Date: 24/09/2003
Source: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Title: Mahlangu: Heritage Day Celebrations
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MPUMALANGA PREMIER, NJ MAHLANGU, AT THE HERITAGE CELEBRATIONS, Vukuzakhe Stadium, Volksrust, 24 September 2003
Programme Director
MEC Sibongile Manana
And other members of the Provincial Executive Council
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Executive Mayor Busi Mdluli
And other mayors present here today
Councillors
Ladies and gentlemen
More than a century and twenty years ago, a weary group of Boer soldiers came to rest on these plains after the Battle of Majuba. They took a break here on what was then Rooibult while the officers were signing the Peace Treaty negotiations. Because a nation came to this place to rest, it is today called Volksrust. The African language-speaking people of this country have adapted the name to Vogros - thus retaining the sanctity and identity of what is to the Afrikaner people an important place and heritage site.
It is particularly important that we gather here in this historic town on such an important day - Heritage Day. All of us agree that Heritage Day is a powerful agent for promulgating a South African identity, fostering reconciliation and promoting the notion that variety is a national asset as opposed to igniting conflict.
Our first democratic government had the foresight of making Heritage Day one of our national days. Government had foresight because we knew that our rich and varied cultural heritage has a profound power to help build our new nation. Indeed government did so knowing that the struggles against the injustice and inequities of the past are part of our national identity - they are part of our culture. We knew that, if indeed our nation has to rise like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes of division and conflict, we had to acknowledge those whose selfless efforts and talents were dedicated to this goal of non-racial democracy.
That is why each September all of us pause to renew our commitment to and rededicate ourselves to the values that we hold dear and which bind us together as enshrined in our Constitution. It is also a time to acknowledge and appreciate our national symbols like the flag, the national anthem and the coat of arms. These symbols represent our national identity, and each one of us should be proud to be part of such a great nation.
How many of us know that the national flower is the protea; that the springbok is the national animal; that the yellowwood is the national tree; that the galjoen is the national fish and the national bird is the blue crane? These are the symbols we should at al times hold dear to our hearts and which we should promote in our schools, our churches, our offices and in our homes.
As we enter the final months before the 10th anniversary of our democracy, we do so under the full knowledge that we are a proud and different nation. No more the chains of slavery - no more the pain and hardships of apartheid rule. As a people we have begun to emerge into a nation confident of itself, aware of its immense possibilities. We are a people prepared to do extra-ordinary things to attain the goal that comes from creating a better quality of life for all.
Our freedom has made it possible for us to reclaim our history. A history we are proud of. The victory that we have scored against apartheid has laid the firm basis for all the people of South Africa to unite across colour, language, ethnic and religious barriers. It has launched us on the course of realising our true potential.
We are a nation of diverse people and like beads we have realised that unless we are strung together, our beauty and resilience will not stand out. As Ndebele-speaking people we have those things that make us uniquely Ndebele. As Afrikaners we have things that make us true Afrikaners. But it is a melting of all these different qualities without losing or shedding one's identity that makes us uniquely South African. That is why today we are able to celebrate as South Africans regardless of whether we are Jewish, Portuguese, Tsonga, Swazi or Shangaan.
Before 1994 we were a country divided as those who thought they would rule over us forever sought to exploit our differences and using these to keep us apart and at war with each other. How many times would we hear how a certain tribe was made up of thieves and that tribe was more intelligent than the others? We have come a long way since 1994. In the past nine years we have laid a firm foundation for our non-racial, non-sexist democracy.
Today we meet here to celebrate our South Africanness. And we do so as peace-loving people and as democrats - all of us. As true patriots whose commitment to the defence and advancement of democracy was born out of the crucible of struggle. It is our task to make the most of our freedom, to entrench it in our new epoch as a fundamental and a permanent feature of our very existence.
Ladies and gentlemen, as we gather here today to celebrate, the challenges facing all of us is to contribute to a complete and rounded picture of this celebration and others we will hold. Certainly that complete and rounded perspective cannot be contained only in political speeches, song, dance, poetry and in the construction of monuments. An integral element of the celebration is that we should feel the greater need, now more than before, to educate ourselves and the world about who we really are.
It is only by understanding this that we can be forewarned and forearmed about the challenges that lie ahead in our effort to construct a better country and province. Only this experience can prepare us to be a nation of sages, statesman and stateswomen who can inspire others and help solve problems besetting our province and country.
