Address by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe during the 1860 Legacy Foundation Gala Dinner, Cape Town, November 15 2010
Programme Director,
Mr Sigi Naidoo, Chairperson, 1860 Legacy Foundation,
Mr Mridul Kumar from the Indian High Commission,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It gives me great pleasure to be here with you on this highly significant day to mark the 150th Anniversary of the arrival of the Indian community in South Africa.
I must plead for your understanding as it is well nigh impossible to do justice to a subject of such profound historical proportions in a gala dinner. It is notable that Cape Town, a city that saw the first experience of human oppression in the form of slavery, serves as the location for this prominent event.
The history of slavery in the Cape is not unrelated to the Indian indentured labour and subsequent political events that would impact on the shape and form of future South Africa[1]. For instance, the year 2010 marks the Centenary of the Union of South Africa, which came into force on 31 May 1910.
The coming into being of the Union of South Africa represented the culmination of systematic and institutional racial oppression in our country. It was a historical stage that anticipated the advent of a grand Apartheid 38 years later.
With this in mind, I must express regret that I can only touch on a few prominent episodes in this story of historical deeds.
Ladies and gentlemen,
An incident of history, sinister in its imperial intentions, brought a sizeable number of people of Indian origins to our shores. Although the majority were indentured labourers, they also included traders, hawkers, and other types.
These people are today as South African as any other citizen of our country. This community of Indians came to South Africa as workers. However, their working conditions fell outside the conventional definition of workers. Inhumane and severely exploitative, their working conditions were reminiscent of slavery than paid labour.
They decided however to make South Africa their home and integrated well into their newly found country with its emergent tapestry of cultures. For example, from early times Indians and Africans worked together in the plantations and as household servants, as borne out in the photographs of the 19th and early 20th century Natal show.
And though they were different from each other in many ways, they also learned from each other. Cultural cross-pollination took place, further bringing the two peoples together in some important respects.
This is borne out in language terms. In this regard, both peoples have over time borrowed culinary words from each other, denoting mutual influence on cultural expressions.
Yet, it would be ahistorical to pretend that the relations between Africans and the Indian community have always been cordial. Political conditions created by Apartheid were consciously designed to divide and rule. Inter-ethnic and racial conflicts and feuds were thus not only the logical outcrop of the system but the design of Apartheid, which was racially hierarchical.
This racial hierarchy saw the white people at the apex, followed by Indians, then Coloureds, and Africans at the bottom. In this racial matrix, Indians could have easily taken advantage of their relatively better economic conditions and looked the other way; instead, they consciously cast their lot with fellow African humanity.
This common front against oppression presented one of the biggest threats to the Apartheid system. It also entrenched the enduring values of indivisible humanity among the oppressed, thus practically rendering this racial hierarchy irrelevant.
Through the vehicle of the African National Congress (ANC), a liberation movement alive to the ideals of a non-racial society early on in its life, the principles of unity have always been held aloft.
Through this vehicle, thus, the values and principles of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, just and democratic South Africa have historically held sway.
Leading activists, revolutionaries and visionaries from the ranks of the Indian communities have historically been drawn to this humanist vision, and have, accordingly, played a critical role in the struggle for a non-racial society.
Above all, the political contribution of Indians in South Africa has been immense.
In fact the formation of the Transvaal and Natal Indian Congresses (as well as the African People's Organisation), which predates the formation of the ANC, and the political activities of these organisations under the leadership of Gandhi and Dr Abdurhaman, respectively, were the seeds not only of opposition to racism, but also contributed to anti-colonial activity.
Segregation against people of Indian and by extension Asiatic origin was already entrenched in law as early as 1885.
The first discriminatory legislation directed at Indians, Law 3 of 1885, was passed in the South African Republic, or the Transvaal.
It stated:
1. This law shall apply to the persons belonging to any of the native races of Asia, including so-called Coolies, Arabs, Malays, and Mohammedan subjects of the Turkish Empire.
2. With regard to the persons mentioned in Article one the following provisions shall apply:
a. They cannot obtain the burgher right of the South African Republic (Transvaal).
b. They cannot be owners of fixed property in the Republic except only in such streets, wards and locations as the Government for purposes of sanitation shall assign to them to live in.
c. They shall be inscribed in a Register, if they settled with the object of trading.
d. The government shall have the right for wards purposes of sanitation, to assign to them certain streets, and locations to live in. This provision does not apply to those who live with employers.
Programme director,
In doing justice to history, I would like us to dwell on the role of Mahatma Gandhi for a while.
As we know, Gandhi played no small role in setting off a flame of consciousness that would not only lighten up the Indian community but raged across the borders of time.
We thus cannot realistically reflect on the historical role of the Indian community in South Africa without looking at this role Gandhi played in laying the foundations for resistance against colonial oppression.
Distinguished guests,
Of course, Gandhi was not an indentured worker. Nor was he a trader who followed the paths of the indentured workers to the colonies in pursuit of new opportunities.
He came to South Africa from Britain, where he had just qualified as a barrister, to work on his first case involving a dispute between two Indian traders.
Such were the conditions here that he stayed on for almost twenty years to serve the Indian community.
We all know that fateful night in which Gandhi decided to dedicate his life to fighting oppression when he was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg on the grounds of the colour of his skin.
He then developed his philosophy of fighting oppression, but not by violent means. He felt that it was a moral duty to overcome unjust rule.
But it was also one's duty to ensure that one's own behaviour was beyond reproach.
Gandhi called this "Satyagraha" or "firmness in truth/ soul force"; stressing that his philosophy involved much more than "passive resistance".
At the same time that one was fighting an unjust enemy one should also remove injustices from one's own society.
Gandhi's views on the upliftment of all people and castes, of the equal treatment of women and of building bridges between peoples and religions remain relevant to us today.
