Date: 13/11/2002
Source: Department of Home Affairs
Title: Buthelezi: Press Gallery Association


REMARKS BY MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI, MP AND MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND PRESIDENT OF THE INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY, DURING A LUNCHEON WITH THE PARLIAMENTARY PRESS GALLERY ASSOCIATION, Cape Town, 13 November 2002

It is always a great pleasure for me to be amongst members of the Press Gallery. Many of you I have known for a long time, and some I consider to be friends, in spite of the many and constant thrusts and parries which your job forces you to deliver to me and my job forces me to take from you. The fact of the matter is that irrespective of our positions and respective roles, we are all part of the same play and share both its comic and tragic aspects. We work in the same building. We witness the same events and, in many respects, we share the same anxiety about the future of our country.

It would be nice if we could just have a light luncheon together without my having to be conscious of what I say because it may appear on tomorrow's front page, and your having to pay attention to what I say, rather than concentrating on your food or on the conversation of one of your colleagues. But, as they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch and I must sing for mine. There are many things we could discuss on an occasion such as this. But I felt that before we enter into substantial discussions, we need to somehow pause and place in context where the country is and where it ought to be going. One has many discussions which proceed from subjective perceptions about whether South Africa is doing well or poorly. I think that neither is true.

I am convinced that our Government is doing many things right. Many of our policies are working. A lot is being achieved and the process of transformation from apartheid to democracy, from poverty to social security and from segregation to social inclusion, is taking place at a successful rate. However, there is a tendency for people to fall either into the camp of those who praise government or those who condemn it outright. I wish to belong to neither. Recognising that many things are right and are improving does not prevent me from giving equal recognition to the fact that many things are wrong, and some are in fact deteriorating. In pointing out what is going wrong, I refuse to take a pessimistic attitude. I am an optimist and wish to remain one, but I do not wish to be one of those optimists who refuse to see problems. For me, optimism is about believing that if we have the courage to acknowledge the full measure of the problems afflicting us, we are on the right path to muster the required energy and political will to solve them.

I believe that in our country we have the capacity, the resources and the potential to solve the problems afflicting us. Having said that, I feel that our greatest unattended problem remains unemployment. As the leader of a political party which shares the responsibility of governance in South Africa, I am willing to readily admit that our Government has not done enough to generate employment. Employment generation is at the beginning of any effort made to improve our country. Without greater employment generation, it will be difficult to alleviate poverty, hold back the wave of rising criminality or deal with many other social evils affecting our communities both at the spiritual and material level. We need to get people to work in much larger numbers and as soon as possible. However, as many of you know, employment generation is more of an effect than a cause. It is the product of a growing economy and of specific strategies aimed at developing labour intensive industries in the country.

Some economists would say that lack of employment generation is in theory not necessarily bad for the economy if the economy is otherwise growing and producing wealth, as in the end that wealth will create secondary cycles through which employment will be generated. However, in the absence of economic growth, the lack of employment generation is a clear sign that things are not only not going in the right direction, but are likely to become worse before they get better. It gives me little satisfaction to know that I predicted this outcome in my addresses to Parliament of a few years ago when I criticised the lack of courageous macro-economic initiatives aimed at accelerating economic growth, such as extended and expedited privatisation, extended and intense market deregulation, including the abolition of exchange controls, and other measures which you have heard me mention in Parliament very often since 1994. I have also expressed a grave concern with the lack of Government's emphasis on targeted training for specific industries which we may identify as our fields of future economic growth.

Agriculture and tourism remain the two fields which hold the greatest promises of employment generation and in respect of which we must develop a programme to make South Africa a global competitor. We must also look at the technologies of the future, especially biotechnology, to create an industrial basis on which our country can compete on a global basis. In the present age of globalisation, each of us needs to ask ourselves what goods or services South Africa will produce to keep itself afloat in the years to come. These are issues which weigh heavily on my conscience and for which I do not have an answer, and I think that if I were to interrogate most of you, you would also not know how we as a country are to answer them.

There are other issues which bear very heavy on my conscience as they relate to the country as a whole. I know that some of you would like to engage me in discussions on matters on which I have already spoken, such as the issue of traditional leadership, or others on which there is either little to say or where what there is to say cannot be said through the media, such as the deteriorating status of the relationship between the IFP and the ANC. These are matters which undoubtedly make good headlines, and enable you to write a piece stating the obvious, such as that the relationship between the IFP and the ANC is at an historical low, or that I and my Party have rejected the White Paper on Traditional Leadership and the Communal Land Rights Bill.

These are all matters of record on which I have spoken before. However, I regret that sometimes by focusing on these specific issues, one loses the broader perspective of what my role and the role of the IFP is in the unfolding of South Africa's history and in the forging of the new South Africa. The issue that I am raising about employment generation is absolutely crucial to the success of everything we have been trying to achieve in the past fifty years of struggle, all of which I have endured day by day, and year by year.

There is almost a lack of awareness that this is indeed a crucial time for the future of our country. The world is changing around us at a rate and pace which many people do not fully understand. World politics is changing. New divides are being formed. Within this process, we must place South Africa as a country with a specific role to play in the age of globalisation. I believe that it is imperative that we develop a long-term economic vision which addresses both the question relating to what we will be producing in the global market, as well as the issue of employment generation. The flip side of this question relates to our role on the African continent and our position in the world. We are a civilised and democratic country with enormous social problems, social inequalities and great pockets of poverty and under-development. Our goal must be that of striving to solve our problems and joining in ever-closer partnerships with the countries of the world which have solved similar problems and are blessed with social stability and economic prosperity.

