1995 Global Cultural Diversity Conference Proceedings, Sydney
Keynote Address - Day Two
Alliances and Allegiances - Rebuilding South Africa
Mr Thabo Mbeki
First Deputy President, Government of National Unity, South Africa
First of all, let me thank you most sincerely for inviting us and giving us the opportunity to participate in and address this important conference. I am also pleased and honoured to convey to the conference the greetings and best wishes of our President, Nelson Mandela and the Government of National Unity which he leads, especially on this day which we have designated our Freedom Day, being the day when, one year ago, our first democratic constitution came into force and our first democratic elections began.
We convey these greetings in recognition and appreciation of the sterling role that Australia and its people played in the struggle to end the apartheid crime against humanity and to help us transform our country into a non-racial and non-sexist democracy, acting domestically as well as internationally within the Commonwealth, the United Nations and other international organisations.
That sustained involvement, expressive of a common allegiance to a set of values which binds all humanity, demonstrated the possibility to agree and act upon an international agenda for change, involving not only governments and institutions, but also the ordinary citizens of all countries, including those which themselves had their own serious domestic challenges.
We say all this to make the point also that it may be that the matters you are discussing at this important conference, may help all of us to evolve a common plan of action to encourage universal peace, freedom, prosperity and stability in our extremely diverse but interdependent world.
Ours is also a country characterised by a diversity of cultures and people, what President Mandela has described as a rainbow nation. It was out of a particular form of social interaction within this diversity that the system of apartheid was born. Put in other words, the all-pervasive system of racial domination in South Africa was the result of an historically-evolved effort to manage this diversity.
That in the end, the United Nations characterised the system of apartheid as a crime against humanity, showed the extent to which what resulted was not management but criminal mismanagement.
The question therefore arises, what went wrong? I believe that one word is enough to answer this question, and that word is, domination!
From the very beginning of the process of the colonisation of South Africa, 340 years ago, the occupying European peoples and governments sought to achieve domination over the rest of South African society.
Imbued with the certainties of the 17th century, they saw themselves as endowed with the right to be the masters, a gift granted to them by God, a privilege accorded to them by their definition of what constituted civilisation, an imperative which attached to the colour of their skin and a prerogative dictated by the superiority of their weapons of war.
One of the consequences of the processes which resulted from this arrogance was an early terrible outcome, little mentioned in South African history, of the decimation of the Khoi and the San people, pejoratively called by the colonisers, Hottentots and Bushmen.
As a result, these have ceased to exist as peoples within the territory of South Africa and can now only be found in Namibia and Botswana, perhaps representing an early example of the crime of "ethnic cleansing".
It is from these grim origins that the cascade of wretchedness took place, which led us to the abyss of human abuse which, in the end, energised all humanity to cry out, enough, no more!, giving birth to the extraordinary international mobilisation that led to the South Africa Freedom Day which we are happy to observe and celebrate today.
Along that gloomy path stands a whole series of bollards which act as signposts of what it is that in the culmination constitutes an explanation of what went wrong, and should, therefore, be avoided.
On the rough face of those monuments of a past we cannot deny and which we dare not forget, is inscribed a litany of the things that do not make for the free, diverse and tolerant societies to whose creation this conference is dedicated.
On these signposts you will find inscribed, among others, the following record which describes our past:
- the different races cannot live together in peace unless one dominates and maintains dictatorship over the others;
- the dominant race owes it to itself to ensure that resources are distributed in a manner which benefits all who belong to that race at the expense of those whom it dominates;
- the dominated must be stripped of their self-worth, their cultures debased, their languages mocked, their histories presented as the antithesis of civilised behaviour and their value systems decried as the very expression of savagery;
- accordingly, these, who therefore have neither culture, nor language, nor history, nor morality, should be taught to believe that they are not quite human, and persuaded by all means possible to convince themselves that their subservient position is an expression of a pre-ordained and natural order of the human world;
- in the end, should they dare to question their condition with all that means, they should be taught most severely that the master truly means it when he thinks and says that he has little regard for the life of he or she who is born to live and die as an underling.
In such a situation, conflict, confrontation and war were inevitable. This is a war which could have been fought until one side or the other emerged as the clear victor, capable of imposing the terms of surrender on the vanquished.
The full story of the processes and conditions which led to a negotiated resolution of the South African question, rather than a war to the finish, still remains to be told. This clearly is not the occasion when we should try out our skills as a story-teller.
