Address by Ms Sue van der Merwe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the occasion of the Ethical Leadership through Women and Men, University of Cape Town, 12 September 2006

Ladies and Gentlemen
Distinguished Guests

Introduction

It is a privilege to be here this morning at the opening of the Conference on Ethical Leadership through women and men and to share some thoughts on the subject.

Looking at the expertise collected in this room, I am sure that we will be able to come up with proposals about how to address some of the most vexing challenges that we face together as government and the people of South Africa today.

As South Africans one of our strength has been and continues to be our ability to engage in dialogue to deal with our problems. I believe that this dialogue will take us closer to realising our vision of building a united and democratic South Africa.

Issues of ethical leadership remain critical to the process of consolidating our democracy. During the many years that South Africans, and indeed many nations of the world have struggle to gain their liberation, the goal has always been about the attainment of freedom and justice - of the rejection of imposed forms of authority, of racial and gender domination.

The freedoms and rights that generations of South Africans have fought for are at the core of our democracy. Indeed our democratic agenda is predicated on the transformation of our society, from an unjust and divided one, to a just and equal South Africa, where all its peoples live in peace and prosperity.

In defining the values in our society we use as a measure, the quality and ethical standards of our leadership. Does our leadership promote the ideals of a just and equal society and create a South Africa that belongs to all that live in it? And do our leaders demonstrate in their actions the values that come from our shared beliefs based on our collective past and our common destiny?

First we need to define our common values.

After the first democratic elections in 1994, the new government began the task of building a new nation and healing the wounds of our past. In one sense, this endeavour was to a large extent about the building of common values upon which our new society would be based.

Values are essentially enduring beliefs that influence attitudes, actions and choices we make as a people and as a nation. Ethical leadership entails the practical implementation of these values.

Our Constitution

In the making of our Constitution we have agreed upon a common set of values against which our leaders can be measured. The mark of an ethical leader in the context of our discussion is, therefore, whether such a leader leads and lives by these values. In the post-apartheid South Africa there was therefore a genuine expectation that the new crop of leadership, both men and women, should be different from their predecessors.

Our transition to democracy and the commitment to resolving our historical problems through dialogue, gave our post-apartheid leadership a moral authority endorsed by most South Africans. The reverence that our first President continues to enjoy today, both here and abroad demonstrates the moral character of our revolution and our democracy and provides a vision for the South Africa we aspire to.

Moral and ethical leadership should be concerned with the pursuit for the rights to freedom, equality, fairness and justice, values that have been fought for by our past leaders and ordinary people.

The South African Constitution is the embodiment of these values. It is a collectively negotiated and accepted declaration of our shared values and is therefore the best guide for us as citizens to use as the standard for our own and our leader's behaviour and actions.

The Preamble our Constitution states, and I quote:

We, the people of South Africa,
Recognise the injustices of our past;
Honour those who suffered for injustice and freedom in our land;
Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and
Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

This brief statement unambiguously articulates what the struggle for our liberation has been and continues to be about, namely the creation of a sovereign, democratic state founded on the values of human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms, of non-racialism and non-sexism.

Therefore, since 1994 the main task of political leadership in this country has been to transform the state machinery and society by eradicating discriminatory, immoral and unethical apartheid legislation.

Ethical leadership in government and civil society

However real change will not be fully attained through transformational legislation and policies, but also through the actions of leaders and the citizenry in fostering these values.

In his opening of Parliament address in February 1999, President Mandela introduced to us the concept of 'RDP of the Soul', - the need for a value-based society in the attainment of our development objectives. He also clearly articulated the need for participatory development by the whole society rather than leaving it to leaders alone. I quote:

South African society needs to infuse itself with a measure of discipline, a work ethic and responsibility for the actions we undertake. … related to this is the reconstruction of the soul of the nation, the 'RDP of the Soul': by this we mean first and foremost respect for life; pride and self-respect as South Africans … It means asserting our collective and individual identity as Africans, committed to the rebirth of the continent; being respectful of other citizens and honouring women and children of our country who are exposed to ….domestic violence and abuse. It means building our schools into communities of learning and improvement of character. It means mobilising one another, and not merely waiting for government to clean our streets; or for funding allocations to plant trees and tend schoolyards. These are things we need to embrace as a nation that is nurturing its New Patriotism. They constitute an important environment for bringing up future generations.

This statement recognises that all of us as a society have a critical role to play in transforming our apartheid legacy and building the kind of society that we desire. Indeed, one of the strengths of our society is the commitment to participatory democracy, of dealing with the challenges of nation building through dialogue, accommodation, tolerance and ultimately forgiveness. This is the legacy that we will leave to our children, the future leaders of this country.

