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Almost eighteen months have now passed since the historic transformation of our society.

Like passengers who have survived an emergency landing, we have emerged from the transformation process somewhat dazed, somewhat shaken and overwhelmingly grateful for our deliverance and good fortune.

There was so much that could have gone dreadfully wrong.

Right until the last moment it did not look as though we would have the IFP on board.
We were extremely concerned about the possibility of right wing violence and reaction.
We were not at all sure that the election could be held successfully or that its outcome would be accepted by the main participants; and
After the election we had no idea what to expect.

How would the Government of National Unity work in practice? Was there any possibility that the ANC would moderate its pre-election rhetoric and adopt responsible economic and social policies? What of the influence within the ANC of the powerful SACP and COSATU factions? How would we ever be able to meet the expectations for a better life that had been unleashed among millions of South Africans by the new constitutional process?

These were all questions that were foremost in our minds as the aircraft of state was buffeted through the turbulent clouds and over the jagged peaks of the months preceding our election last year. And then, just before 27 April last year, there was a break in the clouds and we managed to find our way to the runway and to a safe landing.

It was natural that we should all have embraced one another as we exited the aircraft and congratulated one another when we found our feet once again on solid ground. And things have continued to go reasonably well.

The Government of National Unity has, for the most part, functioned reasonably effectively. In general it gives serious consideration to the constitutional requirement that it should operate in a spirit of consensus.

We have, on the whole, adopted responsible economic policies that are in keeping with accepted and proven principles and practices around the world. We have reached consensus on important areas, such as the RDP, even though we continue to differ on questions of implementation. Through our participation in the GNU we have also been able to moderate policy in important areas, such as education, the Labour Relations Act and the Truth and Reconciliation process.

In addition to all this we have experienced a wonder full coming together as a nation. We have begun to find one another as South Africans and have begun to lay the foundations for a vibrant multi-cultural nation.

President Mandela has played a central and significant role in all of this. He has done much to promote national reconciliation by reaching out to all South Africans, even to those who were formerly his bitter opponents.

Who will ever forget the moment at the inauguration, when the Impalas of the SAAF trailed our new national colours across the pale blue autumn skies above the Union Buildings? Which South African was not deeply moved by the jubilation of our national victory in the Rugby World Cup this year?

Surely these were wonderful manifestations of national reconciliation.

Reconciliation is the subject of these lectures and I should like to deal with it today in greater depth and detail.

Reconciliation is a complex concept, with different meanings and subtle nuances. We would do well to examine it more closely in all its connotations.

The world derives from the Latin word reconciliare which, according to one dictionary (Random House), means "to make good again, to repair". According to another (Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary) reconciliare means "to call together."

The definitions provided by the Oxford American Dictionary include the following:

to restore friendship between people after an estrangement or quarrel;
to induce a person or oneself to accept an unwelcome fact or situation; and
to bring facts or statements etc. into harmony or compatibility when they appear to be in conflict.

Its first meaning is associated with the search for peace, the bringing together of the different peoples of our country. It is this connotation that has received most publicity and recognition.

Despite the progress of the past eighteen months this aspect of reconciliation - of calling people together - of promoting peace and co-operation where there has been conflict and confrontation - continues to require daily attention from all South Africans at all levels of our society:

One the national level it requires all the parties involved to address the ongoing conflict in KwaZulu-Natal. The leaders of the parties to the conflict, of the ANC and the IFP, must come together in a spirit of reconciliation to hammer out agreements that will put to an end, once and for all, the unacceptable deaths and horrifying violence in the province.

We also need to come together at all levels of our society to address the violence and criminality in our communities.

We must come together to strive for harmonious inter-group relations in our complex society. We need to develop a common approach to the management of political, economic and inter-communal relationships in which it will be accepted that:

all parties must be fully consulted with regard to any matter that affects their interest;
decisions should, wherever possible, be based on consensus;
winner/loser situations should at all costs be avoided;
there should be no prescription or interference in matters that properly fall within the competence of individuals, families, communities and organisations;
confrontation and threats should be avoided and there must be an absolute and universal rejection of any resort to force or violence.
At the same time we need to develop clear and unifying national objectives.

If we wish to achieve economic growth and generate the resources that we will need to assure a better life for all South Africans, there will also have to be fundamental reconciliation between labour and management in South Africa. It is essential that workers and employers should perceive themselves to be team-mates in the great struggle for foreign and domestic markets. To achieve this we will need to reach the same kind of social contract that has been the basis for industrial peace and high productivity in other successful societies.

Reconciliation also means "reconciling oneself to something" - of reluctantly accepting that which is necessary or inevitable - but which we do not find altogether agreeable.

In the creation of the new South Africa we have all had to reconcile ourselves to realities that we would rather have avoided.

