[ Home ] [ Speeches & statements ]

Interim Chairperson of the Council, Dr Vincent Maphai
Interim Vice-Chancellor, Professor Makgoba
Deputy Minister Sonjica
Members of the Luthuli family
Professors and lecturers, students and workers
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen.

THE TEMPO QUICKENS!

In the postscript to his book, "Let my People Go", Albert Luthuli writes about the momentous events of the late 1950's and early 1960's, and about the atrocious conditions under which Africans worked in the then Eastern Transvaal where every year, Africans who had been arrested as Pass offenders, were carted out of jail and forced to harvest potatoes with their bare hands under the regular whip lashes of both the white farmers and their 'baas-boys' and made to live in filthy hovels.

AJ Luthuli says their diet "is unmentionable, a good deal worse than prison fare for Africans - why keep them alive when there are more where they came from? 'Inspection' amounts to a call on the white farmer, and a little chat over coffee on the stoep. Murders, the result of prolonged beatings and semi-starvation, or of sudden fits of anger, are committed". (P195, Published by Fontana Books, 1962)

In the face of the criminal alliance between the apartheid state, the police and farmers, that led to these terrible conditions, the ANC initiated the Potato Boycott, which served as a stimulus for other mass actions against a whole range of oppressive measures and mobilising the mass of the people of this country from Pondoland to Sekhukhuniland, from Zeerust to Alexandra Township and here in KwaZulu-Natal.

This momentum continued into 1960 and beyond, when resistance and defiance defined the lives of our people throughout our country.

Having observed the determination and fortitude of his people in the face of brutal force, and having realised that the struggle for freedom had gathered the necessary speed, Albert Luthuli entitled his article commenting on these events, "The Tempo Quickens!"

I have therefore given this lecture the same title, to pay tribute to this great African leader on the occasion of the posthumous conferral of an honorary Doctorate of Laws. We wish to take advantage of this solemn moment to report to him and other heroes and heroines, that after 10 years of the final defeat of colonialism and white minority domination on our continent, we are determined to quicken the tempo as we work to eradicate the legacy of the defeated double-headed monster, colonialism and apartheid, transforming this land of Albert Luthuli into a non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society.

I am therefore honoured to deliver this inaugural Albert Luthuli Lecture, to speak about an outstanding patriot whose life and principled commitment to the struggle for liberation should serve as an example to all of us as we engage the difficult and challenging task of translating his vision for his people and continent into reality.

But before we speak of these obstacles and the tempo that has accelerated at a very fast pace, let us make a brief return to a time more than a century ago, when Albert Luthuli came into this world.

Albert Luthuli was born in 1898, near Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. His father was a Seventh Day Adventist evangelist and interpreter in its Bulawayo mission. He was born during a century defined by the colonial subjugation of Africa by European powers during the so-called Scramble for Africa, and its infamous Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, where German Chancellor Bismarck presided over a cabal of representatives of the powerful European states as they distributed Africa among themselves as colonies to which they believed they were entitled.

Adam Hochschild has observed in his book, "King Leopold's Ghost", that: "The Berlin Conference was the ultimate expression of an age whose newfound enthusiasm for democracy had clear limits, and slaughtered game had no vote.

Even John Stuart Mill, the great philosopher of human freedom, had written, in On Liberty, 'Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarism, provided the end be their improvement'."

Hochschild then says of Bismarck's conference that: "Not a single African was at the table in Berlin."

Of course, to those gathered at the Berlin Conference, they would have seen Africans as slaughtered game that was already on the table, the barbarians who, according to John Stuart Mill, must, for the greater good, be subjected to despotic rule.

Because most of those gathered at the Berlin conference had never set foot on the African continent, they arbitrarily divided territories with scant regard to historical, national, cultural, linguistic and religious ties, thus planting some of the poisonous seeds that were to germinate into deadly disputes and conflicts in the post-colonial Africa.

Bismarck's guests partitioned a continent they did not know in the manner observed by historian Michael L McNulty when he said of this ignorance of Africa:

"A general lack of knowledge and frequent misunderstanding of the continent characterised European thought for centuries. In many of the early accounts and accompanying maps, scholars employed an ingenious cartographic device in an attempt to cover up gaps in their knowledge. This practice is characterised in a rhyme by Swift written in the early eighteen century:

So geographers in Afric maps
With savage pictures fill the gaps
And o'r unhabitable downs
Placed elephants for want of towns."

