Marius Fransman, MPL and ANC Western Cape Chairperson, on Freedom Day, 27 April 2016, Cape Town City Hall
Freedom Day – How far have we really come as the descendants of proud warriors of the First Nation Community?
It gives me great pleasure to deliver this address to this gathering on this birthdate of our democracy, in the presence of such esteemed dignitaries of the indigenous communities. Today we will honour Dr Kutela and all those other unsung heroes that fought for us to be free today!
Today we are starting a Dialogue, and this Dialogue will go into action, and I hope that the descendants of the Khoi, Saãn and Boesman Warriors are ready to take up the spear that has fallen in the early 1500's along the banks of the Liesbeeck River!
In post-apartheid South Africa; diversity, cohesion and integration are big words and hold even greater implications. I would thus first like to say that we are at a critical juncture in the life of our nascent democracy and thus it is fitting to create occasion for reflection, space for engagement and for the discussion about the elephant in the room to emerge in an environment that is open, frank and safe.
The Mandela Revolution was born out of détente - the product of cessation of the armed struggle and tough negotiations that gave birth to national reconciliation and an acceptance that we are united in our diversity, that the birth of a new nation could only hold in an environment in which cohesion is fostered and that a new social fabric can only emerge when we succeed in weaving two disparate worlds and polarised worlds into one.
This lecture therefore finds expression in the desire to talk about where have come from. How we have dealt with legacy, memory and the aches and pains of more than two decades of transformation and nation building. It therefore goes without saying that despite the numerous sterling achievements that we have made as a nation, we have not fully traversed the path embracing our diversity, cohesion is under threat from growing economic polarisation and social decay manifested in corruption, crime and social decay.
So, this Dialogue creates a platform for a journey we are undertaking to get our nation talking about the kind of South Africa we want to have over the next two decades of democracy and nation-building. Then we begin the collective task of putting effort to strive towards the milestones for diversity, cohesion and integration.
Ladies and gentlemen;
We meet here close to the Castle of Good Hope barely one hundred of the Cape Colonial gallows called Justice Square or Pleets Justisie in Dutch, located opposite the Castle entrance, at the convergence of Buitenkant and Keizersgracht and now Darling street in an iconic colonial structure. It was there in 1759 where Griet the Khoi slave woman, was hanged and later beheaded and her head put on a stake for public display; It was there in 1767 where the Chinese Tsoa Toko was convicted, sentenced to death and marched to the gallows; and it was there where the "first European person since the arrival of Van Riebeeck, Hans Kettner, was put to death by a firing squad for his role in murdering a Khoikhoi servant Arnoldus when he was tortured and beaten to death.
I raise these three examples cognisant of the fact that it is but a small snippet of the gross, traumatic and tormented legacy of colonial oppression that lies buried beneath the edifice of the national democratic society that we are striving to build through promoting diversity, cohesion and integration in post-apartheid South Africa.
I am of the view that we are under-estimating the deep-seated scars that this painful, traumatic and repressive past has had on the psyche of our people for over 360 years under colonialism and apartheid. If we think the daily headlines of Die Son and Daily Voice is bad because it is replete with stories of violent crime, murder, rape, racism and scandal; this is what Russel Viljoen says in a 2011 UNISA study of 18th Century Cape colonial life: "During the eighteenth century, the Cape Colony developed into a violent society in every sense of the word. The type of crimes committed by perpetrators, the sentences imposed by the colonial authorities and the Court of Justice were equally violent."
In his book, Cape of Torments: Slavery and Resistance in South Africa (1983), the historian Robert Ross highlights how violence and resistance dominated relations between emerging colonial identities shortly after the founding of the new colonial settlement subsequent to 1652. He narrates 'the location of the gallows and the frequency of public hangings, torture, impalement, branding with hot tongs, strangulation, suffocation, being broken on the wheel, whipped, dragged through the streets of Cape Town and beheadings in the presence of spectators impelled colonial visitors to the Cape Colony to relate harrowing recollections in their diaries of death and violence of the worst kind.'
Sarah Nuttall and Carli Coetzee in their study 'Negotiating the past: The making of memory in South Africa' elaborates on the colonial practice of using human beings as the pedagogical format for instruction in servility and compliance. This facilitated a culture of ownership in which the value of lives was merely in relation to their value as property. This section is about punishment. It details how the use of torture as spectacle rendered the slave body invisible and established the memory of terror within the slave community.