The challenge to all of us is to ensure that we celebrate in all our languages. We must develop a way in which our languages can, through the process, further grow and flourish. So that our experience can be recorded in many different ways, many different voices. Contributing to a national convention without anyone of us feeling we are not of the collective experience.
These celebrations, this Heritage Day cultural festival must add value to our task of forging our nationhood. It should help us to display to other nations of the world, as well as to ourselves, our capacity to give humanity what is proudly the product of the composite effort of all our people.
Those who came before us laid the foundation for the better life we are all working for. For that we will be forever grateful. This, however, is not an occasion for us simply to congratulate ourselves. There are also challenges we must face. Our resolve to preserve our culture and keep our heritage sites for our children and their children remains unshakeable.
The people of Volksrust and the province must be involved in whatever we do here today. They should rightfully see this celebration, our culture, as their heritage to preserve for future generations. Local and provincial government must also be involved.
Tourism forms part of our strategy for sustained economic growth and development. Already more than a million tourists visit our province annually. There are many beautiful and interesting places here and elsewhere. We have a number of historical sites in this area. We have the Battlefields Route, the Convention Bridge, Amajuba Mountain, Concentration Camp Monument and graves and the prison where Mahatma Ghandi was held.
Tourists can come here for bird watching and there are beautiful hiking trails. We also offer paragliding in these parts of the province. We have the Sungazer Game Reserve next to Majuba Power Station. We must therefore adopt a professional approach, upgrade skills of employees and market ourselves aggressively. If approached within the framework of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, these efforts will make a significant contribution to bringing a better life for all.
Not only will tourism play its part in generating provincial economic growth. More directly, it will help improve the living standards of rural communities. We need, as a nation, to take stock of what we have accomplished and what still needs to be done in preserving our heritage and rewriting our history.
Our success as a nation depends, in no small measures on the conservation of our heritage sites and the preservation of our culture. It demands conditions in which every sector of society can join hands to make a unique treasure accessible to our nation and its visitors, and to ensure that future generations will have the same privilege.
Programme Directors, we have emerged from a past signified by disunity. We are now prepared to stand together to work for a better life for all. Yes, there is a new revolution of the spirit and mind. A journey to a new age and a new partnership. But we cannot claim that everything is okay. At the end of a decade of freedom many of our people in this province continue to be immersed in poverty.
They still continue to lose their lives as a result of preventable diseases, including AIDS. Millions of families cannot feed themselves because they have no jobs and no land they can till. Many are on a daily basis subjected to inhuman treatment at the hands of some people who still consider blacks as less than human.
Not far from here are farmers who still treat their dogs better than they treat their tenants. They subject them to the most inhuman forms of torture and exploitation. Where is their morality? What has happened to our sense of shame and guilt? The world is very different now. We hold in our mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty.
In the same way that we fought encroaching colonialism and finally buried apartheid, we must intensify our battle against poverty, hunger and disease. We must be driven by the same spirit that made Bambata ka Makhwatha declare that no passes for his people. The same sense of patriotic duty that drove Shaka, Moshoeshoe, Hintsa, Makana, Nghunghunyana, Mswati, Mabhoko, Nyabela - all our great heroes to take up arms in defence of their dignity as humans.
Our heroes believed - as we do - that the rights of people come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of those brave heroes. Let everyone know that the torch has been passed to a new generation of South Africans. Born into the struggle for human dignity. Tempered by racism and apartheid. Disciplined by the belief that we always knew that what we are fighting for is just. It is right.
My special pledge today - yes the pledge of the government I lead and that of the organisation that groomed me - we shall not fail our people. We will indeed convert our good words into good deeds to ensure that our people cast off the chains of poverty.
Finally, to those who sought to vilify us, we offer a request. Let us start anew and work towards making Mpumalanga the province it should be. Let us explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems, which divide us. Since that first day on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein, each generation of South Africans has been summoned to give testimony to defend democracy.
Now the trumpet summons us again to join the struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself. We can only do so if we defend our democracy. That is why I urge all of us who are of voting age to get out there and vote. But remember you cannot vote unless you have an Identity Document (ID). So go out and get your ID and register as a voter. On voting day you know what to do.
In the meantime, let us roll up our sleeves and get down to work.
I thank you.