Gandhi above all practised what he preached: the role of his stretcher bearer corps in helping the wounded Africans during the Bambatha[2] rebellion of 1906 is an example of this action.
Of course history is not made by individuals, critical though their roles may have been in leading to change.
Accordingly, Gandhi was not an island unto himself; his achievements also lie with those that supported him, ordinary working class Indians as well as the trading classes.
And when he left there were others to continue his good work.
Among these were leaders such as Yusuf Dadoo, Monty Naicker, Nana Sita, Dr Goonum, Ela Gandhi, Billy Nair, Maulvi Cachalia, Ayesha Bibi Dawood, Farouk Meer, Mewa Ramgobin, Ahmed Kathrada and many others.
There were those who joined Umkhonto We Sizwe like Mac Maharaj and Laloo Chiba, and still others incarcerated on Robben Island for their roles like Indres Naidoo.
The Doctor's Pact, entered into in 1947 by Yusuf Dadoo, Monty Naicker and A.B. Xuma sealed the future of a non-racial South Africa in this historic act.
The Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign of 1952, together with the Congress of the People of 1955, also represented the irreversible march towards a non-racial future.
And I needn't remind you of those who served, and some who continue to serve, in the ANC-led government.
The Indian community, as can all other South Africans with the vision of a truly non-racial future, can be proud of those who were chosen to serve in President Mandela's first cabinet: the likes of Dullah Omar, Jay Naidoo, the Pahad brothers, Kader Asmal and others.
It is a historical fact that the largest section of the Indian community have, intellectually and politically, always sided with the cause of national liberation.
They readily embraced the cause of national unity, democracy, non-racialism, non-sexism, justice and equality.
Today we have overcome an unjust political order: democracy and freedom of association are our hard-earned rights.
Therefore I would urge all of us to continue playing your role in ensuring that we maintain and improve on our democratic gains.
Certainly, the continued role of Indians of varied descriptions in the educational, health and governmental and other spheres is crucial.
The positive experience of Indians in the reconstruction and development of our nation should be used as an example that migrant communities do indeed add value to a country.
Programme director,
Going forward, I am optimistic that somewhere in the near future, South Africa will develop a meta-consciousness which, both at the individual and national levels, make us volitionally submerge our ethnic self-concept and open a way to one, great, over-riding South African identity.
And yet, embracing this identity should not be tantamount to obliterating distinctive ethnic identity; it should, instead, be to celebrate our nationhood.
We can reach a point of maturity in our national consciousness where it is second nature to think of one-self as a South African first and a black person or white person after.
Our experience that spans decades of a non-racial struggle should be an unlimited resource to propel us forward to a non-racial future.
Based on this rich history thrown up by the act of the arrival of the Indian indentured labourers, we would do well to begin to define the direction we are taking as a country today.
We have learnt valuable lessons from our common history.
Our tortured past, the crudest part of which has been buried with the casting of the democratic ballot in April 1994, has opened up new vistas that we need to boldly explore as we move on.
One of these new possibilities is the reality of strengthening non-racial ethos in our society.
On this account, we have a dual but contradictory legacy.
Economic hierarchy meant that political status of racial groups corresponded to economic status.
The post-94 era has inherited this ugly reality that contributed to the division of our people.
Our democratic face continues to be scarred by this ugliness.
Inversely, the fact of oppression, as mentioned early, drew all the oppressed together into one orbit of consciousness. More than any time, the imperatives of post-Apartheid South Africa demands that we harness these forces of unity for reconstruction and development purposes.
I submit that one of the biggest challenges we face today is to address the legacy of economic inequality on the one hand, while deepening non-racialism on the other. Today, economic conditions and a non-racial worldview go together and so we cannot address one without directing the same amount of energy to the other.
Justice, equality and economic well-being for all South Africans are the critical elements in the expansion and deepening of a non-racial future.
Inequalities in the economic domain should not exist; much less remind us of our past divisions.
Put differently, economic success should not be synonymous with certain racial groups as a hang-up from our past.
This suggests that we must continue to put the inter-racial unity of the past to the service of the present. Our common future lies in the realisation that White, Black, Coloured and Indian South Africans' destiny is one. Our young generation should be able to see a non-racial society in practice everywhere they look. Our composition in sports, government, private sector, religious institutions, and other pivotal spheres of national life should reflect our diversity as South Africans.
We must reach a point where this diversity in our collective life is not a mechanical practice or a contrived outcome, but an instinctive exercise that comes naturally. Indeed, no community should feel that certain areas of human activity are by nature reserved for other groups, as if we are re-living apartheid relations.
We have learnt enough historical lessons to know that just as racism was a conscious effort at social engineering; it can equally be defeated by conscious efforts to wipe it off our system of thought. Wiping off racism from our thinking, as already mentioned, goes hand in hand with commensurate improvement in our economic conditions.
Furthermore, social cohesion will not just emerge by itself.
Our educational institutions and sport, as shown by our national unity before the 2010 FIFA World Cup, should be supported materially and financially.
Our socialisation agencies should prioritise the task of building a non-racial future. In this connection, former President Nelson Mandela has blazed a trail and we are lucky to still have a larger than life figure such as him.
As the father of our nation, he continued to show the way even after the indefinable era just after the first democratic election.
His leadership, legacy and vision, to which we have all gravitated, should be actively used to unite us and teach our young to learn to love one another as brothers and sisters.
This is the legacy we should seek to associate ourselves with, fully aware that when history makes judgement, we should not be faulted on the key areas of our responsibility, such as building non-racialism, about which so many have struggled for so long.
I wish the Indian community in South Africa a happy 150 years anniversary; 150 years of history!!!
I thank you.
Issued by The Presidency, November 15 2010
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