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Date
: 20/03/2004
Source: The Presidency
Title: T Mbeki: Inaugural Albert Luthuli Lecture
INAUGURAL ALBERT LUTHULI LECTURE BY THE PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA,
THABO MBEKI, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 20 March 2004
Interim Chairperson of the Council, Dr Vincent Maphai
Interim Vice-Chancellor, Professor Makgoba
Deputy Minister Sonjica
Members of the Luthuli family
Professors and lecturers, students and workers
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen.
THE TEMPO QUICKENS!
In the postscript to his book, "Let my People Go", Albert Luthuli
writes about the momentous events of the late 1950's and early
1960's, and about the atrocious conditions under which Africans
worked in the then Eastern Transvaal where every year, Africans who
had been arrested as Pass offenders, were carted out of jail and
forced to harvest potatoes with their bare hands under the regular
whip lashes of both the white farmers and their 'baas-boys' and
made to live in filthy hovels.
AJ Luthuli says their diet "is unmentionable, a good deal worse
than prison fare for Africans - why keep them alive when there are
more where they came from? 'Inspection' amounts to a call on the
white farmer, and a little chat over coffee on the stoep. Murders,
the result of prolonged beatings and semi-starvation, or of sudden
fits of anger, are committed". (P195, Published by Fontana Books,
1962)
In the face of the criminal alliance between the apartheid state,
the police and farmers, that led to these terrible conditions, the
ANC initiated the Potato Boycott, which served as a stimulus for
other mass actions against a whole range of oppressive measures and
mobilising the mass of the people of this country from Pondoland to
Sekhukhuniland, from Zeerust to Alexandra Township and here in
KwaZulu-Natal.
This momentum continued into 1960 and beyond, when resistance and
defiance defined the lives of our people throughout our
country.
Having observed the determination and fortitude of his people in
the face of brutal force, and having realised that the struggle for
freedom had gathered the necessary speed, Albert Luthuli entitled
his article commenting on these events, "The Tempo Quickens!"
I have therefore given this lecture the same title, to pay tribute
to this great African leader on the occasion of the posthumous
conferral of an honorary Doctorate of Laws. We wish to take
advantage of this solemn moment to report to him and other heroes
and heroines, that after 10 years of the final defeat of
colonialism and white minority domination on our continent, we are
determined to quicken the tempo as we work to eradicate the legacy
of the defeated double-headed monster, colonialism and apartheid,
transforming this land of Albert Luthuli into a non-racial,
non-sexist and prosperous society.
I am therefore honoured to deliver this inaugural Albert Luthuli
Lecture, to speak about an outstanding patriot whose life and
principled commitment to the struggle for liberation should serve
as an example to all of us as we engage the difficult and
challenging task of translating his vision for his people and
continent into reality.
But before we speak of these obstacles and the tempo that has
accelerated at a very fast pace, let us make a brief return to a
time more than a century ago, when Albert Luthuli came into this
world.
Albert Luthuli was born in 1898, near Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. His
father was a Seventh Day Adventist evangelist and interpreter in
its Bulawayo mission. He was born during a century defined by the
colonial subjugation of Africa by European powers during the
so-called Scramble for Africa, and its infamous Berlin Conference
of 1884-1885, where German Chancellor Bismarck presided over a
cabal of representatives of the powerful European states as they
distributed Africa among themselves as colonies to which they
believed they were entitled.
Adam Hochschild has observed in his book, "King Leopold's Ghost",
that: "The Berlin Conference was the ultimate expression of an age
whose newfound enthusiasm for democracy had clear limits, and
slaughtered game had no vote.
Even John Stuart Mill, the great philosopher of human freedom, had
written, in On Liberty, 'Despotism is a legitimate mode of
government in dealing with barbarism, provided the end be their
improvement'."
Hochschild then says of Bismarck's conference that: "Not a single
African was at the table in Berlin."
Of course, to those gathered at the Berlin Conference, they would
have seen Africans as slaughtered game that was already on the
table, the barbarians who, according to John Stuart Mill, must, for
the greater good, be subjected to despotic rule.
Because most of those gathered at the Berlin conference had never
set foot on the African continent, they arbitrarily divided
territories with scant regard to historical, national, cultural,
linguistic and religious ties, thus planting some of the poisonous
seeds that were to germinate into deadly disputes and conflicts in
the post-colonial Africa.