The acceptance by the great majority of the Afrikaners that it was no longer practical to cherish an ideal of national self-determination in their own state, was bitter and difficult - so difficult that some Afrikaners still cling to this ideal - despite the economic, demographic and political realities that surround them.

It was difficult for many people to accept that they would no longer have a monopoly of political and administrative power, that they would in future have to participate in a common political system where they would have no special privileges.

It required a radical change of perspective by my party to become an open, non-racial party reaching out to all South Africans on the basis of values and principles.

Thus, the majority of those who used to wield the power in the old South Africa have reconciled themselves to new realities - and they have been strengthened and liberated by their decision.

But also many others have had to reconcile themselves to new realities. Supporters of communism and socialism have since 1989 had to come to grips with the manifest failure and collapse of nearly all of the central tenets of their ideology. In the fact of the incontrovertible experience of successful emerging societies throughout the world - from Hong Kong to Chile, from Malaysia to Mauritius - it has become increasingly obvious that societies based on market-related principles are best able to assure a better life for their people. This tried and tested formula for economic success includes a commitment to:

fiscal discipline;
frugal and effective government;
a secure environment for investment and property;
low inflation and reasonable taxation;
free markets and open competition;
skilled and creative entrepreneurs;
a well trained, motivated and productive work force; and
a co-operative relationship between, labour, employers and Government.

It was difficult for the ANC to accept these realities - and I give them full credit for having done so. However, despite the reality of the dismal failure of socialism and the success of free market-based societies, there are still some on the left who are not prepared to reconcile themselves to these realities and who - like their counterparts on the far right - continue to cling to the illusions and ideologies of the past.

Finally, there is the third meaning of reconciliation - of "bringing facts or statements into harmony when they appear to be in conflict". This meaning is similar to the use of the world reconciliation in its accounting context, of having to make sure that accounts balance at the end of each month.

In South Africa it is equally important for us to ensure that the ideals that we set for ourselves as a society can be reconciled with the resources that we have at our disposal. We must ensure that there is balance in our management of the affairs of state.

At the moment there are a number of warning lights that our pursuit of generally acceptable ideals is out of balance with the reality of our circumstances:

The great majority of South Africans support the ideal of public institutions - particularly the civil service - that are representative of our population as a whole. Action to this effect is clearly required in terms of our Constitution.

However, the Constitution also requires that the civil service should be effective. In addition, it contains a clear prohibition against any form of racial discrimination.

The recent serious warning by the Auditor-General, Mr Henri Kluever, with regard to the parious condition of the Civil Service is a clear indication that there is no longer a reasonable balance between these various requirements of the Constitution. Things are seriously out of kilter. Little or no effort is apparently being made to retain the wealth of experience, dedication and expertise that existed within the old civil service. Instead the best and the brightest are leaving in disturbing numbers and are not being replaced by newcomers with equal competence. Those who remain are dispirited, demotivated and confused.

Our country cannot afford the collapse of the very institutions that we need to implement the RDP. The need for affirmative action must be reconciled with our need for an effective, non-racial and non-politicised civil service.

In the same manner all right-thinking South Africans accept the necessity of addressing the serious social imbalances in our country. We accept the goals of the RDP and are dedicated to improving the living conditions of the poor and disadvantaged.

This ideal must, however be brought into balance with the limited resources that we have at our disposal. We must remember that a very large proportion of the burden of social expenditure for forty million South Africans is being borne by little more than four million tax-payers.

It is an illusion, cherished by the left, that a privileged elite in South Africa can provide all the funds that we require for our social programmes. The reality is that middle class South Africans have experienced a real and very substantial decline in their living standards over the past twenty years. They reach the top of the income tax scale at relatively low levels of income; and they must still find the funds to pay for VAT and, increasingly, for their own social services. And schools. No wonder that personal debt has climbed to such alarming proportions in recent years. The IMF warned several years ago that the South African tax cow was running dry. The reality now is that there is simply no more milk.

We must reconcile our need to address social imbalances with the limited resources that we have at our disposal. We must, as a nation, understand that the only way that we will be able to generate the resources that need for social development will be by working for rapid and sustained economic growth. Recently, Chris Stals warned that the imbalances that have developed in the relationship between labour and management, our relatively high wages and low productivity, were among the main obstacles to economic growth. All of us, workers and employers, government and private sector must dedicate ourselves to working together to achieve economic growth.

The reality is that there are no short cuts to equality.

We must reconcile and bring into balance our need to assure peace and stability in South Africa, our need for economic growth and our need to address the pressing social backlogs in our society.

The reality is that these three priorities are inextricably inter-linked:

we cannot have economic growth without stability and peace;
we cannot have social justice without economic growth;
we cannot have peace and stability without social justice.

We can achieve none of these national priorities without reconciliation:

without bringing our ideals and goals into balance and reconciliation with our resources;
without reconciling ourselves to the realities that confront us, and
without reconciliation with one another as South Africans.