
as sub-human would fight to ensure that those who held
them in bondage continue to live in the country of their
birth without fear and without rage, was to invite the
wrath of the masters.
It was a place in which those who were enraged knew
that to kill those who promised freedom for all was
to rid the world of the anti-Christ. To achieve their
purposes that they considered holy, they did not think
it wrong to murder children or to accumulate weapons
of mass destruction, with a little help from their friends.
They thought it right that they should turn our country
into a mighty and feared fortress, a base from which
to launch armed raids to take away the freedom that
Africa had won, to remove governments that would not
compromise with racist tyranny, to place in power those
who were willing to be intimidated, bought and corrupted,
to kill and reduce whole countries to a wasteland, everywhere
burning, burning, burning.
For too long our country contained within it and represented
much that is ugly and repulsive in human society.
We have gathered here today, on Freedom Day, because
in time, our people, together with the billions of human
beings across the globe, who are our comrades-in-arms
and whom our distinguished guests represent, decided
to say - an end to all that!
When these risen masses acted to end what was ugly
and repulsive in our country, they also made a statement
that we who are now free, have an obligation to honour
the trust they bestowed on us.
It would have been impossible for us to respect that
obligation if the majority of our people had not decided
to turn away from a past of division into mutually antagonistic
racial and ethnic groups, choosing the path of national
unity and reconciliation.
We chose what seemed impossible because to have done
otherwise would have condemned all our people, black
and white, to a bloody and catastrophic conflict. We
are proud that everyday now, black and white South Africans
discover that they are, after all, one another's keeper.
We are determined that where once we were the terrible
exemplar of racist bigotry, we should now and in future
testify to the possibility of building a stable and
viable non-racial society.
We are greatly encouraged that our General Elections
of a fortnight ago confirmed the determination of all
our people, regardless of race, colour and ethnicity,
to work together to build a South Africa defined by
a common dream.
As we engaged in struggle to end racist domination,
we also said that we could not speak of genuine liberation
without integrating within that, the emancipation of
women. This very amphitheatre where we sit is home to
a monument that pays tribute to the contribution of
the women of our country to the struggle that made it
possible for us to meet here today to celebrate our
10th Anniversary of Democracy.
Our last General Elections confirmed the women as the
largest number of voters and the strongest voice in
favour of the fundamental social transformation of our
country. No government in South Africa could ever claim
to represent the will of the people if it failed to
address the central task of the emancipation of women
in all its elements, and that includes the government
we are privileged to lead.
Three-and-a-half centuries of colonialism and apartheid
have more than amply demonstrated that our country could
never become governable unless the system of government
is based on the will of the people.
Despite the fact that we are a mere 10 years removed
from the period of racist dictatorship, it is today
impossible to imagine a South Africa that is not a democratic
South Africa. In reality it is similarly impossible
to meet any of the enormous challenges we face, outside
the context of respect for the principle and the practice
that the people shall govern.
Nobody in our country today views democracy as a threat
to their interests and their future. This includes our
national, racial and political minorities. This is because
we have sought to design and implement an inclusive
democratic system, rather than one driven by social
and political exclusion.
We are determined to ensure that no one ever has grounds
to say he or she has been denied his or her place in
the sun. Peace and our shared destiny impose an obligation
on all of us to create the space for every South African
to make his or her contribution to the shaping of our
common destiny.
Endemic and widespread poverty continues to disfigure
the face of our country. It will always be impossible
for us to say that we have fully restored the dignity
of all our people as long as this situation persists.
For this reason the struggle to eradicate poverty has
been and will continue to be a central part of the national
effort to build the new South Africa.
None of great social problems we have to solve is capable
of resolution outside the context of the creation of
jobs and the alleviation and eradication of poverty.
This relates to everything, from the improvement of
the health of our people, to reducing the levels of
crime, raising the levels of literacy and numeracy,
and opening the doors of learning and culture to all.
For a millennium there were some in the world who were
convinced that to be African was to be less than human.
This conviction made it easy to trade in human beings
as slaves, to colonise countries and, today, to consign
Africans to the periphery of global human society, as
a fit object for sustenance through charitable donations.
Necessarily, the great journey we have undertaken has
to be, and is about redressing the harm that was caused
to all Africans. It is about overcoming the consequences
of the assault that was made on our sense of pride,
our identity and confidence in ourselves. Through our
efforts, we must achieve the outcome that we cease to
be beggars, and deny others the possibility to sustain
racist prejudices that dehumanise even those who consider
themselves superior.
We must use our human and material resources and the
genius of our people to build an economy that addresses
their needs, that gives us the means to end the wretchedness
that continues to define some as being less human than
others.
We share this and other goals with the rest of our
continent and the African Diaspora, as well as the billions
across the globe who continue to suffer as millions
in our country do. Nothing can separate us from these
masses with which we share a common destiny.
Rather, we must and will at all times strive to strengthen
our links with them, together to determine what we must
do to solve our shared problems. We are greatly inspired
that having achieved the goal of the total liberation
of Africa from colonial and white minority domination
with the defeat of the apartheid regime, our Continent
acted to establish the African Union and initiate its
development programme, the New Partnership for Africa's
Development.
Our common task is to ensure that these historic initiatives
succeed in their objective of taking Africa forward
to the victory of the African Renaissance. Democratic
South Africa will play its role vigorously to promote
the achievement of this gaol.
Our joy today, when we celebrate an African achievement,
is tempered by the reality that we live in a troubled
world. None of us can be indifferent to the violence
that continues to claim lives in various countries in
the Middle East, including Palestine, Israel, Iraq and
Saudi Arabia. We cannot be indifferent to the acts of
terrorism that took away many lives in Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam,
New York, Madrid and elsewhere.
Neither can we escape involvement in the struggle to
confront the negative outcomes of the process of globalisation,
the growing impoverishment of billions across the globe,
and the failure of the multilateral institutions, including
the United Nations, to respond quickly and effectively
to the needs and aspirations of those who are poor and
do not dispose of immense power.
Today we begin our Second Decade of Democracy. We are
convinced that what has been achieved during the First
demonstrates that as Africans we can and will solve
our problems. We are equally certain that Africa will
record new advances as she pursues the goal of a better
life for all. She will do what she can to encourage
a more equitable and humane new world order.
Having served as the prime example of human despair,
Africa is certain to emerge as a place of human hope.
On this historic day, the beginning of our Second Decade
of Democracy, I extend best wishes to all our people
for A Happy Birthday! To our friends from and in all
parts of the world, we say thank you for being with
us on this momentous day.
We pledge to all the heroes and heroines who sacrificed
for our freedom, as well as to you, our friends from
the rest of the world, that we will never betray the
trust you bestowed on us when you helped to give us
the possibility to transform South Africa into a democratic,
peaceful, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous country,
committed to the noble vision of human solidarity.
The work to create that South Africa has begun. That
work will continue during our Second Decade of Freedom.
That struggle continues and victory is certain!
Siyinqaba!
For further enquiries, please contact
Bheki Khumalo
Cell: 083 256 9133
Brenda Nkosi
The Presidency
Communications: Media Liaison
Tel: (012) 300 5437
Fax: (012) 323 6080
Cell: 082 770 2369
Issued by: The Presidency
27 April 2004
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