Date: 14/08/2010
Source: The Inkatha Freedom Party
Title: IFP: Buthelezi: Address by the IFP president, on Women's month, Osizweni

I am proud of the IFP Women's Brigade in the Amajuba District. You
have shown yourselves to be resourceful, determined and committed to
the cause of the IFP. When I heard that you had organized a meeting to
celebrate Women's Day and Women's Month, I was eager to accept the
invitation to join you and address this meeting, as I knew that I
would find gathered in this place women of goodwill. I applaud you for
organizing this event in the midst of the difficulties we face.

There is a wave of apathy and hopelessness washing over our members as
we continue to face the challenges of a divided Party. Some have
simply given up and are folding their arms, sitting back and waiting
for our fortunes to change. But others, like the women of Amajuba,
realize that nothing will change unless we have the courage to change
it ourselves. The success or failure of this Party lies in our own
hands.

I know that the Women's Brigade in Amajuba is facing serious
difficulties. Our structures here have been temporarily dismantled.
There is chaos in our ranks. And our leaders and councilors are still
at loggerheads. When I visited Amajuba in April this year, I warned
that the in-fighting between leaders and councilors is likely to be
our Achilles Heal; the one weakness that can destroy a strong party
like the IFP. I hope that we might use this time to heal divisions and
inspire our leaders to work together for the sake of unity.

Let us speak candidly. We know that clandestine meetings have been
held in Amajuba to brew the anarchy in the midst of which we now find
ourselves. The very first subversive document was drafted at a
meeting which took place at Nando's in Newcastle. There are other
meetings that have been held here which have resulted in a tragic
division amongst our councillors, some of whom proudly align
themselves with "the Friends of VZ Magwaza-Msibi". "The Friends" have
even stooped so low as to organise divisive rallies, disguised as
prayer meetings.

So when the IFP Women's Brigade in Amajuba calls a meeting with such
noble motives as celebrating our nation's women, I am proud to
participate. On Monday, during our Women's Day celebrations in Ulundi,
I repeated a statement I often make; that women are the backbone of
our Party. The SABC News covered this statement in a rare moment of
positive publicity. It is almost as though the goodwill created by our
nation's celebration spilled over into a little ceasefire towards the
IFP. We need to find a way to sustain that goodwill.

When it comes to the media, we know we are facing all kinds of
sabotage and dirty tricks. Just this week Isolezwe published a
scurrilous article claiming that the IFP Women's Brigade in eThekwini
had expressed its desire for me to step aside as the President of this
Party. A former Provincial Secretary, pretending to be the Chairperson
and Spokesperson of the Women's Brigade in eThekwini, fed lies to a
journalist. Without checking her credentials or the veracity of her
claims, Isolezwe went ahead and published this damaging article.
Isolezwe does this all the time. It often gives credibility even to
people that they know were expelled from the Party who have no right
to speak for the Party. This further sows more seeds of confusion
within the Party.

We should not be surprised, as Isolezwe has earned itself a reputation
of being anti-Buthelezi. But we should still be chagrined and provoked
to speak up against such propaganda. I am pleased that our Provincial
Chairperson issued a statement setting the record straight. But
printing a lie in the media is like opening a feather pillow and
shaking its contents to the wind. You can try to clean up afterwards;
but you can never retrieve every single feather. People read this
article, and others like it, and public opinion is being formed on the
basis of misinformation and disinformation.

We need to become more proactive about getting the truth into the
public eye. That may mean flooding the media with letters and articles
and good reports on what we are doing to create unity, mobilize
support and serve our communities. People who send rejoinders
complain that their rejoinders are either not published or if at all
they are published weeks afterwards, when people have forgotten about
the first report to which they were responding.

I have never been one to play to the media. But in this treacherous
climate we need to be as wise as serpents, while being as gentle as
doves. Let us not allow our detractors and opponents to outplay us in
the game of politics. For every negative article, we should be able to
give journalists five good things to write about. That does not mean
five articles distancing ourselves from the "Friends of VZ" or
expressing our outrage at their antics. It means five stories about
actions being taken by the women of the IFP to promote development,
start cooperatives, educate their sisters, impart life skills, talk
about HIV/Aids, share childcare responsibilities, plant vegetable
gardens, become water-wise, assist the elderly and encourage young
girls to pursue education and healthy lifestyle choices.

That should be the focus of our Women's Brigade. We have allowed
ourselves to get caught up in internal political wrangling and become
distracted from the purpose and mission of the IFP. Make no mistake; I
can understand that your passion for the Party makes it hard not to
step into the fray when people are lying about me, the IFP and its
leadership, and dragging our legacy through the mud. But we need to
refocus our energy into positive action, both to inspire our own sense
of hope and to express to those around us that the IFP is still
committed to serving South Africa.