(P10, Africa -Third Edition, edited by Phyllis M Martin and Patrick O'Meara, Published by Indiana University Press, 1995)

By the end of the 19th century, when Albert Luthuli was born, the whole of Africa, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, was under different European colonial powers, despite the heroic struggles of Africans everywhere to defend their independence, fighting against the superior arms of the colonial invaders.

During these struggles to subjugate the barbarians, to use JS Mills' nomenclature, our people experienced the barbarism of those who called themselves civilised, that was later expressed in a different form in the potato farms of the Eastern Transvaal.

For instance, during the colonial wars in our country, one war-obsessed English adventurer, Stephen Lakeman, gave his services to the British colonial rulers in the Cape. The historian Noel Mostert explains one of the grisly activities of Lakeman and the British imperial army, quoting from an account recorded during those years:

"One of his (Lakeman's men) carried under his jacket a broken reaping-hook to cut the throats of the women and children we had been taken prisoner on our night expeditions. Lakeman, who carried a small copper vat with him for his 'Matutinal tubbing', found on one occasion that it had been commandeered by the surgeon of the 60th,, the Royal American Regiment, who, for scientific interest, was boiling about two dozen Xhosa heads, which had been collected by Lakeman's own men."

Lakeman commented that: "(The colonial army) turned my vat into a caldron for the removal of superfluous flesh. And there these men sat, gravely smoking their pipes during the live-long night, and stirring round and round the heads in that seething boiler, as though they were cooking black-apple dumplings." (P1153, Frontiers, Published by Jonathan Cape, 1992)

Undoubtedly, in the course of our long struggle for freedom here at home, in Africa and elsewhere, we have seen how those who engage in such indecent acts become, themselves, debased; and those who condone and justify inhuman behaviour also become debauched, ending up as demented souls.

Delivering the Nobel Lecture at the Oslo University in December of 1961, Albert
Luthuli said:

"But beneath the surface (of political oppression) there is a spirit of defiance. The people of South Africa have never been a docile lot, least of all the African people. We have a long tradition of struggle for our national rights, reaching back to the very beginnings of white settlement and conquest 300 years ago."

He continues that:

"Our history is one of opposition to domination, of protest and refusal to submit to tyranny. Consider some of our great names; the great warrior and nation-builder Shaka, who welded tribes into the Zulu nation from which I spring; Moshoeshoe, the statesman and nation builder who fathered the Basotho nation and placed Basotholand beyond the reach of the claws of the South African whites; Hintsa of the Xhosas who chose death rather surrender his territory to white invaders. All these and other royal names, as well as other great chieftains, resisted manfully white intrusion."

(P117, Luthuli - Speeches of Chief Albert John Luthuli, published by Madiba Publishers, 1991)

Luthuli was referring to many heroic struggles of our forbearers, that must remain in our collective memory, and from which we should always draw strength as we face obstacles to our efforts to transform South Africa into a country that Luthuli lived and died for - a democratic, united, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society.

These struggles helped to form the consciousness that made Albert Luthuli one of our foremost leaders whose life experience and tireless work for our liberation is replete with inspiring wisdom.

During their advance to occupy the whole of the then Transvaal, in 1867, the Afrikaners attacked the Venda people but were defeated by King Makhado's army. However, they returned later in 1898, to defeat Makhado's successor, King Mphephu, who fled across the Limpopo River into Zimbabwe. (P131, Paul Maylam)
As King Mphephu and some of his people fled into Zimbabwe in 1898, Albert Luthuli was born in that country.

We have recalled our glorious history of resistance in this lecture, not merely for the fact that it preceded and coincided with the birth of Albert Luthuli towards the end of the 19th century, but because these historical events formed his political consciousness and inspired him to lofty achievements. We celebrate them on this occasion because I am confident that by always remembering this rich history of our people, we would, like Luthuli, be further motivated to persist in our efforts as we face the many and varied challenges that confront us.

Indeed, like Luthuli, we should do our work driven by the spirit of defiance, which says that however intractable the challenges may be, we come from those who have never been a docile lot.

We are descendents of those who see a setback and not a defeat, and accordingly use such reverses as an opportunity to learn, to go back to the planning room and rectify mistakes and shortcomings, emerging stronger.

Throughout our history of struggle, of which AJ Luthuli was such a towering giant, we experienced many of these setbacks, but always learned valuable lessons that made the titanic movement that Luthuli and others embody, a force that boldly and squarely faced any and all problems.

