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Response of the President of South Africa,
Thabo Mbeki, to the Debate on the Presidency Budget
Vote No 1: National Assembly, Cape Town. June 24, 2004
Madame Speaker,
Deputy President,
Honourable Members,
Ladies and gentlemen:
I would like to thank the Honourable Members for the
comments and observations they made during the debate
on the Budget Vote of the Presidency. The Hon Sybil
Seaton urged that to deepen democracy and promote non-racialism,
we should draw on the contributions of all political
parties and civil society.
I agree with this advice. Accordingly, we have taken
note of the suggestions made by the various Members
who spoke yesterday. This does not necessarily mean
that we agree with these suggestions. What it does mean
is that we should at least consider the suggestions
and not ignore or reject them simply because they have
been made by parties other than the ruling party.
For instance the Hon Pieter Mulder said "In 1993
and 1996, we were forced to talk to each other on these
problems (relating to the place of Afrikaners and Afrikaans
in our society.) Now elections and the style in this
house force us to fight as opponents. It makes these
problems worse and does not solve any."
I would like to assure the Hon Mulder that we do not
have to fight as opponents. Like him, the government
is concerned that in everything we do we should ensure
that the Afrikaners and the Afrikaans-speaking people
are not discriminated against, being treated with the
sensitivity and dignity that must be accorded to all
our people, regardless of race, colour or gender.
I am certain that the former Member of this House,
Cassie Aucamp, will not object to my mentioning the
fact that he has not accepted the pessimistic view expressed
by the Hon Pieter Mulder. I say this because not long
ago, he approached me to raise various matters not different
from those mentioned by the Hon Pieter Mulder.
We will respond to the suggestions he made, precisely
to ensure that such concerns as those mentioned by the
Hon Mulder are addressed. I would also like to assure
the Hon Mulder that we will discuss these same issues
with him.
In this regard I would also like to draw the attention
of the Hon Mulder to the remarks made by the Deputy
President concerning the operationalisation of the Commission
for the Promotion of the Rights of Cultural, Religious
and Linguistic Communities. I am certain that it would
help all of us if the Hon Mulder approached the Deputy
President to see in what ways this important Commission
might help to address the issues he raised.
I agree with the Hon Sybil Seaton that in the interests
of all our citizens we should ensure that the Presidency
functions smoothly and efficiently and that the interaction
between the Presidency and Parliament should continue
to be, as she puts it, 'both streamlined and seamless'.
The matter she raised relating to salaries of Members
of Parliament has been affected by the new amendments
to the relevant legislation, which have meant that the
Commission on Remuneration of Office Bearers had to
follow new procedures for the determination of these
salaries. The consultative process was also delayed
by the elections. However the Commission is giving urgent
attention to this matter.
The honourable Patricia De Lille made the point that
we should align our poverty alleviation programmes so
as to achieve maximum impact. Already the cluster system
that we have announced in this House has begun to have
a positive impact on government's planning, implementation
and monitoring.
Although the Honourable Member said she is looking
forward to fulfilling her function of watching closely,
I would suggest that she extend that role to include
finding ways of practically assisting in the implementation
of all these programmes whose main objective is to bring
a better life to all our people.
This I believe is the task of our public representatives,
to ensure that they are not merely content to watch
the unfolding processes from the sidelines, but that
they become active participants in the transformation
of our country into a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic
and prosperous society.
The Honourable Motsoko Pheko is correct when he says
that the National Youth Commission should work for the
development of all young people, irrespective of party
affiliation, geographic location or gender. Indeed,
the National Youth Commission should communicate better
so as to reach more young people.
Both Honourable members Meshoe and Nefolovhode have
made appeals for urgent intervention in the situation
in the DRC. I can assure the honourable members that
we are fully engaged in that situation and we will continue
to do whatever we can to help bring peace and stability
to that country.
The Hon Stephens of the UDM knows that monetary policy
is a responsibility of the Reserve Bank. He might therefore
direct his comments to Governor Mboweni. He is also
aware of the steps taken by the government to mediate
the impact of the high price of crude oil. We will keep
this matter under constant review. At an appropriate
time, the Minister of Health will respond to the proposal
to make AIDS a notifiable disease.