The point should however be made that, fundamentally, the decision by the belligerents to negotiate, arose from the fact that after a protracted conflict, these belligerents arrived at a situation of what could be described as an armed equilibrium.
Neither side had defeated the other. The corollary of this, of course, is that both sides continued to dispose of sufficient strength to inflict casualties on each other, to use the language of military conflicts. Equally important, each side understood this clearly that because the other had these possibilities, continuation of the conflict meant that whoever sought to assume a militant posture summarised in the slogan, the struggle continues, would have to accept that they too would be severely bled and weakened, to the point where any victory they secured might very well result in them as victors having to preside over a wasteland.
In the situation in which a complete victory for any of the actors in the conflict was either impossible or so difficult to attain as to become meaningless, true success could only be measured by the possibility of each of the contenders achieving the best possible success for itself, but within the context of a shared outcome in which there would be neither absolute victors nor absolute losers.
I believe that there are two important conclusions that we drew from this particular experience which became important with regard to reaching an acceptable accommodation of the different interests that are inherent in the culturally diverse societies that this conference is discussing.
One of these was that it was critically important that each of the stakeholders in our society should have the sovereign possibility and the space to identify, elaborate and propagate its interests, to place these within the complex of issues for which a regime of mutually beneficial coexistence has to be evolved.
The second of these conclusions, which derives from the first, was that all these stakeholders must accept that compromise is an inherent part of the process of arriving at what we have described as a regime of mutually beneficial coexistence of the different interests that would be put on the agenda by the different players.
To arrive at such a regime, it was, however, also necessary that the players agree on what colloquially could be described as "the rules of the game". Here we refer to the elaboration of a consensus on a set of values which then constituted the framework within which we sought the accommodation of the identified and conflicting interests.
The accommodation we are talking of is, of course, what we have also designated as reconciliation. Arising from what we have already said, it is clear that the pursuit of the objective of reconciliation became one of the basic driving forces in our search for a just and lasting negotiated settlement.
I believe it would be true of all multi-cultural societies that peace, stability and good neighbourliness must necessarily be based on such a striving towards reconciliation. But, inevitably, because we invariably have to deal with societies in which inequality and frustrated aspirations already exist, we have to twin the concept of reconciliation with the equally critical objective of transformation. Certainly in our case we could not approach the matter of reconciliation purely on the basis of the biblical injunction to love thy neighbour as thyself, as a voluntary outpouring of goodwill by a multitude of individuals who happened to be moved by the spirit.
Reconciliation implies and had to be based on the removal of injustice. This is precisely why, in our case, it is impossible to achieve reconciliation, an accommodation of different interests, without effecting fundamental transformation.
I believe we can now answer more directly the questions that arise from the topic we were given, namely, "alliances and allegiances: rebuilding South Africa".
Proceeding from the position that people of our country had to achieve reconciliation on the basis of redressing past wrongs, one of the first steps we had to take was to build an allegiance of all forces around a set of values that would become part of a permanent national consensus. That set of values would necessarily have to be transformative in character.
Accordingly, to achieve political reconciliation, our starting point was the acceptance by all political and other social forces that South Africa had to be transformed into a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic country. Inherent in this, and arising directly from our determination to end the racial oppression and racial and ethnic divisions imposed on our people by the system of apartheid, are the concepts of national unity and nation-building which would, at the same time, recognise, respect, defend and honour the cultural diversity of this one nation.
It is a matter that remains little known that the discussion between the oppressed and the oppressor, between the advantaged and the disadvantaged, to come to an agreement about a common set of political values, took no less than a decade, and included extensive discussions which Nelson Mandela held with the representatives of the apartheid regime while he was in prison.
In very good measure, agreement became possible because the national liberation movement, the ANC, had from its inception espoused the goal of an equitable settlement that would recognise the cultural diversity of South African society.
The very consistency of these positions over a period of three-quarters-of-a-century of the life of the ANC at the time, itself served as reassurance and, indeed, an eye-opener, that the cultural majority in our society genuinely did not seek to dominate, but was committed to a just and stable settlement responsive to the fact of the diversity of our country.
To return to our narrative, with a national allegiance around a common set of political goals having been achieved, it then became possible for all the political players to put on the agenda their various interests, without let or hindrance.
Accordingly, to give some examples, we were then able to deal with diverse issues, tabled by different parties, such as federalism; what was described as the self-determination of the Zulu people on a territorial basis; what was similarly described as the self-determination of the Afrikaner people on a territorial basis; the question of property rights and a Bill of Rights; affirmative action; the place of traditional leaders in a democratic society; religion and family law and so on.
