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Date : 10/02/2004
Source: ANC
Title: Sonjica: Address during the State of the Nation debate


DEPUTY MINISTER SONJICA'S ADDRESS DURING THE STATE OF THE NATION DEBATE

Madam Speaker;
Honourable President;
Honourable Deputy President;
Honourable Members

Firstly, I would like to pay tribute to Dr Ngubane, the former Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology for his invaluable contribution to the development and the implementation of the policies that sought to transform our society especially in the area of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.

We wish him well for his latest appointment. We know that he will distinguish himself in his new mandate.

Madam Speaker, my input focuses on Nation Building. We want to emphasize that this is an ongoing project of reconstructing our society, which needs all South Africans to enter into a contract with government for it to be successful.

I am particularly focusing on culture which was used as a tool to perpetuate racial discrimination during the Colonial period and later used as a foundation for establishing the apartheid system. Conversely, the democratic government we ushered in, in 1994 has chosen to utilize culture as a tool for nation building.

The colonial and apartheid regimes manipulated the fact that the people of South Africa are different -

* We speak different languages
* We dress differently
* We have different traditions and values
* We eat different food,
* etc.

At the heart of this "difference" was the fact that the cultures and/or traditions of the indigenous people and the majority of South African were perceived inferior to those of the minority. Consequently all policies of the apartheid government were designed along these lines so that we see things in Black and White, as inferior and superior.

For us Mr Mulder, whether White meant English or Afrikaans, Blacks were still third class citizens.

The dispossession of land, through the Land Act of 1913, was basically about taking away an assert from an inferior person who did not deserve to lead a noble life to make it an exclusively white priviledge. The Afrikaaners never attempted to reverse the situation instead they intensified it. The legacy which manifests itself in the two economies that the President spoke about was as a result of enforced poverty of the majority while the minority group enjoyed an opportunity to accumulate riches. The Education systems were along racial lines. We will remember Vervoed's philosophy that Blacks deserved an inferior education so that they could remain subservient. On the occasion of enacting a system of Bantu education in 1953 Vervoed continued to say and I quote - N.B. the English is part of the text that you are quoting

"the Black man has been subject to a school system which drew him away from his own country and misled him by showing him the green pastures of European society on which he is not allowed to graze".

"Under the new Act, natives were to be taught from childhood to realise that equality with European is not for them. Different races in South Africa were to be educated separately, not with equal funding, or equal opportunities for entrance to university but rather in a system separated along racial lines where the black will be suppressed forever more".

"There was no place for him in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour, and for the reason it is of no value to receive a training which as its aim absorption in the European community".

Madam Speaker, this was institutionalised as a system of governance and the consequences therefore was a polarise society along racial lines. It is this legacy that led the ANC had to deal with when we took over the reigns of power in 1994.

We had to deal with such attitude of hatred that disregards that we are all human and we all have a right to be and to exist as we are. The ANC brought hope to millions of South Africans who were struggling to deal with their prejudices.

We knew that this challenge we had to deal with from as early as when we proclaimed in the Freedom Charter the vision that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, Black and White" - a call for unity among all South Africans.

In 1994 the biggest question that we were faced with was, "how were we going to create an environment which would lead to the acceptance of one another, given that -

* we were bleeding;
* we were divided;
* we were in a situation where the majority was deprived and destitute,
* we still had pockets of arrogance, resistance to change which we still have to date.

Madam Speaker, even though we knew that this was a mammoth task, to us it was clear that we needed to succeed in our commitment to unite the country in order to achieve stability for social and economic development. We also knew that only the ANC could provide leadership to this challenge because from its inception in 1912, central to the policies of the ANC was to create a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa.

How then did the ANC government respond to this challenge of rebuilding the nation, ridding it of racial stereotypes that characterize our society?

We have laid a strong foundation for the preservation, promotion and development of our cultural life in all spheres, among other things. We have policies and a Constitution that guarantees the equal protection of all and allows all human beings to exist and co-exist without fear of prejudice.

We have a Constitution, underpinned by human rights, which creates an environment where any violations of human rights are outlawed. Realising that the laws of apartheid had impoverished about 85% of the population of South Africa, the Black, indigenous people, we ensured that our policies sought to redress this situation is in a fair and just manner. We had to address the material and imbalances if the reconciliation project was to be meaningful. Otherwise the vision of creating a people-centred society will not be realisable. The ANC again was wise enough to realize the need for an open process of reconciliation and made it the main focus of its transformation agenda.

