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Masters of Ceremonies
Members of the Executive Council
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature
Leaders from the Religious Community
Business Fraternity
Honoured Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Friends and Comrades

Our provincial conference takes place in view of the forth-coming World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances to be held in the next two weeks in Durban.

As a country we are proud that the United Nations chose South Africa to host this important gathering, which will look at this very important issue, which affects every facet of our individual countries and societies throughout the world.

This very important conference, both from our point of view as a province and a country comes at a time when we as South Africans continue to experience the impact of racism left by the legacy of apartheid and the rising intolerance amongst our people, seven years after our first democratic elections.

It also comes at a time when the whole world is experiencing the rise of racism and related intolerance's throughout the world and in particular in the central parts of our continent - Africa and Europe.

I therefore call on all delegates to commit them to participate fully in this provincial conference and make inputs that will qualitatively contribute towards the creation of a world free of the demon of racism and help to prevent incidents of racism, which are very prevalent in our province and country.

This provincial conference must concretise a position as the Northern Cape with a practical programme which will be forwarded to the international conference on racism as part of our contribution.

Racism has its roots in the belief that some people are superior because they belong to a particular race, ethnic or social group who deliberately marginalise and discriminate against the other group on racial grounds.

The central parts of our continent have experienced untold suffering of the people of the Great Lakes, which saw over five hundred thousand people die because of genocide during ethnic violence that took place. Similarly we have witnessed in the far-flung countries of Europe the ethnic cleansing that took place in that region. This again has had untold suffering by the people of these countries. In both instances, innocent people died because they did not belong to what was deemed a correct ethnic group. This can be seen in the eyes of intolerance.

Our country, as many others, is no stranger to the racial problems that have polarised our province. We must stop the denial by a certain section of people of our province who claim that racism is non-existent.

Racial problems in our province are genuine problems that present themselves as racial antagonism and attitudes of dislike towards a person who belongs to a group, which is outside of your own group. This starts with the recognition of oneself as a member of a particular superior group, sharing common characteristics with other members of that group. And that is the form in which this racial antagonism presents itself.

In our country it did not take long for the colonial powers to insist on a distinction between what they called black and white.

It is said that one of the woman trekkers around 1836 gave as a reason for the Trek the fact that slaves were being treated as equals to whites, liberated slaves that is. When these slaves were free, they were entitled to be treated like anybody else. At this, objection was raised to this position; they announced as early as then that there should be no equality between black and white, either in State and church.

Quite significantly, to this day there is still no equality in South Africa, even though the statute books have repealed all those laws which prohibited equality. The racial element is indeed very old and has endured. These causes are common to the whole phenomenon of racial hostility, racial problems not only in our province but the whole country and the rest of the world.

First among these is to entrench privilege. Then there are economic considerations, and the history of colonialism and imperialism is well known to all of us here.

Another of the cause is sheer prejudice. This is interesting because prejudice is fed into one's mind. A child grows up prejudiced against another person not because that person has done anything or a group of persons has done anything to the child.

It is because the child assumes that those who are older know better and if they have an attitude towards a group of people, that attitude must be correct.

First and foremost we as citizens of the Northern Cape have become conscious of the existence of what we call Afrikaners, English-speaking people, Blacks i.e. Africans, Coloureds and Indians. The apartheid policy has been such that these groupings have been created, maintained, kept alive and developed, strengthened and fortified against one another.

This effort had been directed at building mutual hostility between these groups, which can still be seen today. Today these groups who have been victims of the doctrine of separate development have tended to accept these divisions as they have been victims of the then government policy and have come to accept their racial designations. That this is a serious problem facing us is very evident in different sectors of our society.

Our province has also had a complicated and varied racial problem. Human Values, customs, traditions and languages of the indigenous people of our province were almost completely annihilated such as those of the Khoisan communities etc.

Racism, as a universal concept, has manifested itself as an ideology that underpinned social, political and economic systems of oppression, exploitation and discrimination. As a system of belief, it is not merely a collection of pure ideas, but includes feelings, likes, dislikes, hopes and fears. It also finds expression in the cultural institutions of our society and in fields such as history, religion, ethics, science, philosophy literature, art, music and poetry.

In South Africa, successive past regimes have practised racism as an ideology of exclusion as a political programme, which has forcefully dispossessed the majority of South Africans, treated them as second-class citizens and as cheap labour, discrimination on the basis of their skin colour and other physical attributes. Furthermore the African majority have also been sorted out into minor groupings, according to tribes, so that it would be difficult for them to speak as Africans. And one instrument that was used was the Bantustans, which were rammed down the throats of the people.