Issued by: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
24 September 2003
Source: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Title: Mahlangu: Heritage Day Celebrations
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MPUMALANGA PREMIER, NJ MAHLANGU, AT THE HERITAGE CELEBRATIONS, Vukuzakhe Stadium, Volksrust, 24 September 2003
Programme Director
MEC Sibongile Manana
And other members of the Provincial Executive Council
Members of the Provincial Legislature
Executive Mayor Busi Mdluli
And other mayors present here today
Councillors
Ladies and gentlemen
More than a century and twenty years ago, a weary group of Boer soldiers came to rest on these plains after the Battle of Majuba. They took a break here on what was then Rooibult while the officers were signing the Peace Treaty negotiations. Because a nation came to this place to rest, it is today called Volksrust. The African language-speaking people of this country have adapted the name to Vogros - thus retaining the sanctity and identity of what is to the Afrikaner people an important place and heritage site.
It is particularly important that we gather here in this historic town on such an important day - Heritage Day. All of us agree that Heritage Day is a powerful agent for promulgating a South African identity, fostering reconciliation and promoting the notion that variety is a national asset as opposed to igniting conflict.
Our first democratic government had the foresight of making Heritage Day one of our national days. Government had foresight because we knew that our rich and varied cultural heritage has a profound power to help build our new nation. Indeed government did so knowing that the struggles against the injustice and inequities of the past are part of our national identity - they are part of our culture. We knew that, if indeed our nation has to rise like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes of division and conflict, we had to acknowledge those whose selfless efforts and talents were dedicated to this goal of non-racial democracy.
That is why each September all of us pause to renew our commitment to and rededicate ourselves to the values that we hold dear and which bind us together as enshrined in our Constitution. It is also a time to acknowledge and appreciate our national symbols like the flag, the national anthem and the coat of arms. These symbols represent our national identity, and each one of us should be proud to be part of such a great nation.
How many of us know that the national flower is the protea; that the springbok is the national animal; that the yellowwood is the national tree; that the galjoen is the national fish and the national bird is the blue crane? These are the symbols we should at al times hold dear to our hearts and which we should promote in our schools, our churches, our offices and in our homes.
As we enter the final months before the 10th anniversary of our democracy, we do so under the full knowledge that we are a proud and different nation. No more the chains of slavery - no more the pain and hardships of apartheid rule. As a people we have begun to emerge into a nation confident of itself, aware of its immense possibilities. We are a people prepared to do extra-ordinary things to attain the goal that comes from creating a better quality of life for all.
Our freedom has made it possible for us to reclaim our history. A history we are proud of. The victory that we have scored against apartheid has laid the firm basis for all the people of South Africa to unite across colour, language, ethnic and religious barriers. It has launched us on the course of realising our true potential.
We are a nation of diverse people and like beads we have realised that unless we are strung together, our beauty and resilience will not stand out. As Ndebele-speaking people we have those things that make us uniquely Ndebele. As Afrikaners we have things that make us true Afrikaners. But it is a melting of all these different qualities without losing or shedding one's identity that makes us uniquely South African. That is why today we are able to celebrate as South Africans regardless of whether we are Jewish, Portuguese, Tsonga, Swazi or Shangaan.
Before 1994 we were a country divided as those who thought they would rule over us forever sought to exploit our differences and using these to keep us apart and at war with each other. How many times would we hear how a certain tribe was made up of thieves and that tribe was more intelligent than the others? We have come a long way since 1994. In the past nine years we have laid a firm foundation for our non-racial, non-sexist democracy.
Today we meet here to celebrate our South Africanness. And we do so as peace-loving people and as democrats - all of us. As true patriots whose commitment to the defence and advancement of democracy was born out of the crucible of struggle. It is our task to make the most of our freedom, to entrench it in our new epoch as a fundamental and a permanent feature of our very existence.
Ladies and gentlemen, as we gather here today to celebrate, the challenges facing all of us is to contribute to a complete and rounded picture of this celebration and others we will hold. Certainly that complete and rounded perspective cannot be contained only in political speeches, song, dance, poetry and in the construction of monuments. An integral element of the celebration is that we should feel the greater need, now more than before, to educate ourselves and the world about who we really are.
It is only by understanding this that we can be forewarned and forearmed about the challenges that lie ahead in our effort to construct a better country and province. Only this experience can prepare us to be a nation of sages, statesman and stateswomen who can inspire others and help solve problems besetting our province and country.