A few years ago Shephard Mathi a Rhodes Graduate quoted in the Legacies of Apartheid Wars or LAWS Project, reminded us that "The disintegration of the African communal subsistence life brought about by colonial conquest and dispossession scattered my family all over this region… One hundred years earlier African people from this region …were fighting to protect whatever little was left of their land and livelihood…”
Mati concludes with a powerful challenge: to build new institutions (and we can add sensibilities) committed to a critical appreciation of where we come from, a dialogical and analytic engagement of where we are now, and placing before all of us a compelling vision of a future based on solidarity and caring.
Perhaps you will also recall that it was on the 11 February 1990 that a free Nelson Mandela stood on the balcony right here at the City Hall and reminded us and I quote: 'Today the majority of South Africans, black and white, recognise that apartheid has no future. It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. The mass campaign of defiance and other actions of our organisation and people can only culminate in the establishment of democracy. The destruction caused by apartheid on our sub-continent is incalculable. The fabric of family life of millions of my people has been shattered. Millions are homeless and unemployed. Our economy lies in ruins and our people are embroiled in political strife.’
From the remnants of that morass and based upon the founding principles of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Kliptown Freedom Charter of 1955 Madiba gave expression to an inclusive vision of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.
History will record it as his standing legacy-the transition from Apartheid to setting South Africa on a course towards national reconciliation, diversity, cohesion and integration. It is also the single-most significant indicator of success of a 104 year old revolution.
But reflecting on recent events the last 12 months, the very objective of a non-racial and united in diversity nation is under threat - unless we do not tackle head-on the issues of exclusion - albeit economically, socially and culturally.
I believe that there has been a genuine attempt on the part of the historically disenfranchised and oppressed as well as the national government to accommodate, strive for national reconciliation and afford an opportunity for redress and transformation to take root.
However much more needs to be done to address the psychological scars as we cannot have substantive social cohesion, nation building and racial, religious, ethnic and cultural inclusivity based upon laws and policies alone. The challenges lie in policy implementation and we see each other on a day to day basis, how we interact and relate to each other.
Equally important we must ask the question, has this opportunity been seized upon by the primary beneficiaries of colonialism and apartheid's far-reaching policy and programmes? More important, what progress if any has been made to deconstruct those patterns of skewed development planning, resource allocation and prioritisation? What has white capital and captains of industry done to empower, the dispossessed black majority - Africans, Coloureds and Indians?
How have they implemented laws and policies of redress, and have they not perpetuated the scars of apartheid and social cohesion in the manner that they have implemented these laws of policy and redress such as affirmative action. Have farmers supported the process of nation building, national reconciliation and social, racial, cultural and class inclusion in the manner and ways that they have been responding to the living conditions of Farmworkers for the past 22 years?
How have the white madams been relating to their domestics workers since the dawn of democracy? How has national and provincial government responded to the cultural sensitivities and diversity of this country and province in particular? Are we attempting to maintain the same racist, Eurocentric patterns of the past or have we been sensitive in our policies and plans in this regard?
Let me now reflect on this heroic man called Dr Kutela -
A remarkable man - is how Dr Chief (//Nouseb) Richard Kutela was
To be remarkable is to be unusual, exceptional, interesting or excellent. These words, as encapsulated and defined in dictionaries, describe the life of a man who did remarkable things.
Through this others are inspired to talk about it, because it is both unusual and good.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary give the meaning for remarkable as "worthy of being, or likely to be noticed especially as being uncommon or extraordinary".
Those who knew the Great Chief Kutela knows of his crusade for the return of the historical land of his forefathers, more specifically that of the Southern Cape.
Those who attended the Forum for Traditional leaders in 2006 in Zoar will remember the Chairperson, Chief Kutela's outcry for the Khoi and Saãn-identity saying: "We are going to take our land back. We are Khoi-Saãn, the true owners of this land, the sons and daughters of the soil of Africa, the oldest nation in the world."
This remarkable man, this hero and educator, was the author of three books which focussed on the indigenous Khoekhoegowab or Nama-language.
The fourth book was about folklore, or as the Great Chief used to refer to it as "Volksverhale".
As we laid this great leader, this great visionary to rest, we were aware that Dr Kutela's dream of reclaiming our ancestral land has not yet realised.
The best way for us to pay homage to the legacy of this great man, is to continue on the path that he has pointed out and on which he has led us to this point.
The responsibility now rest upon us as the Khoi, Saãn, Boesman and the Griquas to unify into that nation that the visionary Dr Kutela so proudly referred to.
From there we will strife united as one to make this dream of Dr Kutela and the others who went before him, a reality.
The quest may not be an easy one.
