I wish to set the record straight on two issues at the very beginning of my address to you and to the country. The African National Congress fully subscribes to the principle of mother tongue education. The ANC also firmly believes in the promotion and protection of all eleven South African languages - none at the expense of others. Because of these two principled positions, the ANC is fully committed to the entrenchment of language rights and the right to education in the mother tongue or the language of choice.
Comrades, ladies and gentlemen. I had to set the record straight at the outset, because the true facts of the situation regarding the negotiations on the constitution have consistently been misrepresented and distorted by the National Party propaganda machine and some sections of the media. The impression that is being created is that the ANC is being intransigent and will not accede to the protection of languages or the right to receive education in the mother tongue.
Nothing can be further from the truth. The ANC's record speaks for itself: It is the ANC that has consistently spoken out and acted in a manner that takes into consideration the fears of the minorities in this country; it is the ANC that is most consistent in preaching the message of reconciliation, even at the risk of alienating some of our own constituencies. It is the President of the ANC, Comrade Nelson Mandela, who has consistently gone out of his way to make sure that all South Africans are part of this new South African patriotism we are trying to build. We have acceded to the cultural commission in the constitution to give recognition to the cultural diversity of our country. To therefore accuse the ANC as being hostile to minority rights is less than honest and mischievous.
The ANC has since its founding in 1912 been the champion of the oppressed people in this country. One of the more vicious methods of oppression employed by the Nationalist party against our people over the years, has been their denial to our children the right to be taught in their mother tongue or language of choice. We have fought this linguistic imperialism over the years and we will continue to do so. In fact, these purveyors of NP propaganda seem to have very short memories - it is the attempt by the very NP to impose one language on the African learners of this country that sparked off the conflagration that was June 16 1976. We cannot now be accused of the same stupidity and arrogance displayed by the NP then - we know how much death and destruction this attempt by the Nats to impose a master language has caused in our country - the graves of countless Hector Petersons are a constant reminder of the folly.
We shall therefore guarantee the right of every child to be taught in the language of his or her choice - where it is reasonably practicable. We stand fully behind the right of all South Africans to have their language promoted, affirmed and protected by our constitution. This constitution guarantees this protection in no uncertain terms.
What then, ladies and gentlemen, is the point of contention with the Nationalist Party that threatens to bring the country to the precipice? What is it that makes the Nationalist Party willing to unravel the tremendous work that our President and other South Africans of goodwill have done to bring about reconciliation and racial peace and tolerance in this country? The NP claims that what they want is a guarantee to the right to have single medium institutions in the public school system. Comrades, ladies and gentlemen. I can assure that this - true to the nature of the dishonest and dissembling old National Party we know - is not true at all. The National Party is not interested in the constitution guaranteeing single medium institutions at all! What the NP wants is the constitution to entrench the right to exclusive white Afrikaner schools!! The NP has not given up on Apartheid. The area where they have most successfully reproduced notions of superiority and the herenvolk has been in the schools through Christian National Education and they want to keep it like that, even in the new South Africa we are trying to build.
Single medium institutions, we keep saying to the NP, represent but one of the means through which the state can give effect to the right to receive education in the mother tongue or language of choice. There are other means, that deserve equal consideration - given a mix of factors; e.g. the availability of resources, pupil numbers, teachers numbers, the curricular mix in a given school, the language make-up of a particular catchment area, I can go on... The point here is that the decision whether to have a school as a single medium or parallel medium or dual medium institution is essentially a policy and management issue best left to the educational authorities and to school communities themselves. it is ridiculous to expect the constitution to deal in matters of policy and administration. Despite this fact, in an attempt to reassure the Afrikaner minority that single medium schools will not be wiped out we have gone to the extent, in one of our proposed formulations of the education clause, of specifically mentioning single medium institutions - this gesture was rebuffed by the NP. It is clear then the NP wants more than single medium institutions - what they want is the retention of white Afrikaner privilege.
This insistence of the NP to maintain white Afrikaner privilege already has serious implications in some parts of the country, and it is disturbing. In Bethal, Mpumalanga, a school named Hoogenhout has decided to suspend the admission of 109 African students, pending the outcome of the constitutional negotiations. They are going back on a decision they took freely to admit African pupils and become a dual medium institution because they NP has promised reactionary members of their governing body that they are going to secure the right to single medium institutions. The result now is that the education of 109 children is now on hold until the NP plays out its charade. What is more disturbing is the prospect of that school effectively excluding these children if we let the NP have its racist way in this constitution.
The National Party knows full well that because of their policies of the past that have deprived Africans of educational resources, the people who will be knocking at the doors of Afrikaans institutions are Africans. This is anathema to the still racist NP.
We have fought racism in education at great cost to our children and students in terms of lives and lost opportunities. The National Party wants this country to return to the Verwoerdian Apartheid education era. If we allow this to happen, if we allow the retention of white Afrikaner privilege in education at the expense of other groups, comrades, ladies and gentlemen - then we are saying to our children, to the generation of 1976, to the parents and families of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of educational justice that their sacrifice was all in vain.
The new South Africa cannot afford that!
I have some unsolicited advice for the NP. It is time you forgot about Apartheid and realised that the only way you can ensure the protection of cultural rights and language rights is in the context of the rights of all South Africans in a democratic non-racist dispensation.
To those honourable members on my left who are not white Afrikaners - I have a wake up call for you: The NP wants Black votes but they do not want Black children in their schools! In the Western Cape, the NP wants coloured votes, but they do not want coloureds in their schools and neighbourhoods!
In fact, in education, they are not arguing for coloured Afrikaans single medium schools, they are arguing for white Afrikaner schools.
The question is: Is THIS the party whose benches you so smugly occupy?
7 May 1996