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Date : 08/03/2006
Source: Ministry of Arts and Culture
Title: Jordan: International Women’s Day media briefing to launch 50th Anniversary of Women’s March


    Address by Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Z Pallo Jordan, on International Women’s Day media briefing to launch 50th Anniversary of Women’s March to Pretoria, Cape Town

Colleagues
Ladies and gentlemen of the media
Good morning!

“Freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression” (Former President Nelson Mandela at the opening of the first democratically elected parliament in South Africa on 24 May 1994)

Introduction

Today is International Women’s Day! Significantly, we have chosen this day to:

* mark International Women’s Day and
* to launch a year-long programme of action to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Women’s Anti-Pass March to Pretoria
* to acknowledge, highlight and celebrate women’s role and contribution to the struggle for emancipation and
* draw awareness to other significant anniversaries to be observed this year, which include the following:

Significant anniversaries and special projects:

* The centenary of the Poll Tax Uprising in 1906 (also known as the Bhambatha Rebellion)
* The 30th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising
* The 20th anniversary of the death of President Samora Machel in Mpumalanga
* The 100th Anniversary of Satyagraha
* 10th anniversary of the SA Constitution
* 10th anniversary of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC)
* 50th anniversary of the Treason Trial
* International Conference of African
Intellectuals co-sponsored with the Africa Institute of SA, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the Department of Communication (DOC)
* YMCA World Conference in July
* Closing Ceremony at the Soccer World Cup in Germany in June 2006

Role of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC)

Already, Cabinet has approved the establishment of an IMC to celebrate the events of 9 August 1956 and other anniversaries.)

The IMC is tasked with the responsibility to lead the celebration and commemoration of this significant and historical event. We have come up with an exciting and inspired programme of action. which will hopefully not only provide enough material for table discussions among all people but provide us with an opportunity to take a pause and look at ‘how far we have come’.

This year’s milestone events will, in its own unique way, reveal how our women’s struggles have shaped the content of our constitution.

The main objectives of the 50th Anniversary Campaign:

* To celebrate and honour the icons of the liberation struggle
* To acknowledge women’s role and contribution to freedom and democracy in South Africa
* To conscientise the nation that women should be treated fairly and embraced as an integral part of our political and economic activities
* To emphasise that the upliftment and empowerment of women is fundamental in strengthening our democracy
* To mobilise women towards a social movement that will transcend all boundaries and make a difference to the lives of women worldwide.

Programme of Action for 2006:

1. Parliamentary Debate - the icons of the liberation struggle have been invited to witness and experience a debate which focuses on the role of women in the struggle for freedom. This will run today from about 14h00 to 16h30.

2. Public Women’s Dialogue in Langa – We will host a public event to launch the year long programme at the Langa Multi-Purpose Sports Complex, Cape Town, to open the launch to the wider community. The activities will run from 16h00 to 20h00.

3. Campaign Logo: A special logo has been designed and developed for the campaign to give it a distinct identity and feel.

4. Consistent Theme: We have adopted the government’s over-arching theme, “Age of Hope: through Struggle to Freedom.”

5. Special National Orders Awards: it has been especially recommended to have a special award for women during the month of September.

6. Special Women’s website: We have created a special website that deals with government initiatives on gender and focusing on the activities for this year. Explore the possibility of making this a permanent website with links to other government websites as well as those that are independent of government.

7. Revival of Women’s Role in Struggle: The President Thabo Mbeki has emphasised the need to employ the year as a platform to establish/work towards a “South African Women’s Movement”. South Africa will host the Pan-African Women’s Organisation (PAWO) in July with a view to its re-launch. In that context, we are exploring possibilities to extend a special invitation to Africa’s first women head of state.

8. International Conference: Parliament will host an international women’s conference to coincide with the date of adoption of the Constitution by parliament in December 1996.

9. August 9th Culmination: Will restage a commemorative march of the 20 000-strong crowds which descended on the Union Buildings. This will by tele-linked to similar marches in the nine provincial capitals.

10. Divas concert: close to/as part of 9 August, mount a concert of South Africa’s divas, including all musical genres. Also, this cultural opportunity to explore the possibility of an inclusive hit/theme song for the year which can be performed collectively at the climax of the occasion.

11. Provincial concerts: provinces to mount concerts celebrating the women stalwarts of each province, employing talent from the province.

12. Bloemfontein Monument to Women: We will explore the possibility to re-vision the Bloemfontein monument to include the depiction of black women and children who died in the concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer War.

13. 16 Days of Activism: the theme and activities for this year’s programme will be closely aligned to Women’s March. Hopefully, there will be a specially staged visit to the National Women’s monument for fallen women. On the same day the women in the Free State could mount a special visit to the Women’s Monument in Bloemfontein.

