ADDRESS BY
PRINCE MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI MP
PRESIDENT OF THE INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY
Palmview School, Phoenix
I am grateful for this opportunity to celebrate with you and spend an afternoon together. There is a lot on my heart that I would like to share with you. But most importantly, I want to wish you joy, peace and blessings at this significant time in the calendar. The celebration of Diwali this past week saw families coming together, friendships being renewed, and lives being recommitted to spirituality. This is a time of unity which I gladly celebrate with you.
In that spirit of celebration, I welcome the chance to be in Phoenix today, knowing that the IFP has many friends in this community. Today, we welcome many new friends, with whom we look forward to forging new partnerships. I have every expectation that good things will come from these new friendships between the IFP and the people of Phoenix, because for 40 years we have seen only good from this relationship.
The significance of the long-standing friendship between the IFP and this community cannot be overemphasised. I am sure we are all aware of the turn being taken in our national discourse towards division. Somehow, 21 years into democracy, race is again becoming an issue. Firebrands have entered the political arena and they are agitating for a clash between South Africans, as though the success of one group can only be established on the destruction of another.
That was the mindset that gave us apartheid, and it is a mindset that is stirring tensions between Indians and blacks, and blacks and whites. A volatile bomb is being built, and if we fail to diffuse it, it will destroy what is good about South Africa. Democracy, freedom, equality and human rights will be tramped if we allow racism to rise again and dominate our struggle against poverty, inequality and unemployment.
That struggle is being waged on a massive scale in South Africa. It is the new liberation struggle of this generation. We must, therefore, give thought to how we will wage it. On what principles will we engage this struggle? What are we willing to give up and what must we protect in the process?
Throughout our liberation struggle we knew the importance of using the right strategy. Endless hours went into discussing strategy, shaping strategy and changing strategy. The question was never what we sought to achieve, for all of us who engaged the struggle wanted a liberated South Africa in which every citizen could claim a stake and make their contribution. Instead, the question was how we would achieve that: what strategy would we use.
I believed that our strategy had to be informed by our principles. The founding fathers of our liberation struggle established certain principles, key among them being non-violence, unity and inclusivity. These principles were designed to protect our future, so that no matter what the journey towards liberation entailed, we would end with a nation that could be unified and at peace. From the beginning, those founding principles were intended to shape our strategy, preventing us from going down certain paths.
Sadly, it is now a matter of history that those principles were compromised. When the ANC’s mission-in-exile embraced people’s war and an armed struggle, South Africa’s path to liberation took a turn it should never have taken. Inkatha knew what the consequences would be, how wounds would be opened that would take generations to heal, and how a culture of lawlessness and violence would take root and not easily be removed once freedom was achieved. In the same way, we knew that the call for economic sanctions and disinvestment would weaken the economy we would inherit, ensuring future unemployment, while creating monopolies and cartels.
The IFP refused to abandon the founding principles of our struggle. We believed that democracy would be won through passive resistance, negotiation, and growing international pressure against racial discrimination and political oppression. We believed in staying the course to secure an outcome in which the future was not compromised.
I still thank God for the IFP’s steadfast stand for a principled strategy. We were joined by millions of people of goodwill who wanted to achieve not only the freedom to vote, but the freedom to live a dignified life, in harmony with their neighbour, fully able to access opportunities and create better circumstances. The IFP fought to secure a liberated country in which unity could be achieved. But we swam against the tide, for other components of the struggle gave up this ideal, either believing we could force unity after the fact, or preferring the idea of power over that of unity.
I recount all this because we are now living with the consequences of compromise, and we are living in a season in which compromise again threatens. As we wage the struggle against poverty, unemployment and inequality, we must hold fast to the principles laid out in our democratic Constitution. Firebrands and agitators are calling on South Africans to give up those principles or put them on hold, pretending that we can only win our battle if we let go of our principles.
But experience tells us that that is a mistake. If we are to make it across this river of economic turmoil, we must hold hands and go across together. Creating scapegoats, opening divisions, raising tensions and pitting citizen against citizen are not only foolish, but terribly dangerous. South Africa stands at another crossroads. Many are being pulled in the wrong direction. But there are those, like the people in this hall, who know right from wrong, and who want to walk the right path.
You are the people of goodwill; the people who naturally find a home in the IFP. I am honoured to welcome you to our family, for I know that you have a valuable contribution to make. It is good to know that ward 51 has a new branch of the IFP.
The growth in numbers of committed IFP supporters bodes well for the work that lies ahead. That is the work of protecting the future, of protecting our principles, and steering South Africa towards greater unity.
I want to thank Mrs Banu Haripersad, your ward chairperson, for committing to serve the people of Palmview and Phoenix. I hope to see the IFP strengthened in this ward through the active participation of every member in branch activities. It is through branches that we mobilise, campaign and achieve results. It is in branches that relationships develop, and ideas become reality.
I know that the colonial segregationist policies and apartheid has kept us apart as you can see from these separate townships and schools. I think if we do not get together as black South Africans with our Indian brothers and sisters the future looks bleak for our coming generations. Joining parties like the IFP is one sure way of creating these necessary bonds between us as fellow South Africans. For me this does not look like asking for the moon. Even in the dark days of apartheid I attended Fort Hare University with scores of Indian brothers and sisters who came from this Province. And even after my rustication from Fort Hare University when I landed here in Durban in September 1950, I attended one lecture at the University of Natal with the late Professor Fatima Meer, and got close to one of my mentors Inkosi Albert Luthuli. He, Dr Monty Naicker and other leaders of the ANC and the Natal Indian Congress worked together for the destruction of apartheid.
Even after the apartheid regime decided to pass the Political Improper Interference Act to forbid any working together between the Indians and Africans and other race groups, we set up the South African Black Alliance with such leaders as Yellan Chinsamy and other African and Coloured leaders.
We have only one destiny as people of this country, and we have to get together in serving our country even by Indians not hesitating to join what might appear as predominantly black political organisations such as the Inkatha Freedom Party or the African National Congress. We have had great South African leaders such as the late Advocate Bawa, Mr Narend Singh and several other Indian members who have been members of this Party, and who have served with the rest of us in Parliament, in the Legislature and in the Municipal Councils. I implore you in the interests of our one destiny to stand up and be counted to forge these links between our people.
Over the next few months, we are going to have to work hard to secure the future. In 2016, South Africa will hold its fourth Local Government Elections. If we can strengthen the IFP’s showing at the polls, our stand against those who are willing to destroy South Africa will be strengthened. Our voice, the voice of reason, will be heard, even in the midst of the storm. And those who hear it will find a lighthouse.
The IFP can guide South Africa through the present storm. We will do it for you and through you, for you are the strength of the IFP.
I thank you.