What used to bind us together has been removed and a new set of problems had then arisen.

There may be considerations of economy, privilege, the entrenchment of those privileges and perhaps prejudice has never been driven out of the hearts of our people and the whole of range of racial problems as we know it is forever present.

The ruling party (African National Congress) in its January 8, 2000 statement said, "the challenges facing the 21st Century is the solution of the problem of the colour line. It will take our country a long time before it wipes out the apartheid legacy of racism.

More than other peoples in the world, we know the destructive impact of the ideology and practice of racism. We must intensify the struggle against racism for our evolution into a non-racial society as a central part of the historic mission of the masses".

The mandate of this new government is the creation of a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society based on the will of the majority of people. Our struggle to transform and build SA into a truly non-racial society where everybody enjoys equal human rights, respect and human dignity remains the biggest challenge as a nation.

Consistent with these principles is the task of ensuring equality among the racial, ethnic, language, and cultural and religious communities. Our main task is to build a united nation of free individuals with the right to associate with whomever we wish on the basis of equality.

* Revive the culture of respect and ubuntu and the appreciation of our rich diversity that should be used as source of strength and unifying force.
* Promote and develop all the languages spoken by all the people in the province and as a first step the introduction of African languages in all schools.
* Ensure that values of non-racialism, non sexism and democracy become part of the school curriculum from primary to tertiary.

As South Africans who were once hooked in conflict, must begin to work together to build a better life for all our people and the South Africa of our dreams. We must jointly seek to overcome the legacy of our past, the imbalances, the divisions and disparities that fragmented our society and eroded our morality.

The apartheid state was designed to serve the needs of only a small section of our population and to oppress the majority of people, especially blacks and Africans in particular. Our society continues to be characterised by the racial division and inequalities imposed on us by centuries of colonisation and apartheid. It has left a trail of inequalities, poverty and dispossession amongst the majority of black communities.

Apartheid colonialism also meant the systematic suppression of the talents, creativity and capacity of our people to play a meaningful role in the country's affairs and denied them economic opportunities. African women continue to constitute the majority of the poor, and mainly in rural areas. They are found in the lowest paid jobs in the formal employment sector and amongst the unemployed. They continue to bear the brunt of poverty, illiteracy and facing the scourge of HIV/AIDS

Critical to nation building is the deracialisation of South African society and the total elimination of racial practices. It means creating a society where people will not be defined on the basis of the colour of their skin, belief, religious or other such considerations.

It means integrating communities in residential areas, at the work places, in sports and in the economic activity of the province and the country at large. This must be done through corrective measures to eradicate disparities created by apartheid.

We also need to ensure that non-racism is alive and practice by all South Africans, and find conscious expression in all the policies and programmes of the nation.

The legacy of apartheid has left skewed land ownership and usage, land hunger and underdevelopment of our rural areas. Our efforts must translate into speeding up the land distribution process. To protect the right of farm workers, the Security of Tenure Act should be effectively implemented and monitored to ensure that the rights of farm workers are not violated.

Seven years into our new democracy practices of racism, xenophobia and intolerable behaviour are still manifested and entrenched at all levels of our society.

The scourge of racism manifest itself in the institutions of learning, agricultural sector and the economy, places of residents, police services and general practices of South Africans who are opposed to our freedom.

We call on all South Africans to become agents of change so that the country can win the battle against racism and shape a new nation. Addressing these matters is not merely a concern for this or the other "sector" of society. It is in actual fact a matter of principle, an expression of our humane values, without which liberation would be neither genuine nor legitimate.

We have to speed up efforts to transform our country and to fight poverty and pay greater attention to the rural and disadvantaged areas.

The central objective of government is to continue to strive for a democratic, non-sexist, non-racial and a united South Africa.
1
The enhancement of unity
¨ Create conditions of tolerance and peace
¨ Destroy boundaries that exists in our minds

We need to maximise the impact of our collective efforts to do way with artificial divisions created to benefit a minority of our society, at the expense of the majority of South Africans.

Part of building a non-racial society is the conscious and ongoing development of a national culture, building on our history and recognising the diversity of our people.

Our vision of government is to ensure the contribution of all South Africans -black and white to creating a better life for all and the common development of our country.

The struggle for freedom still remains incomplete as long as the legacy of apartheid remains.

Let me quote from Michael Dobson, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner who said, "Irrespective of its sources, racism is racism. Ignorance is no excuse. Insecurity is not justification1/4racism in all its forms should be uncompromisingly condemned".

I thank you

Issued by the Office of the Premier, Northern Cape, 16 August 2001