ADDRESS BY THE ANC TREASURER-GENERAL, DR MATHEWS PHOSA, ON THE OCCASSION OF THE CITY OF TSHWANE ANNUAL NELSON MANDELA LEGACY GALA DINNER - TSHWANE

20 JULY 2010

THE TRIUMPH OF THE MANDELA SPIRIT

1. When we start to look at the characteristics of what it is that makes the Mandela legacy so special, we need to firstly define those characteristics that signify a magnificent triumph of the spirit. Some of them are:

• Perseverance beyond normal endurance.
• Commitment to a cause bigger than oneself. Richard Nixon once said that one has not truly lived until you have found a cause bigger than your own life.
• A single-minded dedication to liberate all the people of South Africa into a political system that is free and fair.
• A love of your country beyond selfish and partisan narrowness.
• A winning and conquering attitude and spirit that understands that adversity is the breakfast of champions and that, in each disappointment and challenge there lies substantial opportunity.
• A belief in partnership across all dividing borders, even when your partners are the very people and institutions that oppressed and prosecuted you.
• Embracing all the people in your environment, even those whose views differ dramatically from your own, and understanding the deeper truth of the statement that South Africa belongs to all who live in it.
• The enormous ability to forgive and forget. Madiba taught us that the inability to forgive saddles us with heavy and cumbersome baggage that holds us back from living a full and fulfilled life.
• An understanding that hard work, dedication, and commitment in the present is an investment into the future that will create energy to propel us forward into a better life for all.

2. There are, in the above lessons for us all in our own daily lives as we are tasked, mandated and instructed to carry the Mandela legacy forward. They are:

• We should move forward with a self-belief and confidence instilled in us by the success of former President Mandela and all who joined him in the fight for freedom.
• We should acknowledge and celebrate our successes and not be shy to confirm and affirm our successes, such as a number of World Cups staged here, notably the globally acclaimed Soccer World Cup.
• We should develop not only responsible corporate citizenship, but also responsible personal citizenship where each of us, however small, makes a contribution to the betterment of our own lives and the lives of others.
• We should, as a nation, invest more time, energy and money in the development of leadership in schools, universities, institutions and companies.
• We should, as Mandela had, develop an attitude that we are bigger than any challenge, however daunting, that we might face.

3. When former President Mandela rode onto the pitch at Soccer City at the end of the successful Soccer World Cup, his presence there was the embodiment of the enormous success of our nation in the past sixteen years.

4. It was symbolic of the hard-fought victories of the past two decades since his release from prison, and symbolic of the future we want for all of us.

5. It was, however, also an affirmation of our ability and commitment as a nation to be successful in whatever we set out for ourselves to do.

6. It inspired us with pride, confidence and the energy to say: If we can do this, we can also tackle any of the challenges that face us in South Africa today. We can, and will overcome any challenge that we face.

7. There is, however, also the critical issue of what we should now take ownership of on behalf of Mr Mandela, what the next step is for us as those who need to co-own his spirit of triumph and victory over massive challenges.

8. For me, that instruction is clear and unambiguous.

9. We can celebrate the victories of political liberation and other magnificent successes such as the Soccer World Cup, but we cannot have the final celebration until we lift the trophy of economic liberation and place it next to that of political liberation.

10. That, for me, is the next step in our liberation, in our investment into the future, and in celebrating the life of a great man and leader that refused to be bowed and defeated by almost unbearable onslaughts.

11. To achieve that, we need to be able to transplant the magnificent project management skills of the Soccer World Cup into a number of areas such as:

• Dramatically improving the standards of our delivery in the health and education sectors
  Ensuring that our skills development initiatives benefit long term job seekers with high quality and low cost programs
• Continuing the resounding successes of the World Cup regarding anti-crime management
• Putting our money where our mouths are in fast-tracking our discussions regarding anti-corruption programmes
• Forming partnerships with labour and the private sector in dedicated projects to boost our exports
• Investing in leadership development in the state owned enterprises so that a hole does not open up every time a CEO or head of a department leaves.

Each and every one of us has a duty to push the Mandela legacy-the triumph of an unbreakable spirit, into the future.

Let us take that duty-and gift-seriously, and move forward without hesitation.

Thank you.

Issued by the African National Congress, July 20 2010

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