At this time and in this age, I feel that South Africa must play a strong, resolved and unwavering role in promoting democracy on the African continent. When I was in Germany on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which was attended by the President of Germany, I made a strong statement, which was somehow not widely reported here in spite of having been warmly received there. I argued that development and democracy are two inseparable conditions in the modern globalised world and that future trends of world history are bound to divide countries between those which are democratic and prosperous or on their way to prosperity, and those which remain stubbornly undemocratic, corrupt, authoritarian and oppressive. On delivering this statement in Germany, I felt that I was almost stating the obvious to the Heads of State and Ministers convened there from all over the world. However, I feel that this axiom has not been fully appreciated in our own country. To some of you, this may sound like theoretical talk with no immediate bearing on your life or on the lives of your children. Yet one must realise that in the final analysis the fortune or demise of countries is determined by choices of this type, made at the right time.

The world is changing and we must get on with that change and possibly, we must ride ahead of the wave of change. Last year I was in Washington, DC, being acclaimed by an enthusiastic audience of three thousand delegates of the American Conservative Union in the presence of Vice-President Dick Cheney. It is nice to receive such a warm accolade in a foreign country, especially when one is constantly put down in one's own country. However, that event prompted me towards a vast range of reflections with a bearing on our country and on the decisions which both I and the IFP must make about our future. You all know that I am not a conservative in the general meaning of this word. I have been a radical and a liberal all my life. I am a libertarian and believe in the maximum measure of freedom which people can enjoy, both as individuals and collectively, in a structured and well-functioning society organised under the law. The fact is that the juxtaposition between conservatism and liberalism has become blurred. Everyone tells me that the majority of Americans are Democrats, and yet the Republican Party has won the last elections across the board. New winds are sweeping the world and doing away with old paradigms.

The emerging divides seem to differentiate political perceptions in different ways than before. One does not know the extent to which South Africa will be affected by these changing winds.

However, I wonder how this will affect our people and what role political parties may need to play to ensure that the needs of our people are satisfied to the maximum extent possible. I wish you to understand that my greatest emphasis remains with the people on the ground. Throughout my life I have existed and lived amongst peasants and the poorest of the poor. Almost every weekend I go back to my community where I do my community work both as a traditional leader and as a political representative. I have seen more suffering and human misery and aspiration than many people who sit in Parliament. I am concerned about those people, who are my people. But I realise how their final welfare and social and economic liberation is linked to the process and dynamics which are now operating on a global basis. The war in Iraq and our position in respect of it could have a greater bearing on the possibility of their feeding themselves tomorrow than legislation we pass here in Cape Town.

I know that you would want me to make statements about whether there is truth to the rumours that the IFP may be abandoning its co-operation with the ANC in the national Cabinet, or whether the ANC may be abandoning its co-operation with the IFP in the Cabinet of KwaZulu-Natal, either voluntarily or because of a decision of the IFP. Once again, matters of this nature make immediate headlines. Obviously if there was something to write about, I would not have conveyed that to our partners in Government or our counterparts through the press, and any decision taken in that respect would be conveyed to you by both affected parties. Therefore, there is no space for this type of discussion in this venue and at this time. However, what we could discuss are the premises on which decisions of that nature could be based. You are those who form public opinion. You are those who follow more attentively than anyone else in the country the unfolding of political dynamics. You have all the facts. You even know things which are not facts. I have given you a broad range of concerns I have and considerations which bear heavily on my life. I would like to know from you on this occasion what you think South Africa needs and demands of me and of the IFP.

If I could, I would ask the same question of your readers. This is somehow like looking from the reverse side of the mirror and wondering whether those who write know what the readers think. I really value my dialogue with the press, but I regret that often it seems to be a one-way discourse. You ask me things that you already know so that you can get a quote or a hook to confirm a speculation you have already concocted. I tell you things which you usually could find out in other ways, by merely reporting on addresses I make elsewhere or documents I produce. But rarely do I have the pleasure of hearing from you how you think I should best serve South Africa.

The only articles I read in that respect are the denigratory ones when some journalist stands up and pontificates that I should retire because I have become too old, albeit I am the same age as President Mandela was in 1993, a year before he took office, and I feel stronger and more energetic than I ever have before. I would like to know from you the role you see the IFP having to play in the unfolding of politics. I could tell you for hours what a disaster South Africa would have been from 1975 to this day had the IFP not been in the picture. I could mention what we achieved in securing a negotiated transition rather than allowing the call for the armed struggle to wreck our future, and the many important concessions we secured for democracy during the negotiation process and in the past eight years in which we served in Government.

I have a feeling of what we need to do in the future which, if I need to be blunt with you, I must tell you clearly I am not going to tell you on this occasion. I would like to hear what you think we should be doing. In the end, I as a politician and the IFP as a party should only do that which the people mandate us to do. I would love to have all of you amongst the people whose mandate I carry. I am not the type of politician who tells the press what to do, albeit I stand firm to reply to anything you write and even to resort to court to protect my rights when a journalist defames me. On this occasion I feel like I am a politician whom the press can tell what to do, with the understanding that whether or not I follow it is another matter entirely.

I received some indication that some of you wanted to interrogate me about the appointment of my Director-General and other matters affecting my Department. As I told you, these are matters which you can research for yourselves. In order to help you, I have brought a copy of a speech which was not delivered yesterday, but which contains a great deal of information which is newsworthy. The meeting of the Portfolio Committee was cancelled and I sent a copy of the speech I prepared to its Chairman for distribution to all the members of his Committee. Therefore, it is only fair that the press gets a copy. I really believe that this speech should answer most of the questions you may have surrounding Home Affairs.

I hoped that this occasion could enable us to get to know one another a little better and offer me the opportunity to hear what is on the mind of the press. This may mean that on this specific occasion I might not be the only one who has to sing for his lunch.

Issued by the Department of Home Affairs
13 November 2002