14. Charlotte Maxeke Monument: She was pivotal, together with her husband, to the establishment of Wilberforce Institute in Evaton. It would be proper to erect a commemorative statue to her at or near the site and the rehabilitation of the institution itself. Her house in Kliptown might also be looked at as a possible museum or at least for a commemorative plaque.

15. Anti-Pass Museum in Welkom: We will investigate the possibility of a museum in Welkom, the site of 1913 Women’s Anti-Pass demonstrations.

16. Larger-than-Life Sculpture: We looking at commissioning Ms Noria Mabasa, South Africa’s foremost female sculptor, to do a major sculpture depicting the lives, the struggles and aspirations of South African women. This commission should be integrated with the project to establish a training workshop/centre for young sculptors attached to her studio.

17. Crafts Super-Market at Mhlambandlovu: Working on project to mount a crafts bazaar at the presidential residence/s to market the work of South African women crafters. This will be linked with the Department of Arts and Culture “Beautiful Things/Conran project” to gain access to international markets.

18. Book of Essays: A researcher will be commissioned to prepare a collection of essays depicting/discussing the role/position/life experience/struggles of women from the mid 19th century to the end of the 20th century.

19. Women’s Biographical Dictionary: There is a need to identify noteworthy South African women and compile their biographies into a single book. This project should consider translation into four African languages in addition to an English edition.

20. Memorial Lectures: Tertiary institutions will be tasked with responsibility to organise a series of memorial lectures on icons such as Lillian Ngoyi, Charlotte Maxeke (nee: Manye), Ruth First, Dora Tamane, Helen Joseph. These will likely take place in or around August.

21. Film and Documentaries: We have approached National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) for the production and flighting of documentary/ies on a few selected women figures.

22. Two conferences preferably after 9th August with the theme “Age of Hope: Through Struggle to Freedom.”
(a) General conference for women participants and discussants.
(b) Academic conference, led by women, but not exclusively, with a

23. Photography: Well-known photographer George Hallet has been commissioned to assemble and edit a collection of works by South African women photographers. The work will be solicited through advertisements in the print and the electronic media, networks of photographers and training programmes.

24. The Women’s Embroidery and Patchwork tapestry: A major competition will be mounted to execute a textile tapestry, either as patchwork or embroidery, with themes specific to the year.

25. Nine Provincial Tapestries: Each of the provinces will be encouraged to mount a competition among women in the province to produce tapestries depicting or commemorating the struggles/lives of women in the province.

26. Pottery Project: Mount a competition among potters, using the various projects the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) is involved in as our base.

27. Visual Arts Competition: visual artists will be invited to submit work – posters, commemorative paintings, portraits and other visual art products.

28. Poetry competition: A couple competitions will run simultaneously for women in High School and Tertiary institutions which will culminate in local, provincial and national poetry readings.

The government has tasked the Arts and Culture Department to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Women’s Anti-Pass March of August 1956. Cabinet has approved the establishment of an IMC, chaired by Minister Dr Z Pallo Jordan, to celebrate the events of 9 August 1956. Today, 8th March – International Women’s Day (IWD) – the Department of Arts and Culture is unveiling a year-long programme of action.

The first IWD was observed on 19 March 1911, in Germany, Austria, Denmark and a few other European countries. The German women chose that date because, on 19 March 1848, the Prussian king, faced with an armed uprising, had promised many reforms, including votes for women. Unfortunately, once he had regained his confidence he reneged on that promise. In 1908 there was a call made to designate a day to campaign for Votes for Women. 8th March was chosen in 1913 after the “Bread and Roses” Strike of United States (US) Women workers in New England.

Passes and pass laws have a long and brutal history in South Africa beginning in 1760 when the first “pass laws” were introduced and applied to slaves in the Cape. In 1809, the British Governor of the Cape passed a law that required all ‘Hottentots,’ including women, to live in one place. In order to move from one location to another, they would require a “pass.” After that slaves as well as free people of colour were required to carry a pass.

By 1827, all Africans who came into the colony from outside the Cape were required to have a “pass”. These laws and statutes were extended to the rest of South Africa as White occupation and government extended further inland to engulf the highveld and the coastal regions of Natal.

After the opening of the diamond mines in Kimberley, the so-called White “Diggers Democracy”, forced the government of the Cape colony to exclude all Africans from the diamond fields unless they has a valid pass indicating that they worked for a White employer. The same “digger’s democracy” also demanded and was accommodated by the government to disallow anyone who was not White from prospecting or mining diamonds.

By the turn of the 20th Century, all African males living and working outside designated “Native reserves” was required to carry a pass. Usually these were a number of documents indicating permission to move from a place of residence to a work centre; permission to seek work in a designated area; evidence of gainful employment in that designated area; receipts for a number of taxes levied exclusively on African males – usually a hut tax and a poll tax; permission to be abroad in the city after sunset.