Indeed, today we walk in the firm footprints of men and women who did not seek instant success, who did not flinch in the face of seemingly insurmountable difficulties. These truly heroic people that gave us the gift of Albert Luthuli, live by the injunction aptly expressed by Amilcar Cabral, not to claim easy victories!

Until his untimely and mysterious death on the 21 July 1967, AJ Luthuli dedicated his life to the achievement of freedom for his people.

Drawing inspiration from the philosophical principles of his organisation, the ANC, the general moral traditional African teachings and the prescriptions of the Christian faith, he became the living embodiment of moral rectitude in public life, in governance and in inter-racial relations.

These ideals, he neither doubted nor renounced, even in the face of unrelenting pressure and harassment from the Apartheid regime, bent on circumscribing his public life and thereby muzzling him by wave upon wave of house arrests and banning orders.

Accordingly, the practical leadership qualities of Albert Luthuli have had an indelible impact on the entire membership of his organisation, the ANC, as well as many other South Africans who were privileged to be acquainted with his work.

His unshakeable belief in the correctness of the struggle for equality among all the people, irrespective of race, gave him strength as he confronted the mounting challenges in the struggle against apartheid tyranny. In this regard, Albert Luthuli was not prepared to let his people engage in any form of struggle in which he himself was not prepared to participate.

Thus, it was under his leadership that the masses of this country engaged in many acts of struggle including the Defiance Campaign, the fight against Bantu education, the drafting and adoption of the Freedom Charter, the anti-pass campaigns, and others.

Today, we are privileged to say that after 10 years of the democracy that Luthuli fought so hard to achieve, we have made some progress in realising the ideals which defined his life and for which he worked for so many years. With regard to meeting the challenges that we face, we must together with our people ensure that The Tempo Quickens!

We say The Tempo Quickens because if we had a way of communicating with Albert Luthuli, we would report that together we have traversed the Valley of a Thousand Hills and heard the echo of the joy and the pain of its inhabitants. We have trudged the dry earth of Ga-Sekhukhune and felt the hope of a rich harvest that will come. We have walked the pathways of Orange Farm and the winding roads of Sterkspruit and seen the aspirations of a community rise above the dust of despair.

And because of this we dare say: The Tempo Quickens!

From the polished floors of the Johannesburg Securities Exchange and the shiny windows of Die Groote Kerk in Cape Town; from the creative and vivacious minds of the pupils throughout KwaZulu Natal; from the flowers of hope in the spring of an otherwise dry Karoo and from the courage to dare the elements and prosper in the plains of the Free State, together we have seen the glory of a nation being born.

Having observed all this, in this, our decade's journey, we dare to ask, as Pablo Neruda did of The Men:

The era's beginning: are these ruined shacks,
these poor schools, these people still in rags and tatters,
this cloddish insecurity of my poor families,
is all this the day? The century's beginning, the golden door?
Having seen all of this, we dare to note, as Pablo Neruda did about The Other Men:
I breathe at ease
in the fiscal garden of this century
that finally is a great big current account
in which I am creditor by luck of the draw
Thanks to investment and intrigue
we will sanitise this era
no colonial wars will bear
this infamous name, so often repeated,
the democratic bulldozer
will take charge of the new dictionary:
this 2000 is beautiful, just like 1000:
the three identical zeros defend us
against all unnecessary insurrection.

These Men (and Women), and these Other Men (and Women) of whom Neruda spoke, inhabit the two Worlds that we are condemned by history to forge into one: One Nation in One South Africa with One Economy; One World with the millennial glory of an Africa reborn.

You, as leading minds in our country, are called upon to answer the question whether we are indeed bridging this chasm, building one nation out of disparate and conflicting pasts. It behoves us to answer this question honestly, and distinguish ourselves from Pablo Neruda's Heavenly Poets who did nothing in the face of poverty, who:

Without seeing that the stones are in agony,
without defending, without conquering,
blinder than the wreaths
in the cemetery when the rain
falls on the motionless
rotten flowers on the tomb...
did nothing to respond to the agony of the living.

10 years into our nation's liberation we cannot afford to answer the question - are we bridging this chasm - in the negative, for we would not deserve the seats that we occupy in these lecture rooms. Nor can we answer that we have succeeded, for we should know that the hope that lives in the future that is yet to emerge fully from a troubled past.