We are facing many challenges that have nothing to do with the
"Friends of VZ". I look, for instance, at our countryside and I cannot
help but notice that it is not as green as it used to be before 1994.
Food security has always been an issue close to the heart of the IFP.
Now, as we are slowly emerging from the effects of the global
recession, there is need for intense investment in subsistence
agriculture to ensure that our people can put food on the table.

Our country's former First Lady, Mrs Graca Machel, has pointed out
that it is women who feed our continent. One survey after the next
tells us that 85% of small scale farmers in Africa are women. But only
10% have access to credit. In Africa, less than 1% of loans to
agriculture are to women. We need to empower women in this district to
become successful workers of the land and make ourselves known again
as champions in the cause for food security.

This Women's Day, I expressed my concern that our Women's Brigade
Conference Exhibitions no longer give us a window to see the
demonstration of self-help and self-reliance which IFP Women's Brigade
Conference Exhibitions showed us in the past. This is in spite of the
damage control which our sister, Mrs Mchunu, is trying to do. We need
to turn this around. We need to become a point of hope and inspiration
for women in all our communities as they see what we are able to
achieve. The vast majority of our communities still live in
gut-wrenching poverty and women, in particular, are suffering.

We also face the challenge of contesting next year's Local Government
Elections, when we are far behind in mobilizing support and wooing
voters. We know from experience that Local Government Elections are
not fought on national issues, but around issues that affect the day
to day lives of ordinary people. These elections are not about
Selebi's prison sentence or a possible DA/ID coalition in the Western
Cape. They are about sanitation, schools, clinics, food security,
employment and housing. They are about bread and butter issues; the
very issues that the IFP has spent 35 years championing.

We also know that Local Government Elections are not a big draw card,
especially among younger voters, and it is going to be a challenge to
get people to go to the polling stations and vote. Voter turnout
during the July by-elections averaged at 33%. Somehow, in 2011, we
need to mobilize our supporters to actually vote.

This has always been a challenge for the IFP, as we lack the resources
to bus people around en masse. But the question of whether we can
afford to transport supporters to the polling stations should be
turned on its head. The real question is whether we can afford not to.
We know that we lost votes in previous elections simply because we
didn't assist people to get to the polling stations. In 2011, we need
to get our supporters there by whatever means possible, as a first
priority.

That is why I accepted your invitation at such short notice. I
appreciated that you my dear sisters and comrades share a concern with
me. The unpreparedness of our Party for the forthcoming local
government elections. Please do not be disheartened by the temporary
dismantlement of our constituencies and district committees. In fact
it is laziness only that can prevent our Women's Brigade from
strengthening your Committees at the level of both Constituencies and
District. You need to encourage branches of the Women's Brigade to
stand up and hold meetings in preparation not only of the elective
conference but in preparation of the local government elections which
you and I are so concerned about.

As mothers of the Nation you know better than I do that the youth that
has reached 18 years or that reaches 18 years before the local
government elections are a very important segment of our support.
From the inception of our organisation the two wings of our Party,
the Women's Brigade and the Youth Brigade were meant to support each
other. It is very important not to limit your mobilisation to the
Women's Brigade. The Women's Brigade should know how many High
Schools or Secondary Schools we have in Newcastle. These institutions
need to be targeted for mobilisation by not only the Youth Brigade and
SADESMO but also by the Women's Brigade. We have youth in our
hospitals and we need to have plans on how to target all these groups
of youth for mobilisation.

Mobilizing people to go and vote in 2011 is a task that starts now,
and a task that is particularly suited to women who have a better
social network and are more adept at communicating, inspiring and
cajoling one another to action. I am reminded of the words of Dr
Charlotte Whitton, a woman who successfully became one of the first
female Mayors in Canada. She once remarked, "Whatever women do, they
must do twice as well as men to be though half as good." Then she
added, "Luckily, this is not difficult."

I must agree with Dr Whitton that women have always had to try harder,
as you have always borne the brunt of hardship. Recognizing the double
burden on women in South Africa, particularly on black women, I have
sought for more than half a century to promote gender equality and
women's rights. I have sought to alleviate the suffering of our women
and bestow a rightful sense of dignity.

The women of the IFP know me. You know that as soon as we had limited
legislative powers in KwaZulu, I, as the Chief Minister of the
erstwhile KwaZulu Government, tackled the Code of Zulu law which
regarded women as perpetual minors. We immediately removed that from
the Code. For the first time most black women in this Province were
granted property rights. Before that, a woman could only own the
ngquthu beast and her apparel. As a result of their minority status,
our women would be ejected from their homes once their husbands had
died. Widows could not own homes.

