5 October 1999.
Mr Renier Schoeman
Members of the National Party
Members of the Afrikaner Bond
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
It gives me great pleasure to join you this evening, and I wish to thank you for the invitation to address you.
On 27 July, President Thabo Mbeki addressed members of the Afrikanerbond and so initiated a public encounter with you. In his groundbreaking address, President Mbeki called for a mutual understanding of how we have come to be where we are and who we are, s o that we can together build one road through which we can all travel forward faster and together so that we can make the next Century an African Century.
I wish to join that encounter by calling for us to face full square the challenges of what is our second national liberation struggle. For surely, it is not only those of us who have been dispossessed before 1994 and who have fought a gallant liberation st ruggle who must engage urgently and collectively in this second national liberation struggle. Even Afrikaners are confronted with the real challenge of this second national liberation struggle! Except, this time the national liberation struggle is a strugg le about the human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms of all of our people - black and white, man and woman, abled and disabled, urban and rural, Afrikaner, English, Xhosa, Zulu, Pedi, Tswana, Venda, Tsong a, Ndebele, Swati and Sotho. Our encounter and this second national liberation struggle are therefore no longer as Europeans versus Africans, but as South Africans. This encounter occurs within the context of the rapid globalisation of economies, cultures, politics and national identities. We have no time to lose!
Our recent and turbulent past has been marked by conflict and violence that has led to the conquest of one culture by another. It has been marked by dispossession and possession, by domination and subordination, by the master and slave, the latter forever intended to be the ewers of wood and the drawers of water.
Until very recently we have continued to exist as a nation apart with little hope of cultural integration, of national pride or of national patriotism. It required for us to stand at the brink and to stare down into the abyss of complete national suicide b efore we could purchase for ourselves and future generations peace and national reconciliation as the base upon which can now construct a liberated, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist South Africa where all of us can enjoy national suffrage on a common vot ers role and live under the supremacy of our Constitution. We must celebrate this achievement, and do so often. But we have no time to procrastinate!
In education our recent and turbulent past has been just as traumatic. Many take the view that while we have now turned our backs on a period of Apartheid Education in its Bantu, Coloured, Indian and White varieties, we have done this at the phenomenal pri ce of the legitimacy and value of all of education - the education and training system, the teaching profession, and our schools, colleges, universities and technikons. Our learning institutions that have traditionally served our black communities are face d with a desperate struggle for legitimacy, for value and for a role. Our learning institutions that have traditionally served our white communities still reproduce the master and slave mentality of the victor and the vanquished. They grudgingly admit blac k learners but continue as if it is business as usual and so hope to assimilate these young learners with as little fuss as possible, not knowing that they are doing untold damage by destroying the identities and the innocence of these young learners.
We are faced with a collective and urgent responsibility to restore the legitimacy and value of all our educational institutions, of learning and teaching, and of the teaching profession. We are not on the brink, but have fallen into the abyss with regards to large sections of our education and training system. We continue to learn and teach as if 1994 has not happened. The outdated and delegitimated formal and hidden curricula remain in place. Many learners still do not receive their full entitlement in te rms of learning and teaching time and opportunity, and consequently experience education as a cycle of failure! This happen at a time when our education and training system required fine tuning rather than its overdue fundamental reform. Our graduates, and consequently our nation and country, are thus ill equipped for the monumental challenges of the new millennium. We have no time to lose!
Within education we have in place most of the policy frameworks - the one road through which we can all travel forward faster together towards national reconstruction, development and reconciliation, towards the re-legitimation and re-valuation of our educ ation, and towards a cultural renaissance.
To illustrate, our Language in Education Policy for schools and further education institutions-
In the instance of schools and further education and training institutions there is no basis or place for side battles or struggles or distractions about matters such as home language instruction and single medium schools. For we have put in place policies and instruments that for now address adequately the concerns and fears of all our people. I will conduct a full review of these policies and instruments during the year 2000 so that we can see how our policy announcements have impacted our schools and fur ther education and training institutions and their communities.
With respect to higher education, I am fully aware of the debates about the value or not of single medium higher education institutions. I have placed this as a matter of priority on the agenda of the Council for Higher Education and expect a report shortl y. Whatever the solution we ultimately select, it must enable us to travel faster forward on the high road. It must enable us to answer honestly when questions are asked about how efficiently we are using and mobilising our public resources, about whether we are travelling together but on separate roads, and about whether we are pursuing a return to cultural hegemony and subordination.
We are faced with many challenges as we construct and develop an education and training system that will make us confident about our collective economic, cultural, political and social existence and future. As you are aware, I recently launched my Call to Action - a national mobilisation for education that is in effect our second national liberation struggle for education!
My Call to Action is underpinned by a recognition that not all can be accomplished at the same time and that we must determine firm priorities with which we can be successful and whose success will enable us to release even more energies to tackle the full set of challenges that face us. Accordingly my Call to Action comprises nine national priority actions. The Call to Action assumes that neither the state nor civil society can alone accomplish this agenda for I am convinced that it is only when we act col lectively and together, shoulder to shoulder that we can travel faster forward together. And, faced with economic, political, cultural and social globalisation we have no time to lose!
My Call to Action assumes that since we are faced with many and complex, national and global, social, cultural, economic and political challenges, that we have no choice but to pursue urgently and together the reconstruction and development of our educatio n system by:
I believe that it is only when we have adequately dealt with these three main challenges - and when we have tackled selected urban townships and rural areas - that we can be successful in pursuing the next, yet simultaneous challenges of-
My call this evening to members of the New National Party and the Afrikaner Bond is an honest and a sincere one. I call on you to join me and our government in this national mobilisation for education - our second national liberation struggle. I call on yo u to, like myself, turn your back on the past, and turn forward to face the future of opportunity for all our people and for our next generations. Let us build one road through which we can all travel faster together to this future of opportunity.
Now, I am aware that members of the New National Party and the Afrikanerbond who are here this evening have gained considerable experience and expertise across economics, politics, culture and education. I am also aware that you continue to hold and occupy key positions in our society, be they political or administrative. My call to you is a call for the mobilisation of your resources in support of my Call to Action. Your contributions and services are essential if we are to accomplish this national mobilis ation on this one road ... in our schools, colleges, universities, technikons, in our governing bodies and councils, as learners, educators and innovators, leaders and managers, parents and activists ... if we are to claw our way from out of the education abyss. Your contributions are essential for us to win our second national liberation struggle for human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms of all of our people.
Let me conclude with the words of President Mbeki when he addressed the Afrikanerbond:
"Together, all of us as Africans, must commit ourselves to making the next Century an African century and realise the dream of a better life for all."
I thank you.