Real social transformation must be underpinned by a real understanding of the impact of these laws and policies on the lives of ordinary people.

Recently a discussion document was produced by government entitled "A nation in the making - a discussion document on macro-social trends". Here an analysis was done to seek to answer questions such as how have the material conditions of South Africans changed in the past decade? What have been the trends in the organisation of social life? Through what identities do South Africans define themselves? How to the diverse and overarching identities and value systems affect their self-worth?

The document is, as I said, a discussion document but it does pose interesting questions based on facts about the nature of our society and the effects of policy choices on the South African public.

It concludes:

"What it does show, though, as an aspirations value system is that the bigger family that is the nation knows that collective survival depends on successful regulation of social behaviour, including elements of the private space in so far as they bear direct relevance to the social sphere. The State, supported by the system of political organisation, is the pre-eminent authority charged with leading this process, and civil society should add to both the formal and informal mechanisms of social regulation and morality.

It can be argued that there is in our country a dominant collective social aspiration to fashion a society that cares, an aspiration, informed by the ideals of equity, compassion for the most vulnerable, gender-sensitivity, and honesty in individual and collective behaviour. These are the ideals that inform the core values of the Constitution. The truth, however, is that aspiration and reality do not necessarily, and not always, coincide. Real life, even if it may jar with ideals, influences social behaviour in the here and now."

Our task then requires conscious individuals determined to propagate humane values - in government not enticed by arrogance and illicit rewards that power can bring; in business not mesmerised by the glitter that purely selfish pursuits can harvest into personal use; and in civil society not fazed by mindsets that pour scorn on the humble lifestyle of an honest days' work.

The question of morality has long been part of our post-apartheid discourse. In document entitled "The Moral Renewal of the Nation", published by the ANC in 1998, we make the point that:

The democratic changes of 1994 introduced a major change. The apartheid system was consigned to history. All countries which have passed through a major social change to establish new objectives, structures and modes of behaviour have found this a time of tension. Some seek to inhibit the development, others use it for party political purposes, and blatantly immoral elements come to the surface.

Corruption, criminality, tax evasion, fraud, rape, the abuse of women and children, drunkenness, extortion, and family breakdown, much of it touched by violence, are the outward forms of a diseased social climate which affects all of us. The whole country is passing through a period of transition in which we are seeking to establish a new and successful modern society. The problems we experience are not different from those in other societies - but at this formative stage we intend to do something to ensure that South Africa becomes a truly moral society.

As a country, even in 2006, we are still undergoing a process of nation building, which of course has its own challenges that require leaders of strong ethical and moral character. Our apartheid history has made us acutely aware of the destructive tendencies that come with unethical and immoral leadership based on favouritism, victimisation, special interests and racial privelege. In the end, leaders who rely on these, create polarisation of the society into primitive notions of "us versus them". Such leadership festers mistrust and encourages rule by fear, innuendo and mistrust.

Indeed, transitional periods have a tendency to create space for contending ideologies to emerge to challenge existing authority. These new transitional spaces create the opportunities for creative thinking to find new solutions to problems. Such problems can be dealt with through an open and fair engagement between those who lead and those who follow. In this regard, again, our culture of activism and commitment to dialogue becomes very important in overcoming challenges along the way.

Leaders in both government and civil society have a duty and responsibility to always lead by example. Values are conveyed and supported not by words but by deeds. One observer made the point: "All the fine words in the world about the value of people have no weight beside gestures or actions that suggest the opposite."

In South Africa we there are a number of initiatives to engage the population in taking collective responsibility and ownership of ethical issues in our society. Over the long term, ethical leadership that is founded on ethical values best serves both personal development and the common good.

I remain hopeful that collectively as government and civil society we can deal with vital problems of the day and craft solutions to them.

I am priveleged to have been assigned my current task in Foreign Affairs. This is an area that has long been part of our movements agenda. During the apartheid years South Africa received support from the international community. The powerful and influential anti-apartheid movement was mobilized in solidarity with the South African liberation movement. Through this the role of ethical and effective leadership extended beyond South Africa's borders. In the international arena today, South Africa continues to play a leadership role in our region, on our continent and in the world. Our foreign policy agenda is informed by our domestic policy and the two are mutually reinforcing. Both domestic and foreign policy are guided by the vision of "a better South Africa in a better Africa and a better world".

At the time we gained our independence from apartheid in 1994, South Africa was internationally isolated. One of the key foreign policy challenges facing our post-apartheid leadership was to build relationships with the world, relationships that had been damage by apartheid. In doing so we adopted a foreign policy agenda based on the principles enshrined in our Constitution.

