We have detected that the browser you are using is no longer supported. As a result, some content may not display correctly.
We suggest that you upgrade to the latest version of any of the following browsers:
close notification
Date
: 06/05/2005
Source: Department of Provincial and Local Government
Title: Mufamadi: Graduation ceremony at the University of
Venda
Speech delivered by Minister for Provincial and Local Government,
Mr S Mufamadi, on the occasion of the graduation ceremony at the
University of Venda for Science and Technology
Mr Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor GM Nkondo;
Members of Council;
Members of the Executive Management;
Members of Senate and all academic staff;
The President of the Student Representative Council and all
students;
Graduands;
Parents and Sponsors;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen:
For the parents, the academic staff and the graduands, this
momentous occasion marks individual triumph over many obstacles
that had to be negotiated along the way. It is my singular honour
to extend my heartfelt congratulations to all those who cross the
stage this morning. Their enthusiasm for scholarly endeavour is
today being crowned with success. Not only is this a milestone of
individual achievement, but also, the nation is entitled to cherish
a hope that the whole of society stands to profit from your
services and learned insights. The nation is proud to have such men
and women of accomplishment.
Nine days ago, our people assembled in various parts of the country
to celebrate eleven years of democracy. Looking through a rear-view
mirror to compare our democracy’s prehistory to its impetus,
we see statistical indicators of performance which confirm that
since 1994, South Africa has substantially freed itself from the
shackles of its colonial and apartheid past. However, the problem
of underdevelopment and poverty remains an abiding concern. We
proceed from the premise that universities are a national resource
through which the nation makes an intellectual investment. Thus, we
assume that our graduands will bring to the problems of
underdevelopment and poverty the knowledge they acquired from this
university.
Mr Vice-Chancellor, our country is crying out for intellectuals who
embody public spiritedness as their pre-eminent virtue. Throughout
its ebbs and flows, South Africa’s struggle for liberation
had in its forward trenches, persons who fitted this description.
They performed an important intellectual role of refusing to accept
that what existed was unalterable. In this regard, our roll of
honour is replete with names such as those of Pixley ka Isaka Seme,
Sol Plaatje, Mzwakhe Lembede, Oliver Tambo, Steve Biko, and many
others - luminaries whose willingness to learn from the people
spurred their thinking towards a coherent vision of the alternative
society. Their academic knowledge, acquired from conventional
institutions of learning, was tempered by contact with real life
situations and an appropriate diagnosis of the human condition. Not
only did they participate in the articulation of a democratic
alternative, but also, they took to battle for the victory of the
society of their vision.
Whereas in the pre-1994 period, the absence of democracy posed a
strategic challenge to which the nation needed to rise,
today’s principal challenge is to translate peoples’
power into an authority which can be effectively mobilised for
purposes of bringing about a better life for all our people. In the
pre-1994 situation the responsibility of the public intellectual
was to help locate power in spaces which are inhabited and
controlled by the popular masses. Today the principal social
responsibility is to seek the transformation of material and
ideological capacities of the State so that it can serve to realise
popular, egalitarian and democratic goals and purposes.
The success which we celebrate today, takes us a step further
towards meeting this target. Our goal will be met provided you
“get your hands dirty” in the “lived
experiences” of our people. The contribution, which you now
have the possibility to make, will enhance our collective capacity
to challenge the claims of those who unilaterally gave themselves
the licence to hegemonise knowledge production, especially in
academic social science.
Mr Vice Chancellor, the success of our country is inextricably
bound up with the success of the African continent as a whole. Our
country is part of a continent which has a tortured history of
subjection to colonial plunder. It is therefore important that the
successes we are celebrating today are harnessed to the task of
shaping the future dynamics of our continent. This continent is
home to many people who live in conditions of abject poverty. They
lived in such conditions yesterday, they do so today and in the
absence of a comprehensive remedial action, they will do so
tomorrow.
Many African countries have not been able to realise their full
post-colonial potential because of sustained internecine conflict.
In the midst of such conflict tax revenues disappear, commodity
exports decline, foreign exchange reserves vanish, and the informal
sector dominated by smuggling takes over the remnants of the
economy.
Mr Vice-Chancellor, in recent years the continent has been taking
greater responsibility within the context of the African Union (AU)
and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) to
resolve its own problems. We seek to develop capacity that is
endogenous to the continent for the resolution of conflict and for
the creation of conditions that are propitious to the growth and
development of our own economies. All this and other related goals
are realisable if we have an African intelligentsia that is
grounded in the reality of the continent.
Mr Vice-Chancellor, for obvious reasons our continent has to be the
foremost theatre of operation with respect to the pursuit of the
United Nations Millennium Development Goals. These are the goals in
terms of which the world seeks to reduce by half the number of
people in absolute poverty by the year 2014. In order to reach this
target, African economies will need to grow at an estimated 7% a
year on average. One of the factors which stand in the way of
Africa achieving these goals is that our continent has a
preponderance of weak states that are ill-equipped to impose a
policy agenda what would attenuate the peripheralising consequences
of contemporary international connectivity.
Our prospect for reaching the Millennium Development Goals and for
setting the African continent on the road to sustainable
development lies in us asserting our right to co-frame the rules of
the global game. It lies in our refusal to submit to the tyranny of
those who insist on the global centralisation of influence over
national policymaking. We will be able to do all this if we invest
in the creation of indigenous intellectual resources. More than
ever before, Africa is in need of an organic intellectual who is
responsive to the imperative of renewal and development. Indeed, we
need in the African continent, a strong state which is
ideologically articulated to a civil society-in-motion.
South Africa’s experience since 1994 has taught us that there
inheres in the people, latent possibilities to overcome the worst
of human conditions. It is this lesson of experience which has
reinforced our commitment to stay focused on the goal of
transforming our county, and ultimately our continent, into a happy
place for all. We have every intention of harnessing the success of
our graduands to this goal. South Africa is proud of its men and
women of achievement and it implores them to stand up and be
counted.
Thank you, and thank you ever so much.
Issued by: Department for Provincial and Local Government
6 May 2005
Map