But the blood that flow through our veins is the same that pumped through the hearts of our forefathers when they so gallantly fought and defeated De Almeida and his ruthless Portuguese soldiers, with nothing else but a strong will, some arrows and a few assegaais during the War of Resistance that took place in Cape Town in 1510.
My question to you here today: Can we honestly say we ready to take up the warriors of the 1500's spears and do justice to their legacy?
Are you ready to be the First Volunteers for such a Renaissance?
As we stand here, it is my plea that the Khoikhoi of today accept that injustices regarding the land issue can be overcome.
But, it requires that unity and spirit of the year 1510 - a spirit of togetherness, fighting together, not allowing people to divide the cause, and reliance on oneself and on no other, that VICTORY can be CERTAIN.
As we owe it to the brave Khoikhoi that fought that day, we equally now owe it to our future generations.
In 2011 president Jacob Zuma attended the momentous occasion held at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town, celebrating the 300th year anniversary of Chief Adam Kok, one of the great warriors produced by our country.
The president reiterated that this country remains conscious of the need to improve the economic, social and cultural situation of the indigenous people, with full respect for their distinctiveness and their own initiatives.
President Zuma also referred to that event as a reminder to government to work harder and faster towards achieving the recognition of the Khoi-Saãn identity and the protection of the rights of the Khoi-Saãn people.
It is in this willing spirit that I call for on all for this National Dialogue to be culminating into September, Heritage month. For it is only through a spirit of unity that we can achieve our true identity as a people, and move forward from there.
In fact have we continued post 1994 to just build on the Frame of a Colonial and Apartheid State- and here I must remind you that the state is not just the government or cabinet! The State consists of government, legislature and judiciary, and therefore all three must work in tandem with each other!
Have we unshackled ourselves from the type of state structure that was there before ‘94?
Can we truly build a Developmental Path on such a structure or should we dismantle it? Did we compromised too much at the altar of reconciliation?
Has this province in particular been sensitive to the historical legacy of apartheid social, spatial, racial, religious, cultural, class and ethnic identity engineering and done anything to address it? What has this province done to affirm the culture and heritage of all our peoples especially the Khoi and the San?
Or has this province over the past 5 years attempted to build a province that only takes into account the Eurocentric culture and heritage of the dominant group (white) in power? Where laws are created to deal with buskers and beggars and the barking of dogs as well as curbing of Klopse marches in the city and Muazzin in the Bo Kaap? But no laws and programs are put into place to empower the rights of the Khoi and the Saãn, nor the heritage of the Cape Muslims or the Xhosa.
Henry Trotter tells us in a Yale University study titled "Trauma and Memory: The impact of apartheid-era forced removals on coloured identity": Communities often cohere around memories of historical suffering… South Africans, a people whose diverse ancestry experienced enslavement, dispossession, genocidal extermination and apartheid degradation the question of historical memory is fraught with difficulty.
A striking aspect of coloured people's memory today is that, for the most part, they do not invest in a remote past. Some scholars have even implied that they suffer from historical amnesia. He says: most coloured Capetonians instead focus upon a painful experience within living memory: the forced eviction of 150 000 coloured people from their natal homes and communities in the Cape Peninsula between 1957 and 1985 under the Group Areas Act.
Based on over 100 life history interviews with coloured forced removees, this study examines the impact of the Group Areas evictions on contemporary coloured identity. It suggests that, in the wake of mass social trauma, coloured removees coped with their pain by reminiscing with one another about the 'good old days' in their destroyed communities.
Ladies and gentlemen;
Having said that there still remain some significant sectors where inequality is deeply entrenched and we must reassess our strategies to address these challenges. This includes land and land-ownership; control and management of the economy and natural resources; in sectors such as agriculture and farming transformation has been slow and one must question the reason for this in an environment where we have enjoyed two decades of new international markets that have opened up for South African produce post-apartheid sanctions.
The questions to be urgently dealt with are (A) Recognition of the First Nation Status and (B) Return of Land Stolen Pre-1913
Ladies and gentlemen;
I am excited that we have started this journey through this lecture. We must recognize that we all feel excluded in some way. Some on racial grounds, some on gender grounds, some on age, religion and culture, some because of being differently disabled.
This therefore is our further investment in the Identity Campaign! Our rallying call is drawn from our national coat of arms: ke e:/karra/ke and written in the Khoisan language of the ǀXam people and translates to "diverse people unite".
Through this call this platform will ensure hope of true unity for many generations of people from diverse cultural traditions and identity groups.
Perhaps then we can truly appreciate the idealism of Tata Madiba when on that historic day overlooking thousands on the Grand Parade, he repeated an extract from his Rivonia Trial speech: "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
I thank you!
