SPEECH: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE SOUTH AFRICAN 27 June 2009

It was in 1652 when the Dutch East Indian Company anchored their ships for the first time on African soil. Soon thereafter, the San and the Khoi Khoi, all of whom were indigenous people of the cape at the time, fell victim to the most merciless human cruelty our country had ever seen as they lost their lives in a struggle to defend their very existence.

Centuries later, our British friends and then colonizers were to mete out the same cruelty on the Malaysian slaves brought to the Cape for the sole purpose of serving the labor demands of their masters and owners.

It was during the same period that farmers from Europe and those courageous Huguenots, flooded the Cape in search of a new home. Looking back, one regrets that their message of religious tolerance never found appeal in the political context as well.

Shortly thereafter, those proud Voortrekkers and peasant folk took on the Great Trek in a desperate attempt to escape British dominance at the Cape.

However, their journey led them straight to the bloody wave of the Mfacane … it was under this context that for the first time in South Africa, Black met White

Shaka’s brevity, Hintsa’s patriotism and Moshoeshoe’s cunning intelligence together provided fertile ground for confrontation between the different groups. As adversaries, Black and White soon realized the truth in the African maxim that says iinkunzi azinobambini ebuhlanti (two bulls can never harmoniously share the same kraal).

It is therefore unfortunate that the leopard and the lion, the elephant and the springbok, the giraffe and the hyena, all of whom have been eternal citizens of our beautiful land, had to bear testimony to what was subsequently to become the natural stage for our foolish political deeds.

The Afrikaaners, whose profound optimism and practicality drew from their knowledge that home can be found in foreign lands, established the Union of South Africa in 1910 … clearly paving the way for South Africa’ independence from British dominance.

However, soon thereafter the then National Party took political office, bringing with them their ideology of the separation of races, commonly referred to as Apartheid.

Through this immoral and dishonorable period of our history, race and color were used to determine who is human and who is sub-human and racism became the fundamental defining feature of relations between black and white, Indian, colored and Chinese.

It was during that same period that South Africa came to know what happens when one person has superiority of force over another, when the economically stronger take it upon themselves to annul the eternal command that God created all men equally.

Still, amidst this period of gloom in our country, heroes nevertheless emerged … all those men and women who would not allow the fear of death, torture, imprisonment, exile or persecution to dissuade them from the pursuit of justice.

Tsietsi Mashinini was exiled 1976 for marching a handful of unarmed students against a mob of men in uniform.

Steve Biko was brutally murdered for being a catalyst to the people’s deafening cry for freedom and self-conscietisation.

It was especially during this period that the ANC managed to galvanize a people around their central ideology found in the Freedom Charter, that being that South Africa belongs to all those who live in it … Black or white, Indian or Colored.

Fortuitously, that nobleman and freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela, was released from prison to set a sui generis political precedence and lead us into a new dawn.

Come 1994, South Africa was ready to become a democracy and the national atmosphere was again pregnant with hope and the promise of tomorrow. In 1994, South Africans could shout at the top of their voice and say: “YESTERDAY IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY - TOMORROW BELONGS TO US!”

Lebusa Meso