Bismarck's guests partitioned a continent they did not know in the
manner observed by historian Michael L McNulty when he said of this
ignorance of Africa:
"A general lack of knowledge and frequent misunderstanding of the
continent characterised European thought for centuries. In many of
the early accounts and accompanying maps, scholars employed an
ingenious cartographic device in an attempt to cover up gaps in
their knowledge. This practice is characterised in a rhyme by Swift
written in the early eighteen century:
So geographers in Afric maps
With savage pictures fill the gaps
And o'r unhabitable downs
Placed elephants for want of towns."
(P10, Africa -Third Edition, edited by Phyllis M Martin and Patrick
O'Meara, Published by Indiana University Press, 1995)
By the end of the 19th century, when Albert Luthuli was born, the
whole of Africa, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, was
under different European colonial powers, despite the heroic
struggles of Africans everywhere to defend their independence,
fighting against the superior arms of the colonial invaders.
During these struggles to subjugate the barbarians, to use JS
Mills' nomenclature, our people experienced the barbarism of those
who called themselves civilised, that was later expressed in a
different form in the potato farms of the Eastern Transvaal.
For instance, during the colonial wars in our country, one
war-obsessed English adventurer, Stephen Lakeman, gave his services
to the British colonial rulers in the Cape. The historian Noel
Mostert explains one of the grisly activities of Lakeman and the
British imperial army, quoting from an account recorded during
those years:
"One of his (Lakeman's men) carried under his jacket a broken
reaping-hook to cut the throats of the women and children we had
been taken prisoner on our night expeditions. Lakeman, who carried
a small copper vat with him for his 'Matutinal tubbing', found on
one occasion that it had been commandeered by the surgeon of the
60th,, the Royal American Regiment, who, for scientific interest,
was boiling about two dozen Xhosa heads, which had been collected
by Lakeman's own men."
Lakeman commented that: "(The colonial army) turned my vat into a
caldron for the removal of superfluous flesh. And there these men
sat, gravely smoking their pipes during the live-long night, and
stirring round and round the heads in that seething boiler, as
though they were cooking black-apple dumplings." (P1153, Frontiers,
Published by Jonathan Cape, 1992)
Undoubtedly, in the course of our long struggle for freedom here at
home, in Africa and elsewhere, we have seen how those who engage in
such indecent acts become, themselves, debased; and those who
condone and justify inhuman behaviour also become debauched, ending
up as demented souls.
Delivering the Nobel Lecture at the Oslo University in December of
1961, Albert Luthuli said:
"But beneath the surface (of political oppression) there is a
spirit of defiance. The people of South Africa have never been a
docile lot, least of all the African people. We have a long
tradition of struggle for our national rights, reaching back to the
very beginnings of white settlement and conquest 300 years
ago."
He continues that:
"Our history is one of opposition to domination, of protest and
refusal to submit to tyranny. Consider some of our great names; the
great warrior and nation-builder Shaka, who welded tribes into the
Zulu nation from which I spring; Moshoeshoe, the statesman and
nation builder who fathered the Basotho nation and placed
Basotholand beyond the reach of the claws of the South African
whites; Hintsa of the Xhosas who chose death rather surrender his
territory to white invaders. All these and other royal names, as
well as other great chieftains, resisted manfully white
intrusion."
(P117, Luthuli - Speeches of Chief Albert John Luthuli, published
by Madiba Publishers, 1991)
Luthuli was referring to many heroic struggles of our forbearers,
that must remain in our collective memory, and from which we should
always draw strength as we face obstacles to our efforts to
transform South Africa into a country that Luthuli lived and died
for - a democratic, united, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous
society.
These struggles helped to form the consciousness that made Albert
Luthuli one of our foremost leaders whose life experience and
tireless work for our liberation is replete with inspiring
wisdom.
During their advance to occupy the whole of the then Transvaal, in
1867, the Afrikaners attacked the Venda people but were defeated by
King Makhado's army. However, they returned later in 1898, to
defeat Makhado's successor, King Mphephu, who fled across the
Limpopo River into Zimbabwe. (P131, Paul Maylam)
As King Mphephu and some of his people fled into Zimbabwe in 1898,
Albert Luthuli was born in that country.
We have recalled our glorious history of resistance in this
lecture, not merely for the fact that it preceded and coincided
with the birth of Albert Luthuli towards the end of the 19th
century, but because these historical events formed his political
consciousness and inspired him to lofty achievements. We celebrate
them on this occasion because I am confident that by always
remembering this rich history of our people, we would, like
Luthuli, be further motivated to persist in our efforts as we face
the many and varied challenges that confront us.
Indeed, like Luthuli, we should do our work driven by the spirit of
defiance, which says that however intractable the challenges may
be, we come from those who have never been a docile lot.