One of the fundamental points we are trying to make is that our experience teaches us that it is impossible to bring peace and stability to divided societies unless conditions are created for democratic, open and meaningful participation by all role players, however small, in the determination of the destiny of the country. In our case, the elaboration of a national consensus on our basic political values was the outcome of such a process.
That same democratic, open and meaningful participation in the process of determining the future of our country, also enabled all role players, however small, to put their concerns on the national agenda.
In the process of the evolution of the democratic settlement which came into force one year ago today, once more we relied not on the power of the powerful to dictate this settlement, but on engaging in a process characterised by democratic, open and meaningful participation by all, regardless of their size.
The Government of National Unity and the Reconstruction and Development Programme, which enjoys the support of all the parties represented in parliament, are themselves a consequence of this outlook, contributing to the making of a society which seeks to encourage an inclusive process as we deal with the critical matter of the placement of power in the hands of the people to enable them to determine their destiny.
As a result of our experience as a country, we have evolved towards the view that we must exploit the opportunity we have, to establish a new democracy, to construct our democratic system in such a manner that it entrenches popular participation in the decision-making processes and thus brings us closer to the realisation of the concept that "the people shall govern".
What we are trying to describe is an alliance of the people and their organised formations around the important matter of "process"which, because it is inclusive, should lead to an outcome that enjoys legitimacy and therefore inspires the allegiance of the people as a whole. Consequently, it should follow that even those who might feel that they did not obtain what they sought in this process would, nevertheless, be prepared to live with this outcome.
If "the South African miracle" has, so far, derived from our ability to build both a national allegiance to common basic goals and therefore a national alliance for change, it does not necessarily follow that in the further process of rebuilding South Africa we shall be blessed with this happy outcome.
As we proceed from the general to the particular, the challenge of allegiances and alliances will become more complex. This will bear particularly on the task of effecting fundamental transformation while persuading those who will lose their privileged positions that this is necessary in terms of a process of reconciliation that serves their interests as well.
But to return to the beginning of our argument, the struggle to deal correctly with the challenge of global cultural diversity, with its twin elements of reconciliation and transformation, we have to confront the issue of domination and counterpose an approach which, in politics, affirms the rights of the democratic majority, while empowering the minorities.
This is an approach which would also give democratic space to all groups in multi-cultural societies to participate in a meaningful way in the country's policy. Such goals as participatory democracy, human rights and the recognition of cultural diversity therefore become both an end in themselves but also a precondition for peace, stability and development.
The things we have said impact on a great variety of issues. Let me mention only three.
One of these is that we can no longer describe democracy merely in terms of regular, multi-party elections with the winner exercising exclusive power until the next elections. The appropriate institutions and processes have to be found to give expression to the perspective of an inclusive exercise of power by the greatest number of citizens in all their formations both cultural and other.
The second of these is that this multiplies a million fold the challenge of ensuring that the masses are empowered by their access to information, their capacity to inform society of their views and their ability to participate in open debate to influence the evolution of the societies in which they should no longer be the objects but the makers of history. This has important implications with regard to the role of the media, which, in many instances, disempowers those to whose views, culture, values and being it is insensitive.
The third of the issues we would like to mention relates to the distribution of resources.
The success we seek with regard to our own country depends not only on the opening of our democratic space to give voice to all forces that are part of our culturally diverse society. It rests also on our ability to create a situation in which there is an equitable access to material resources both for the individual and the community, to address any sense of grievance that some are discriminated against and to work towards the situation in which the inalienable dignity of the individual is not compromised by poverty and deprivation.
Our history teaches us that to dominate is to buy short-term security and stability. It informs us that in the end, domination and inequality invites counter-action which will also threaten the comfort of even those who are firmly mired in the certainties of 17th century Europe.
We believe this to be self-evident that neither the successful management of conflicts anywhere in the world nor the construction of the new world order can be achieved on the basis of domination.
The hand maiden that will give life to our common project for peace and good neighbourliness is none other than our real respect for democracy and human rights.
We have met here to discuss the important questions that are on our agenda. But we also meet to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
Perhaps the answer we seek to the challenge of global cultural diversity lies in the serious and determined implementation of the vision contained in the many semi-documents which have emanated from the world body, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
But, finally, that answer must surely be found in our willingness as individuals and as countries to refuse to acquiesce in the oppression, marginalisation and deprivation of any person, regardless of their cultural origin, gender, colour, race, creed, age or physical condition.
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