The Constitution clearly gives all of us the right to reassert our individual identities, creating the atmosphere for different cultural expressions while learning to tolerate and appreciate other cultures.

South Africa, like all other countries that were colonized is recovering from the effects of "Cultural bomb" that was unleashed by colonisation. In his book "Decolonising the mind" Ngugi wa Thiongo describes this experience as having an effect to annihilate a people's belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage, in their unity and ultimately in themselves.

In our new Constitution and through the policies of our government, as people of South Africa we committed ourselves to redress the issues that Professor Ngugi is outlining. Our approach in redressing this situation is a comprehensive one and is multi-pronged in nature because it addresses issues from all walks of life and these include - issues of culture, language, economy, education, poverty, etc and of course we are always guided by the need to be inclusive, carrying along the whole nation in all these processes.

Madam Speaker, today I would like to highlight and emphasise on the language rights as language is central to culture and as professor Ngugi rightly submits, language is central to a process of decolonisation and deracialisation. We also need to appreciate that South Africa is characterized by diverse cultures and by implication by many languages.

Madam Speaker, we are certain as the ANC that our policies are adequate and that the responsibility is for all of to ensure that laws respond to the plight of the people for which they were meant to benefit.

As a country, we are faced with a huge task of implementing the National Language policy. The challenges for this are enormous. We know that there are still violations of language rights that exist.

* We know that farm workers are still subjected to speaking the languages of the master,
* We know that domestic workers are still forced to use English and Afrikaans without any efforts from their employers to speak the languages of their workers,
* Children at school are still not aware of their rights to a wide choice of eleven official languages
* There are people who are still not able to access basic services, like social grants because they are not proficient in English and Afrikaans.

Madam Speaker, this is clear indication that racism is still alive and is subtle in some cases and very blatant in others.

The example that the Minister of Defence cited here - about the manager at the Mt Nelson hotel - is a typical example of this.

Siyayigxininisa into yokokuba lilungelo lawo wonke ukuba uthethe ulwimi ofuna ukuluthetha nanini na kweli lizwe lethu. Madam Speaker, we need to take cognisance of the fact that critical to our freedom is our cultural heritage, the sole of our nation. Our freedom should also reflect on the work we have undertaken in restoring the dignity of our people and this can best be measured by the extent to which we have revived and promoted our indigenous cultures.

This process needs us to delve into our historical memory to bring forth our cultural identity as Professor Ngugi said during his recent visit to our country and I quote -

"memory is also the site of dreams, desire and when we say that a person has lost his or her memory, we are talking of a real loss of those traces that make individual make sense of what is happening to them".

This preservation of memory, our heritage, is the bases of the legacy projects. The Freedom Park is but one significant legacy project as it is all-encompassing and reflects a comprehensive life history of the struggles of the people of South Africa. We need to give the Freedom Park a status of being a foundation for moral regeneration and consciousness for our society.

Freedom Park should be a place that all South Africans should honour and visit once in their lifetime. We need to explore the possibility of Freedom park and other legacy projects being integrated into the education programmes to educate and inform not only the young but all the people of South Africa about the historical memory of South Africa.

It is by no coincidence that we celebrate "South Africa Day" in the form of National Heritage Day (on the 24th of September) where all South Africans display their diverse cultures in all forms (dress, food, dance, etc).

Madam Speaker, we have had very disturbing experiences about some pockets of our society not giving recognition to this important day whose purpose is to create space for all of us to express our different cultures, to learn each others' cultures, stimulating high level of tolerance and promote unity in South Africa.

It is especially sad and painful when these attitudes are transmitted at the level of education / at school. Two situations of two private schools (in Cape Town and in East London) have been brought to my attention - where children are being told about all other special days - mother day; fathers day, valentines day but are never told and provided explanation about Heritage Day. One school did not explain the purpose of the holiday and the other school decided to call it a "a games day".

This is one evidence of a continued distortion of our history and we are not going to allow this. We are not going to allow a situation where the struggles of the majority of the people are watered down through deliberate disregard.

It is even more heartening to learn that parents pay school fees only for the policies of government to be undermined.

Since 1994 South Africans have worked together practically to construct a society that cares.

The preservation of national heritage is but one important aspect of a caring society because it ensures the country's future. It takes care of its future generations, the youth.

The statement of Honourable Delille, about African potatoes, Madam Speaker, is also a clear display of an attitude that undermines our indigenous knowledge, the values of our people which is the bases of our heritage.