I am particularly happy that most speakers agreed with
the programme we have put before Parliament and the
country. I also agree with the various emphases that
the Hon Members made with regard to various elements
of the programme, including poverty eradication, youth
development, the empowerment of people with disabilities,
gender equality and the emancipation of women and the
improvement of our educational system to produce the
skilled people we need. I trust that we will all find
ways of making our own contributions to the successful
implementation of the programme with which most of us
seem to be agreed.
But with regard to the wider context, I would like
to thank the Hon Sybil Seaton and the Hon Tony Leon
for their contributions to the discussion of the important
question of what we want to do with our country and
ourselves.
I trust that others among us will follow their example
and contribute their views about the future of our political
and economic systems.
In this regard, surely we must agree with the often-expressed
view of the Democratic Alliance that a vibrant democracy
necessarily means the coexistence of diverse views.
Accordingly, we should not judge any national debate
as having succeeded or failed merely by the extent to
which it has or has not led to the emergence of a consensus.
The fact is that among ourselves, we may and will disagree
on many issues. There is no rule that requires that
any of our national debates should lead either to agreement
or disagreement. Neither does the fact that we do not
and will not agree on a number of issues constitute
a threat to democracy, or translate into bad manners
or behaviour on the part of the government.
The very persistence of different points of view, and
especially the availability of the political space to
express and propagate these different views, signify
precisely the health of our democracy.
But sometimes I get the impression that some believe
that the President of the Republic is excluded from
enjoying the right to hold and propagate views that
may differ from those held by other people. The rule
seems to be that the President should only say those
things about which everybody is agreed.
This condemns the President merely to project those
views accepted by public opinion, or media opinion posing
as public opinion, as common knowledge, prohibiting
the President from saying anything that some may characterise
as "controversial".
I raise this matter because I was concerned at the
import of some of the comments made by the Hon Seaton.
For instance she called for acceptance of criticism.
This has never been a problem. The problem arises when
our response to criticism, the exercise of our own right
to hold and express our own views, is read as a frightening
intolerance of criticism.
In a speech he delivered a fortnight ago, on June 10th,
the Hon Tony Leon conveyed this message when he said
"There is fear across the country that one might
incur the displeasure and wrath of the ANC; that one
might be denounced as a racist; that one might inadvertently
express agreement with or support someone who has already
been denounced as a racist - someone like the leader
of the DA, for example.
It will have truly surprised everybody in the ruling
party to hear from the Hon Leon that "The sad truth
is that there is precious little intellectual independence
from the ANC in business, in the media, in civil society,
in the universities. (And that) indeed even in the rest
of the opposition, there is no real independence from
the ANC..."
In the light of all this, the Hon Leon says "We
desperately need in our country a plurality of views
and true intellectual and moral independence from the
ruling party."
This conclusion is based on an assessment of what is
happening in the country with which we disagree. Indeed
if we had the time, we could demonstrate quite easily
that what the Hon Leon believes is desperately needed
is precisely what characterises public discourse in
our country.
Of course it may be that when he speaks of a desperate
need for a plurality of views, he is calling on everybody
to differ with and oppose the ruling party, regardless
of the merits of the propositions of this ruling party.
This amounts to arguing that to agree with what is patently
correct is to suppress the plurality of views.
Apart from anything else, all this amounts to an attempt
to frighten everybody with false propositions to encourage
opposition to the ruling party merely for the sake of
opposition, for obvious reasons. The strategy of the
use of fear is reflected in the comments he made about
the pronouncements of the Ministers of Minerals and
Energy and Agriculture and Land Affairs.
To take only the latter, the Minister of Agriculture
was correct to call for a national discussion of the
issue of foreign land ownership. To stop this discussion,
which will take place, the Hon Leon seeks to frighten
the country with the notion that "restrictions
on foreign ownership are a red flag for foreign investors."