We are descendents of those who see a setback and not a defeat, and
accordingly use such reverses as an opportunity to learn, to go
back to the planning room and rectify mistakes and shortcomings,
emerging stronger.
Throughout our history of struggle, of which AJ Luthuli was such a
towering giant, we experienced many of these setbacks, but always
learned valuable lessons that made the titanic movement that
Luthuli and others embody, a force that boldly and squarely faced
any and all problems.
Indeed, today we walk in the firm footprints of men and women who
did not seek instant success, who did not flinch in the face of
seemingly insurmountable difficulties. These truly heroic people
that gave us the gift of Albert Luthuli, live by the injunction
aptly expressed by Amilcar Cabral, not to claim easy
victories!
Until his untimely and mysterious death on the 21 July 1967, AJ
Luthuli dedicated his life to the achievement of freedom for his
people.
Drawing inspiration from the philosophical principles of his
organisation, the ANC, the general moral traditional African
teachings and the prescriptions of the Christian faith, he became
the living embodiment of moral rectitude in public life, in
governance and in inter-racial relations.
These ideals, he neither doubted nor renounced, even in the face of
unrelenting pressure and harassment from the Apartheid regime, bent
on circumscribing his public life and thereby muzzling him by wave
upon wave of house arrests and banning orders.
Accordingly, the practical leadership qualities of Albert Luthuli
have had an indelible impact on the entire membership of his
organisation, the ANC, as well as many other South Africans who
were privileged to be acquainted with his work.
His unshakeable belief in the correctness of the struggle for
equality among all the people, irrespective of race, gave him
strength as he confronted the mounting challenges in the struggle
against apartheid tyranny. In this regard, Albert Luthuli was not
prepared to let his people engage in any form of struggle in which
he himself was not prepared to participate.
Thus, it was under his leadership that the masses of this country
engaged in many acts of struggle including the Defiance Campaign,
the fight against Bantu education, the drafting and adoption of the
Freedom Charter, the anti-pass campaigns, and others.
Today, we are privileged to say that after 10 years of the
democracy that Luthuli fought so hard to achieve, we have made some
progress in realising the ideals which defined his life and for
which he worked for so many years. With regard to meeting the
challenges that we face, we must together with our people ensure
that The Tempo Quickens!
We say The Tempo Quickens because if we had a way of communicating
with Albert Luthuli, we would report that together we have
traversed the Valley of a Thousand Hills and heard the echo of the
joy and the pain of its inhabitants. We have trudged the dry earth
of Ga-Sekhukhune and felt the hope of a rich harvest that will
come. We have walked the pathways of Orange Farm and the winding
roads of Sterkspruit and seen the aspirations of a community rise
above the dust of despair.
And because of this we dare say: The Tempo Quickens!
From the polished floors of the Johannesburg Securities Exchange
and the shiny windows of Die Groote Kerk in Cape Town; from the
creative and vivacious minds of the pupils throughout KwaZulu
Natal; from the flowers of hope in the spring of an otherwise dry
Karoo and from the courage to dare the elements and prosper in the
plains of the Free State, together we have seen the glory of a
nation being born.
Having observed all this, in this, our decade's journey, we dare to
ask, as Pablo Neruda did of The Men:
The era's beginning: are these ruined shacks, these poor schools,
these people still in rags and tatters,
this cloddish insecurity of my poor families, is all this the day?
The century's beginning, the golden door?
Having seen all of this, we dare to note, as Pablo Neruda did about
The Other Men:
I breathe at ease
in the fiscal garden of this century
that finally is a great big current account
in which I am creditor by luck of the draw
Thanks to investment and intrigue
we will sanitise this era
no colonial wars will bear
this infamous name, so often repeated,
the democratic bulldozer
will take charge of the new dictionary:
this 2000 is beautiful, just like 1000:
the three identical zeros defend us
against all unnecessary insurrection.
These Men (and Women), and these Other Men (and Women) of whom
Neruda spoke, inhabit the two Worlds that we are condemned by
history to forge into one: One Nation in One South Africa with One
Economy; One World with the millennial glory of an Africa
reborn.
You, as leading minds in our country, are called upon to answer the
question whether we are indeed bridging this chasm, building one
nation out of disparate and conflicting pasts. It behoves us to
answer this question honestly, and distinguish ourselves from Pablo
Neruda's Heavenly Poets who did nothing in the face of poverty,
who:
Without seeing that the stones are in agony,
without defending, without conquering,
blinder than the wreaths
in the cemetery when the rain
falls on the motionless
rotten flowers on the tomb
did nothing to respond to the agony of the living.
