SPEECH AT THE LAUNCH OF THE AFRICAN RENAISSANCE INSTITUTE
Pretoria October 11 1999
Chairperson,
Distinguished Elders of Africa,
Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity,
Your Excellencies Ministers, Ambassadors and High Commissioners,
Distinguished participants,
Comrades,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am very pleased indeed to welcome you to the launch of the African
Renaissance Institute. I sincerely thank you for giving us, as South
Africans, the opportunity to host this launch and for me to speak at this
Opening Session.
I would also like to welcome to our country those of our brothers and
sisters who come from beyond our borders.
Once more, we would like to express our profound appreciation to you all
for the contribution that you made to our own struggle for liberation.
Liberated South Africa is therefore your home, not merely because it is
an African country, but because without your determined struggles, perhaps
we would not be a free people today.
The sacrifices the peoples of our Continent made to end the apartheid
crime against humanity,which denied the very humanity of everybody who was
African, were many and varied.
Among other things, the countries of Southern Africa also paid a very
high price in human lives lost, as well as property and infrastructure
destroyed, as they withstood the campaign of aggression and destabilisation
conducted by the apartheid regime. Undoubtedly, Angola and Mozambique paid
the highest price in this regard.
I would like to take this opportunity, once more, to reiterate our
profound appreciation to their governments and peoples for their
extraordinary solidarity, which our people will never forget.
I am also very pleased to make special mention and pay tribute to our
elders who are here, of whom we are justly proud and whose wisdom and
African patriotism will make an important contribution to our common quest
for an African Renaissance.
All of us are greatly distressed that that great son of all Africa,
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, is unable to be here, owing to a difficult health
condition. I am certain that we would all agree that we should send him a
heartfelt message of support and our wishes for his speedy recovery.
We have also received the apologies of another great son of our
Continent, Ahmed Ben Bella, who could not joint us owing to prior
commitments.
Chairperson:
As you are aware, the movement of our own struggle for national
liberation is the ANC, the African National Congress.
Brought up as we were by this movement and led by it, throughout the
entirety of our political lives we have been exposed to the inspiring
perspective of African unity and solidarity and the renewal of our
Continent.
Beyond this, the struggle for our own liberation led to the development
of perhaps the largest and most determined Pan-African movement of
solidarity our continent has ever seen, involving both governments and all
sections of the population, in every country.
We are therefore pleased and moved that some of our fellow Africans took
the initiative to establish the Institute that we are launching today.
I am convinced that all of us present here share a common vision in
favour of African unity and solidarity, African development and renewal and
an end to the marginalisation of our Continent in world affairs and
development processes.
It would seem to us vitally necessary that whereas, for some time, the
achievement of these objectives has been left to our governments, it is
necessary that we return this vision to the people.
We are therefore of the firm view that there is a critically important
and urgent need to develop a Popular Movement for the African Renaissance.
Accordingly, we believe that political organisations and governments in
all African countries should be mobilised to act in furtherance of the
objectives of the African Renaissance.
Equally, the masses and their organisations in all African countries
should similarly be mobilised and drawn into action.
We must also pay attention to the intelligentsia, the professionals, the
trade unions, business people, women and the youth, the traditional
leaders, cultural workers, the media and so on, to bring them into the
popular struggle for Africa's rebirth.
The question has been posed repeatedly as to what we mean when we speak
of an African Renaissance.
As all of us know, the word "renaissance" means rebirth, renewal,
springing up anew. Therefore, when we speak of an African Renaissance, we
speak of the rebirth and renewal of our continent.
This idea is not new to the struggles of the peoples of our continent
for genuine emancipation. It has been propagated before by other activists
for liberation, drawn from many countries.
But it has been suggested that when this perspective was advanced in
earlier periods, the conditions did not exist for its realisation.
Accordingly, what is new about it today is that the conditions exist for
the process to be enhanced, throughout the continent, leading to the
transformation of the idea from a dream dreamt by visionaries to a practical
programme of action for revolutionaries.
What, then, are these conditions! These are: the completion of the
continental process of the liquidation of the colonial system in Africa,
attained as a result of the liberation of South Africa; the recognition of
the bankruptcy of neo-colonialism by the masses of the people throughout the
continent, including the majority of the middle strata; the weakening of the
struggle among the major powers for spheres of influence on our continent,
as a consequence of the end of the Cold War; and, the acceleration of the
process of globilisation.
As we take advantage of these changed circumstances, we must move from
the fundamental proposition that the peoples of Africa share a common
destiny.
Each one of our countries is constrained in its ability to achieve
peace, stability, sustained development and a better life for the people,
except in the context of the accomplishment of these objectives in other
sister African countries as well.
Accordingly, it is objectively in the interest of all Africans to
encourage the realisation of these goals throughout our Continent, at the
same time as we pursue their attainment in each of our countries.
We speak of a continent which, while it led in the very evolution of
human life and was a leading
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
