Address by Ms Sue van der Merwe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the occasion of the Ambassador's Night, Sandton Inter-Continental Hotel, 10 June 2006

Mrs Saedah Yahaya, President of IDSA
Members of the Diplomatic Corps
Deputy Minister Pahad
Queen Mother of the Royal Bafokeng
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am honoured to deliver this address on behalf of Minister Dlamini Zuma, who due to unforeseen circumstances, cannot be here tonight. She had wanted so much to be at this function to personally demonstrate her appreciation of the critical role the International Diplomatic Spouses Association (IDSA) plays in the South African community and at the same time have a good time in your midst in this swinging celebration that the organisers have put together!

Let me also take this opportunity to thank the organisers for their splendid arrangements to make this event a success. I also wish to thank all the guests for coming out on such a cold night and opening up your hearts and wallets. Judging by tonight's programme, I am certain we will set the night on fire!

During the course of last week, while I was in Cape Town I had the opportunity to visit Day Hospital in Khayelitsha in Cape Town and meet with the people who work there, supported by one of the grants provided by your organisation.

I was deeply impressed by what they able to achieve under very difficult circumstances.

The grant provides for an interpreter to assist medical students and community service doctors to take a full and comprehensive case history of the patients.

While a simple interpretation service may not seem important in itself, if is truly remarkable what leverage this simple task provides to the doctors. It enables them to get a full and detailed medical history from the patient, greatly facilitating a diagnosis.

The interpreters also assist the patient with careful explanation of the doctors comments which has lead to a huge improvement in the patients compliance with taking their medication and return visits to the hospital for follow up treatment.

With the huge volumes of patients (one doctor will see 50 patients a day) this service significantly improves the efficiency of the hospital service, it assists the doctors, it also provides an essential training basis for the young doctors and medics.

I might add that many of the young doctors I met are not South African but come from other countries in Africa, particularly from the SADC region.

I have to say that I was most impressed with the general way in which the hospital was run. Literally hundreds of people come there every day and are treated in an orderly way, all the nurses and staff were cheerful and polite and the two young interpreters, Khanyisa Mtwana and Ezzy Zozi were extraordinary.

Congratulations then on your contribution to this very important project with both health and training spin-offs.

We live in a world, where if the truth be told, for most of the world's people, life is still, in the words of Hobbes, "nasty, brutish and short." It is the reality of this world that we address in our daily work, so as to nurture a global reality characterized by sustainable development, a culture of human rights and a better quality of life for all the world's people, wherever they may be.

While multilateral organizations, continental and national governments play their role in ensuring that the desired world becomes a reality, the truth is that every effort counts, every initiative that is genuinely intended to help the poor can make a difference and can save a life.

The idea that " I am my brother's keeper" is what motivates so many individuals and organizations who are trying to work for the good of the world as a whole.

These are the groups and organisations like IDSA that we must salute, for their work is often conducted in silence far from the eyes of the world's press. Yet they too are the unsung heroes of a quiet social revolution, a way of changing the world.
Yes, indeed, they may well be taking small steps, but it does take small steps to create a giant wave of energy that can be unleashed to fight poverty, to make a case for global equality in all spheres of governance, to open the road to dialogue, negotiations and inculcate a culture of permanent peace.

This is not unfamiliar ground for us South Africans. We have been along this path; and it was the only route that could take us to a common destination. This is the road we are still building day by day working towards the desired destiny of real equality and people-centred development.

We live in a world where almost everything we do is inextricably linked to everything else. We can choose to make waves, in this way helping others to help themselves. Or we can choose to be inactive, selfish and not lift a helping land. For the latter, there are consequences in choosing to look the other way and to ignore suffering.

Let us continue to work together for a more harmonious world reality where people are placed at the centre, where human life is precious, where the world's problems are solved not through the barrel of a gun, but through talks, laughter, love, common understanding, bringing an end to hunger and hardship, asserting the right to live in friendship and in peace.

I think that, as South Africa, it is this ethos that we embrace - this is what we mean when we say we are adopting a multilateral approach to world affairs - it comes through the realization that for there to be world peace and progress, we can only do our work and fulfil our tasks together with others.

Nations can choose to conquer others but they do so at the peril of all humanity. Not to draw weapons is harder. To understand the humanity of those who appear to oppose us is harder. But ultimately, for the sake of the existence of humankind, what must surely prevail is the indomitable spirit of humanity.

Speaking at his Nobel Peace Lecture in 1961, Chief Albert Luthuli succinctly captured this ethos, when he argued thus:

It may well be that South Africa's social system is a monument to racialism and race oppression, but its people are the living testimony to the unconquerable spirit of [humankind].

I think it is this refusal to break, to give in to oppression, a belief in a future, that we ought to take seriously even in present times.

Over the years, civil society movements around the world have been, among those, at the forefront of fighting against poverty and inequality and injustices that have crippled the lives of the most vulnerable people in our societies.

As governments we need to acknowledge the role that civil society movements play in supporting our work and in helping to safeguard the well being all our people.

I therefore wish to express our warm appreciation for the contribution that you continue to make in the fields of education, health and support for child and women victims of abuse. This goes a long way towards advancing the ideals of building a better life for all our people - for Africa and the world.

Thirty years ago this year in the month of June, this country was one whose children were dying on the streets of Soweto, a country in which the youth had decided they could take no more and they took on the apartheid government.

Their uprising ended in tragedy with many young people having lost their lives and with so many having to flee the country. But this was only the start of a renewed struggle that would ensure that the indomitable human spirit would prevail and that humanity would be the victor. A new generation had opened the way for a greater freedom that would only be fully realized in 1994, but that already in 1976 had begun in the minds of young people to take shape and to flower.

Today, South African society celebrates the triumph of the human spirit and we thank you for your part in this.

Have a great evening!