And yet many countries have such restrictions. These
include Switzerland and Canada, to cite only two. We
know of no reports that this has served as a "red
flag" to the foreigners who have invested in these
countries.
Quite why Switzerland and Canada can have such restrictions
without frightening foreign investors, while similar
restrictions in our country would produce an opposite
response from foreign investors is difficult to fathom.
There will be time in future to discuss the ideological
construct advanced by the Hon Leon which results in
him talking about a so-called fundamental contradiction
"the racial nationalism of the ANC on the one hand,
and the liberal democratic values of our nation's Constitution,
on the other."
Suffice it for now to say that what he has sought to
do is to superimpose this construct on our history and
contemporary reality not to improve our understanding
of that history and reality, but to obscure them to
create the space for the hegemony of the socio-economic
paradigm Will Hutton described as American conservatism.
The end point he wants us to arrive at is explained
in a speech he made on Youth Day, June 16th, when he
spoke of an economic policy with such elements as "a
minimal budget deficit, lower taxation, a deregulated
labour market, privatisation, enterprise zones, opportunity
vouchers and the like."
To get there, he believes that among other things,
he must convince us that the African majority in our
country was not oppressed and exploited as Africans
but as individuals, and that the legacy of that past
impacts on this majority not as Africans, but as individuals.
This derives from the proposition contained in the
same speech that "For us, (the DA), society is
comprised at its most basic level of individuals, and
not of racially defined groups, or for that matter of
classes or ethnic groups...As liberals we do believe
that people are more than the sum of the forces that
are brought to bear on them, or at least that the combination
of forces produces individuals with a unique outlook
on the world, who construct their own meaning and who
are best placed to apprehend their own truth, or truths."
If this has any meaning, it constitutes a vain attempt
to eradicate our history. Accordingly, the Africans
as a national group did not and do not exist. What we
had and have are merely individual Africans, who were
oppressed as individuals and who suffer from the legacy
of racism as individuals.
They did not come together as a national group to fight
oppression, but struggled as individuals, each constructing
his or her "own meaning, (being) best placed to
apprehend their own truth, or truths." Necessarily
therefore, our response to the challenge to eradicate
the legacy of racism is wrong to seek to uplift the
Africans as a national group. Rather we should seek
to change the lot of the individual African, unique
in himself or herself.
And since there are no classes, only individuals, the
workers are also wrong to have combined in trade unions.
All this is the "celebration of individualism"
and an attempt to create a society in which "individuals...shoulder
their burdens and exercise their rights alone",
of which Will Hutton writes. I do not know what will
happen to the Hon Leon when he wakes up one day and
discovers that there are individual Africans who belong
to the African national group, that there are individual
workers who belong to the working class, and that there
are individual capitalists who belong to the capitalist
class, and that each of these has all along been combining
to act together exactly because they shared common interests
as "racially defined groups, or for that matter
(as) classes", and did not believe the Hon Leon
when he told them they were merely "individuals
with a unique outlook on the world, who construct their
own meaning and who are best placed to apprehend their
own truth, or truths."
To understand better our response to the liberal ideology
propagated by the DA, the Honourable Members may also
find it useful to have a look at what we said in 1999,
in our response to the State of the Nation Address after
the 1999 elections.
In another speech on June 10, the Hon Tony Leon said:
"the consensus the ANC calls for, which is a consensus
on the programme of transformation, fundamentally misses
the point - indeed, subverts the spirit if not the letter
- of democracy."
I am happy to say that, as reflected in the Debate
in this House yesterday, the majority of our people
disagree with this point of view. They are determined
to join hands fundamentally to transform our country
into a true non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous democracy,
in which the racist legacy of the past would have ceased
to define us as "Africans, Coloureds, Indians and
Whites", giving all of us the possibility to be
"merely South African".
The millions of our people would deeply appreciate
the contribution of the Honourable Members to this outcome,
as I would.
Thank you.
Enquiries: Bheki Khumalo on 012 300 5436 or 083
256 9133
ISSUED BY THE PRESIDENCY ON 24 JUNE 2004
TUYNHUYS
CAPE TOWN
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