Passes were an instrument of control not only of the movement of African males but also the means by which the African peasant was impressed into the modern labour force. In 1923 a commission established by the city of Johannesburg, under a civil servant, Stallard, ruled that Africans were not and would not be regarded as permanent residents of the urban areas. All Africans would be treated a temporary sojourners who had come to the urban areas to seek work or in the indelicate words of the commission – “to minister to the needs of the Whiteman” and would henceforth be required to depart from such urban areas once they ceased to “so minister”. This was the inspiration of the Urban Areas Act, in terms of which all Africans, no matter where they lived, no matter how long they had lived in a town or city, were defined as temporary sojourners. In the spirit of these laws, Africans would be confined to specially built locations, apart from the rest of the city and entry and exit from these would be controlled by state officials.

Carrying a “pass” symbolised the political and social inferior status of Africans. It was the “badge of slavery”. All African men, with the exception of a handful, referred to as “exempted Natives”, were required to carry them and had to produce them for inspection on demand by police or other authorized state officials. Failure to produce the pass, or if any of the documents was in anyway found faulty, resulted in arrest and imprisonment. Thus annually, thousands of African men were criminalised.

African women were not required to carry passes until the Administrator of the Orange Free State sought to extend these laws to them in 1912. Thus in March 1912 the “Native and Coloured” women in Orange Free State (OFS) Province were sent a petition to Prime Minister Louis Botha appealing for redress. Botha did not have the courage to face them. Instead, the delegation of six women from Bloemfontein was directed to meet with the then Minister of “Native” Affairs, Henry Burton, to whom they handed a petition bearing 5000 signatures, demanding that Parliament repeal the pass laws ordinance of the OFS.

Government’s failure to respond sparked a defiance campaign that led to the arrest of hundreds of women in Jagersfontein, Winburg and Bloemfontein. During their demonstrations the women fought with police and shouted slogans. Faced with the determined resistance of the African women of the OFS, the administrator relented. In 1919 the ordinance was allowed to lapse.

Today, 8 March 2006, International Women’s Day, the Government is marking the commencement of a year long programme commemorating the 50th anniversary of Women’s Anti-Pass March to Pretoria, to highlight, acknowledge and celebrate the role of Women in the struggle for freedom and democracy.

They have provided the power, inspiration and determination to attain a new society.

Numerous women are important symbols of that contribution. It is unfortunate that legendary women leaders like the Charlotte Manye-Maxeke, Madie Hall-Xuma, Cissy Gool, Ray Alexander Simons, Winifred Siqwana, Ida Mntwana, Dora Tamana and Annie Silinga, to name a few, unlike their male counterparts are not house-hold names. No monuments have yet been erected to honour their memory. But their courage, resilience and spirit of self-sacrifice is known to all serious students of history and the politically informed.

After the National Party came into office in 1948, one of the priority items on its agenda was the re-introduction of passes for African women. Moving with very deliberate speed, they drafted legislation in the early 1950’s. In 1952, in what can only be described as an act of outright cynicism, they passed the “Native Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents Act”. Contrary to what its name suggests, this law did not put an end to passes, Instead it created the “Dompas” or Reference Book, a personal dossier that every adult African would be required to carry, containing a variety of permits – to move from one place to another in search of work; a permit indicating paid employment; a permit to reside in an urban area; the carrier’s employment record; tax receipts; any records of arrest; etc. Thus began the extension of the pass laws to African women, which would come into force in 1955.

Resistance was instant. Lilian Ngoyi explained the response of the women: “Men are born into the system and it is as if it has been a life tradition that they carry passes. We as women have seen the treatment our men have, when they leave home in the morning you are not sure they will come back. We are taking it very seriously. If the husband is to be arrested and the mother, what about the child?”

The militancy displayed by the women surpassed all expectations! In rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal open rebellion and armed incidents took place; in the North West Province there were outbreaks of rebellious activity as the opposition to the law took root. In Limpopo province the resistance to the pass laws meshed with resistance to the Bantu Authorities Act.

The highpoint was the massive demonstration by women in Pretoria, on 9th August 1956. Despite the resistance, the NP government brutally enforced the pass laws with the same rigour applicable to men. It took three more decades of struggle to have these obnoxious laws stricken from the statute books.

Our Constitution enshrines a culture of Human Rights which has put the country on the right course. In South Africa Women have the same rights as men. However, the struggle of South African women for their rightful place in the country still has many obstacles to overcome. These include outdated laws from the days of apartheid that specifically discriminate against African women; patriarchal attitudes and values from a by gone age that regard women as perpetual minors; attitudes that still privilege the boy child at the expense of the girl child; etc. Poverty in South Africa is both racialised and feminised, with African and Coloured women invariably being the least empowered, least educated and consequently the poorest.

Although much progress has been made since 1994, there is still a long way to go before South African women feel truly safe and appreciated. The democratic government has sought many symbolic ways of acknowledging and recognising the role and contribution of women in society. The challenge is to transform that into everyday realities in the experience of the Women of our country.

Issued by: Ministry of Arts and Culture
8 March 2006
   

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