After all, you know as I do that your conventional medicine has no cure. Who knows whether the cure will come from? It may come from the very "iingcambus" that you are despising.

We want to remind the Honourable De Lille that traditional healing and medicines is not a foreign. Countries like India, Mexico and China are using their indigenous medicines and are proud.

As a nation we need to respond to former President Mandela, as quoted by the President in his State of the Nation address to -

"….regardless of the accumulated effect of our historical burdens, seize the time to define for ourselves what we want to make our shared destiny".

We need to face the reality that we are one nation and we are faced with a responsibility to define our shared destiny. We want to make a call especially to our youth and our intellectuals to enter the contract with government and the whole nation and to lead the public discourse of defining the shared destiny that we can never avoid. Our aspiration towards a united and South Africa is also reflected in our National Symbols: the National Anthem, the National Flag and the National Coat of Arms.

Our National Anthem is unique in that it represents all the language groups of South Africa and we believe it is the only one in the world. We invite all South Africans to make an effort and learn to sing the anthem with pride as it celebrates the efforts we have made as South Africans deal with the huddles that have characterized our country as many countries in one. Our Anthem celebrates diversity. This, Madam Speaker we believe, is another effort in which we expanded the frontiers of human fulfillment and freedom.

As the President has said in his State of the Nation address, we have adequate policy and legal framework to consolidate our hard earned democracy. The challenge is the implementation of such policies in a way that responds to the objective and a vision of a people-centred society that President Mandela committed the country to through his first State of the Nation address, in 1994.

As we implement our policies, we need to take the following, among others, into consideration:

Our society has not yet appreciated the centrality of Culture in the programme of transformation and nation-building. The cultural diversity that we promote is the means to non-racialism and non-sexism that we aspire to as a country.

Madam Speaker both artists and the society at large need to adopt a new mindset that views arts and culture as not a mere entertaining sector. The arts and the artists contribute, in a significant manner, to the economic growth and social development of the nation.

We are all faced with a challenge to deliver on social, commercial and political objectives that, as a country, we seek to pursue.

The following question is critical if we are to see the role of Arts and Culture as central to economic and social development:

Have we, as a country been able to use the area of arts and culture to lead the public discourse on the kind of society that we would want for the future generation of this country; do we as a country have the necessary capacity and capability to execute this challenge?

In order for us to respond positively to this question, we need to interrogate -

* the role of Arts and Culture in the fight against HIV / AIDS;
* the role of Arts and Culture in the eradication of poverty;
* the role of Arts and Culture in the National Strategy for Crime prevention; etc.

We need to continue using arts and culture to correct the Human Rights violations like we did in the project of returning the remains of Sara Baartman. Directing resources to previously marginalized cultures and traditions will help celebrate diversity and re-emphasise the concept of our Rainbow Nation. Integrating Arts and Culture into our Education curriculum is also another way of developing and preserving our cultural heritage.

We have to enter into the contract with people to monitor and evaluate the impact of our policies especially on the vulnerable workers and less educated. We need to educate them about rights.

We need to ensure the law punished any violations of rights on the basis of race, colour, creed or cultural difference.

South Africans need to be encouraged to learn and understand other cultures. In this way they will be taking interest in the people themselves, contributing to the realisation of the vision of creating a people-centred and carrying society.

We need to strengthen the Human Rights Commission and other institutions that were established to promote human rights. Madam Speaker, I want to reiterate: we need a public discourse, a dialogue which will help us confront our fears, anxieties about our differentness.

Madam Speaker, I would be making a mistake if I do not share with the opposition this information. Firstly President Mbeki is a member of the ANC and he is deployed here (in Parliament) by the ANC and therefore he is accountable to the ANC and not to the opposition.

The issue of the third term of hi office was never discussed in any structure of the ANC and its Alliance and we are not going to succumb to the DA's panic buttons.

Any decision regarding the leadership of the Movement is discussed by the Highest decision making body "Congress" and this was never discussed in Stellenbosch Conference. It will be wrong for a member of the ANC to raise the idea that was not part of the Stellenbosch Conference resolutions. Whoever wants to clarity on this issue must contact Mr Smuts Ngonyama in our Head Office.

In conclusion, I would like to echo the words of the President and I quote from his State of the Nation address:

"We will have to score new victories in the struggle to create an egalitarian society, successfully addressing the important challenges of persisting racial and gender inequalities, the disempowerment of our youth and people with disability, and proper care for children and the elderly".

I thank you.

10 February 2004

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