In the years since the end of the Cold War there has been much soul searching amongst the nations of the world about reforming the institutions of global governance. Key among these is the nature of the structures of global governance, their in appropriateness to our modern world and the unfairness of a system based on conditions that existed in the world 60 years ago. There has been much debate on transforming these institutions with a sharp focus on addressing important issues of leadership, good governance and international morality. We have seen this theme carry through in multilateral forums and in particular in the Security Council of the United Nations.

I have already mentioned the interconnected nature of our domestic and foreign policies. The universal values which South Africa strives to achieve are also those to which it aspires for Africa, the South and the rest of the world. The principles, policies and priorities of democratic South Africa provide hope not only for the people of South Africa and Africa, but also for the South since they essentially provide hope for humanity as a whole.

We have been at the forefront of this struggle and key to this project is the transformation of the global institutions of governance, primarily but not exclusively the Bretton Woods Institutions and the United Nations. Most of these institutions were created when many African countries were still ruled by colonial powers -not yet liberated - and now the countries of the South seek to be regarded as equal members of the international community. One of the major debates of the past two years has been the reform of the United Nations Security Council and this matter has not yet been resolved.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on 21 March 2005, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan stated that:

… I urge member states to make the Security Council more broadly representative of the international community as a whole, as well as of the geopolitical realities of today.

… And I suggest that the renewed Security Council should make clear, in a resolution, the principles by which it intends to be guided when deciding whether to authorize or mandate the use of force.

As developing states, we of course share these views because we believe that the current membership structure of the Security Council is an anachronism and needs to be reformed to give equal voice to the people of the world. The way in which the Security Council is constituted lives up to the maxim that: "..t
he strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

As you will be aware, South Africa has been nominated for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2007. Security Council membership will present opportunities, including the possibility for South Africa playing an enhanced role in contributing to the work of the United Nations, in the maintenance of international peace and security, especially in Africa.

As an elected member, however, we will face formidable challenges and constraints due, amongst other things, to the dominance of the five Permanent members (P5) in the Council. South Africa's status as an independent-minded country with a principled and predictable foreign policy may be challenged by its participation in potentially questionable decisions of the Council that may run counter to the interests of developing countries.

Because of our commitment to multilateralism, we are committed to the creation of a just, equal and rules-based international system and adhering to standards and codes that seek legal protection for the poor, restraints on the strong.

In this regard, Declarations such as the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and the African Union's Human Rights Charter have created a basis for determining our approach on leadership and good governance.

You will be aware that to demonstrate this commitment, South Africa is currently undergoing a process reviewing the promotion of democracy and good political governance as a basis for the reduction of poverty and the attainment of sustainable development. On our own continent under the auspices of the African Union, the African Peer Review Mechanism Process evaluates and aims to assist countries in addressing issues of democratic and political governance, economic management and corporate governance for social and economic development. Although voluntary, participation by South Africa in the Review Process shows the commitment of adhering to international standards and practices on issues of leadership development and good governance.

In conclusion, to address the question about what ethical leadership mean in today's world, I would like to refer to the declaration of the 2003 Progressive Government Summit Communiqué which stated, among other things, that:

This century has the potential to bring huge advances in health, in knowledge, in prosperity, and to bring billions of people out of poverty. We are optimistic that a truly prosperous, inclusive and secure global society is within our reach. However, realising that potential depends on careful and concerted action. It depends on the progress we make in further integrating our economies, societies, regions and communities. And it depends on our success in standing firm against division within societies - against prejudice, discrimination, and inequality - and against division at a global level into competing blocs.

Some will continue to respond by turning inwards to the comforts of old identities, old ways of thinking and old structures. We believe that new challenges demand new solutions that combine fiscal responsibility, investment in citizens and democratic processes.

As progressive governments, we will therefore accelerate our work in matching imaginative new ideas with practical means of putting them at the service of the citizens we represent."

The above views express the sentiments by a collective of leaders who had met to deliberate on matters of significance and consequences as we have today. The conclusions they drew from their deliberations are indeed instructive about what we intend to do about the challenges that face us today. Therefore, we ourselves need to ensure that in the work we are about to undertake, we understand the following basic principles that we need to adhere to:

• Moral character;
• Ethical values conveyed and supported by deeds; and
• A legitimate process of engagement based on a common understanding of the rules of the game and the shared belief to contribute to be building of a better South Africa, better Africa in a better world.

Thank for you attention and I wish you the best in your discussions.