10 years into our nation's liberation we cannot afford to answer
the question - are we bridging this chasm - in the negative, for we
would not deserve the seats that we occupy in these lecture rooms.
Nor can we answer that we have succeeded, for we should know that
the hope that lives in the future that is yet to emerge fully from
a troubled past.
Our confidence is about a journey started, a future whose
foundation has been laid, a palpable determination to act together
and give birth to a better life for all.
Accordingly, we say The Tempo Quickens!
We say The Tempo Quickens because we have followed the trail of the
journey of the heroic men women of South Africa, such as Albert
Luthuli. And that journey tells of a constitution and laws that
bestow freedom upon all of us. It tells of growing equity in the
professions and management of our society, of the presence of all
our people in our law-making chambers, of a new army of builders
made up of black and white South Africans.
These developments constitute a story that tells of a day no longer
occupied by the long walk of the hewers of wood and drawers of
water. They tell of darkness defeated in an electrified home, of
better education for the girl-child, and better opportunities
opening up for many.
Their own experience tells of the emerging possibility for the
children to play together in their diversity with gay abandon in
the African sun, to learn, to sing, to laugh and to cry - simply to
be children, in a society in which dreams justifiably demand
practical expression.
As these children grow to become youth, the myriad of possibilities
that come with freedom are starting to flower.
In this, our decade's journey, we have sought to ensure that "these
people still in rags and tatters", do indeed experience an
improving quality of life.
Having had the opportunity to engage in many debates about this and
that policy and even dining with those who had good reason to claim
South Africa and the world as their oyster, I am certain we often
wondered whether some among us are The Other Men of whom Pablo
Neruda spoke, the heartless:
at the entrance to the millennium today,
a rampant anarchopitalist
ready to bite greedily
into the apple of the world.
We have wondered whether any of these Other Men and The Men would
ever find common cause with the rest and chart a future that
benefits all!
If Albert Luthuli was to pose the question whether The Tempo
Quickens I would make bold to say that the new South Africa is a
place in which the possibility for all to lead a decent life has
asserted itself with great boldness.
I, like many of you in this hall, have had the privilege to
interact with many of your peers, South African professionals,
scientists and academics of social and natural sciences,
researchers and men and women of letters, like these who are
gathered here; and they tell the tale of a society for the first
time starting to harness the talent of a whole nation; of the
lessons learnt and the knowledge imparted, now that they can
interact with peers across the globe; of the emergent truly South
African institutions of higher learning, centres of African and
human excellence.
At times as we converse with these intellectuals and allow our
minds to wander in freedom, we let the imagination take control,
and in Neruda's words:
(saw) the heavens unfastened
and open,
... (and) ...
wheeled with the stars,
(our) heart broke free on the open sky.
And having seen all this, can you blame our enthusiasm in declaring
that The Tempo Quickens!
Accordingly, to ensure that we maintain the momentum I would like
to call on all graduates from this university and all the others in
the country, to plough their skills, expertise and resources back
into the communities as well as their former institutions. Because
education is the hallmark of a developing and successful nation, we
need skills of our graduates so that we can move forward
faster.
As the tempo quickens we have watched the social and community
activists roll up their sleeves to join in the building of
communities. We have heard them remind citizens of their rights and
their obligations. And we knew that these social activists are
driven by the profound understanding of the value of what the
people have won in struggle, as their own liberators.
Whatever languages our people speak, they sing of freedom, and seen
the hand of reconciliation stretching across the racial divide as
South Africans work together to create a better life.
And as all these South Africans - young and old, men and women,
rich and poor, employed and without work, black and white -
worshipping each in their own way, they do so unshackled from the
theology of deception, knowing that the Deity that oversees our
efforts knows no discrimination and no lesser or better human
being, but recognises each as equal before destiny.
And so, they make bold to say: hail freedom, the seedling that
germinates and the bud that flowers! Hail freedom because it has
ensured that The Tempo towards to creation of a people-centred
society Quickens!
As this country celebrates its decade of freedom, it is our duty to
honour the President of the ANC and the Nobel Prize Winner, Albert
Luthuli, by ensuring that we do not lose the momentum.
Accordingly, we need the full participation of all of us in the
historic effort to build the South Africa visualised by Albert
Luthuli, with none of us sitting on the sidelines, content to blame
others when things go wrong.
In action, we must together say Hail Freedom, the seedling that
germinates and the bud that flowers. In undying tribute to Albert
Luthuli, we must ensure that The Tempo Quickens even faster than
ever before.
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