We abolished that provision and, for the first time in KwaZulu,
including townships such as Madadeni, Umlazi, KwaMashu and elsewhere,
women could own their homes. The Code of Zulu law also made provision
that a husband had a right to administer corporal punishment to his
wife. We expunged these barbaric provisions from the Code of Zulu law.
This was long before addressing the gender issue became fashionable.
We were very aware that this was not enough, though there were
practical benefits for our women at the time.

As an expression of my commitment to empowering women, I made it
possible for women to have locus standi in judicio; in other words to
sue and be sued in their own name. I appointed the first female
Minister in South Africa. During apartheid, I appointed Dr Mthalane as
the first Deputy Minister of Health in the KwaZulu Government. After
the dawn of our liberation we appointed former leaders of this Women's
Brigade, Mrs Nokukhanya kaNkosi-Shandu and Mrs Faith Xolile Gasa, as
Ministers of Education in the KwaZulu Natal Government.

So where do these lies come from that we do not address the gender
issue? Can women so easily forget these things and be so gullible as
to swallow hook, line and sinker the propaganda of our political
enemies and of some of the useful idiots within the Party that are
being used by our political opponents to vilify me and the leadership
of the IFP? The IFP has always valued its women and we continue to
esteem you highly. It is with the women of the IFP that I have worked
and struggled to see life in this Province made better and easier for
our people.

We achieved a great deal together over the years. For young people who
may not know this; let them look around. We built townships and the
many decent houses they see in townships like Madadeni. We built
thousands of schools and Teacher Training Colleges, some of which the
ANC Government subsequently closed down. We built shopping malls and I
invited entrepreneurs to start factories in this district. And I
established Ithala Finance Corporation to give entrepreneurs access to
resources they would otherwise never receive.

The legacy of the IFP is replete with examples of the IFP championing
bread and butter issues. Today, matters of local governance still
dominate the agenda in meetings of our National Executive Committee.
Local governance is without a doubt the single biggest challenge
facing our Party leadership in its everyday deliberations over what
our councils are doing or not doing. Week after week, month after
month, and indeed, year after year, we are confronted by an unceasing
set of serious problems, whose intensity and severity is worsening all
the time. We have always worked hard for the voters. Now we need to
work hard for the votes.

We as a Party did not do very well in this district in the recent
by-elections. Everywhere we need as a Party to double-up our efforts,
particularly after we performed so poorly during the general election
on the 22nd of April 2009. All other parties are engaged in
repositioning themselves for the critical Local Government Elections
next year. If we fail to hit the campaign trail running, we may very
well lose this municipality in 2011. If our showing in 2011 is as poor
as it was in 2009, it may herald the end of our Party in the Amajuba
district.

I do not want to see this happen. And I know that you; the women of
our Party, our backbone and our frontline in the revolution of
goodwill, are not willing to see the IFP disappear into oblivion now,
in 2011 or 2014. Considering the strength of the IFP, built over 35
years of integrity, good governance and unity, it is clear that the
IFP should have many years ahead of it to serve South Africa. We have
a critical role to play in the political landscape of our country. Our
time is not up. Our contribution is not complete.

I appreciate the support of the IFP Women's Brigade, particularly as
we walk together through this dark storm of turmoil. I am still
mulling over in my mind how to best serve the IFP and this country in
the days ahead. I have taken very seriously our National Council's
resolution of 24 October 2009, requesting that I consider continuing
to serve as leader of the IFP to ensure a smooth succession later. I
am humbled that our Women's Brigade National Council endorsed this
request. The weight of responsibility to you and this Party lies heavy
on my heart. It does not matter that I have not yet agreed to
continue to serve the Party in view of the anarchy that now prevails
in our Party. It is a difficult decision for me to take. Although I
do not yet see any light at the end of this dark tunnel, do remember
that I have never been a leader who shies away from taking the right
decision even if it is a difficult decision to take, if it is in the
interests of our Party. Be patient with me.

Like the women gathered in this place today, I have a fighting spirit
for the IFP. I have not given up and I am not intimidated. I know what
we are capable of and I know how much South Africa needs a strong and
united IFP. Like you, I know that we are not going to sail out of this
storm by simply going with the currents. We are going to have to pick
up the oars and row like our lives depend on it. And indeed, the life
of the IFP does depend on our efforts right now. Let us give our best
and show posterity that the women of the IFP were indeed the backbone
that could not be broken.

I thank you for organising this meeting and I wish us all a successful
Women's Month.