Our confidence is about a journey started, a future whose foundation has been laid, a palpable determination to act together and give birth to a better life for all.

Accordingly, we say The Tempo Quickens!

We say The Tempo Quickens because we have followed the trail of the journey of the heroic men women of South Africa, such as Albert Luthuli. And that journey tells of a constitution and laws that bestow freedom upon all of us. It tells of growing equity in the professions and management of our society, of the presence of all our people in our law-making chambers, of a new army of builders made up of black and white South Africans.

These developments constitute a story that tells of a day no longer occupied by the long walk of the hewers of wood and drawers of water. They tell of darkness defeated in an electrified home, of better education for the girl-child, and better opportunities opening up for many.

Their own experience tells of the emerging possibility for the children to play together in their diversity with gay abandon in the African sun, to learn, to sing, to laugh and to cry - simply to be children, in a society in which dreams justifiably demand practical expression.

As these children grow to become youth, the myriad of possibilities that come with freedom are starting to flower.

In this, our decade's journey, we have sought to ensure that "these people still in rags and tatters", do indeed experience an improving quality of life.

Having had the opportunity to engage in many debates about this and that policy and even dining with those who had good reason to claim South Africa and the world as their oyster, I am certain we often wondered whether some among us are The Other Men of whom Pablo Neruda spoke, the heartless:

at the entrance to the millennium today,
a rampant anarchopitalist
ready to bite greedily
into the apple of the world.

We have wondered whether any of these Other Men and The Men would ever find common cause with the rest and chart a future that benefits all!

If Albert Luthuli was to pose the question whether The Tempo Quickens I would make bold to say that the new South Africa is a place in which the possibility for all to lead a decent life has asserted itself with great boldness.

I, like many of you in this hall, have had the privilege to interact with many of your peers, South African professionals, scientists and academics of social and natural sciences, researchers and men and women of letters, like these who are gathered here; and they tell the tale of a society for the first time starting to harness the talent of a whole nation; of the lessons learnt and the knowledge imparted, now that they can interact with peers across the globe; of the emergent truly South African institutions of higher learning, centres of African and human excellence.

At times as we converse with these intellectuals and allow our minds to wander in freedom, we let the imagination take control, and in Neruda's words:

[saw] the heavens unfastened
and open,
... [and] ...
wheeled with the stars,
[our] heart broke free on the open sky.

And having seen all this, can you blame our enthusiasm in declaring that The Tempo Quickens!

Accordingly, to ensure that we maintain the momentum I would like to call on all graduates from this university and all the others in the country, to plough their skills, expertise and resources back into the communities as well as their former institutions. Because education is the hallmark of a developing and successful nation, we need skills of our graduates so that we can move forward faster.

As the tempo quickens we have watched the social and community activists roll up their sleeves to join in the building of communities. We have heard them remind citizens of their rights and their obligations. And we knew that these social activists are driven by the profound understanding of the value of what the people have won in struggle, as their own liberators.

Whatever languages our people speak, they sing of freedom, and seen the hand of reconciliation stretching across the racial divide as South Africans work together to create a better life.

And as all these South Africans - young and old, men and women, rich and poor, employed and without work, black and white - worshipping each in their own way, they do so unshackled from the theology of deception, knowing that the Deity that oversees our efforts knows no discrimination and no lesser or better human being, but recognises each as equal before destiny.

And so, they make bold to say: hail freedom, the seedling that germinates and the bud that flowers! Hail freedom because it has ensured that The Tempo towards to creation of a people-centred society Quickens!

As this country celebrates its decade of freedom, it is our duty to honour the President of the ANC and the Nobel Prize Winner, Albert Luthuli, by ensuring that we do not lose the momentum.

Accordingly, we need the full participation of all of us in the historic effort to build the South Africa visualised by Albert Luthuli, with none of us sitting on the sidelines, content to blame others when things go wrong.

In action, we must together say Hail Freedom, the seedling that germinates and the bud that flowers. In undying tribute to Albert Luthuli, we must ensure that The Tempo Quickens even faster than ever before.
I thank you.

Enquiries:
Bheki Khumalo
Presidential Spokesperson/Chief Director: Communications
The Presidency
Tel: +27 12 300 5436
Fax: +27 12 323 6080
Cell: +27 83 256 9133

Issued by: The Presidency
20 March 2004