The challenge to all of us is to ensure that we celebrate in all our languages. We must develop a way in which our languages can, through the process, further grow and flourish. So that our experience can be recorded in many different ways, many different voices. Contributing to a national convention without anyone of us feeling we are not of the collective experience.
These celebrations, this Heritage Day cultural festival must add value to our task of forging our nationhood. It should help us to display to other nations of the world, as well as to ourselves, our capacity to give humanity what is proudly the product of the composite effort of all our people.
Those who came before us laid the foundation for the better life we are all working for. For that we will be forever grateful. This, however, is not an occasion for us simply to congratulate ourselves. There are also challenges we must face. Our resolve to preserve our culture and keep our heritage sites for our children and their children remains unshakeable.
The people of Volksrust and the province must be involved in whatever we do here today. They should rightfully see this celebration, our culture, as their heritage to preserve for future generations. Local and provincial government must also be involved.
Tourism forms part of our strategy for sustained economic growth and development. Already more than a million tourists visit our province annually. There are many beautiful and interesting places here and elsewhere. We have a number of historical sites in this area. We have the Battlefields Route, the Convention Bridge, Amajuba Mountain, Concentration Camp Monument and graves and the prison where Mahatma Ghandi was held.
Tourists can come here for bird watching and there are beautiful hiking trails. We also offer paragliding in these parts of the province. We have the Sungazer Game Reserve next to Majuba Power Station. We must therefore adopt a professional approach, upgrade skills of employees and market ourselves aggressively. If approached within the framework of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, these efforts will make a significant contribution to bringing a better life for all.
Not only will tourism play its part in generating provincial economic growth. More directly, it will help improve the living standards of rural communities. We need, as a nation, to take stock of what we have accomplished and what still needs to be done in preserving our heritage and rewriting our history.
Our success as a nation depends, in no small measures on the conservation of our heritage sites and the preservation of our culture. It demands conditions in which every sector of society can join hands to make a unique treasure accessible to our nation and its visitors, and to ensure that future generations will have the same privilege.
Programme Directors, we have emerged from a past signified by disunity. We are now prepared to stand together to work for a better life for all. Yes, there is a new revolution of the spirit and mind. A journey to a new age and a new partnership. But we cannot claim that everything is okay. At the end of a decade of freedom many of our people in this province continue to be immersed in poverty.
They still continue to lose their lives as a result of preventable diseases, including AIDS. Millions of families cannot feed themselves because they have no jobs and no land they can till. Many are on a daily basis subjected to inhuman treatment at the hands of some people who still consider blacks as less than human.
Not far from here are farmers who still treat their dogs better than they treat their tenants. They subject them to the most inhuman forms of torture and exploitation. Where is their morality? What has happened to our sense of shame and guilt? The world is very different now. We hold in our mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty.
In the same way that we fought encroaching colonialism and finally buried apartheid, we must intensify our battle against poverty, hunger and disease. We must be driven by the same spirit that made Bambata ka Makhwatha declare that no passes for his people. The same sense of patriotic duty that drove Shaka, Moshoeshoe, Hintsa, Makana, Nghunghunyana, Mswati, Mabhoko, Nyabela - all our great heroes to take up arms in defence of their dignity as humans.
Our heroes believed - as we do - that the rights of people come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of those brave heroes. Let everyone know that the torch has been passed to a new generation of South Africans. Born into the struggle for human dignity. Tempered by racism and apartheid. Disciplined by the belief that we always knew that what we are fighting for is just. It is right.
My special pledge today - yes the pledge of the government I lead and that of the organisation that groomed me - we shall not fail our people. We will indeed convert our good words into good deeds to ensure that our people cast off the chains of poverty.
Finally, to those who sought to vilify us, we offer a request. Let us start anew and work towards making Mpumalanga the province it should be. Let us explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring those problems, which divide us. Since that first day on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein, each generation of South Africans has been summoned to give testimony to defend democracy.
Now the trumpet summons us again to join the struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself. We can only do so if we defend our democracy. That is why I urge all of us who are of voting age to get out there and vote. But remember you cannot vote unless you have an Identity Document (ID). So go out and get your ID and register as a voter. On voting day you know what to do.
In the meantime, let us roll up our sleeves and get down to work.
I thank you.
Issued by: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
24 September 2003
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