I see it with my own eyes: Mbeki
Zibonele Ntuli
17 December 2004
South Africa has transformed in the last 10 years - "I have seen it with my own eyes" - President Thabo Mbeki said in his address to the nation at Freedom Park on Reconciliation Day.
Freedom Park, situated at Salvokop Hill outside Pretoria, is an ambitious legacy project resulting from a Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendation to create a national heritage site to narrate the country's history and help heal the wounds of all past conflicts.
Accompanied by his wife Zanele, Freedom Park CEO Wally Serote and Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad, Mbeki took a spiritual journey to the isivivane, where he took off his shoes and paid homage to all the South Africans who died for this country's freedom and democracy.
Wearing navy socks, Mbeki spent a minute of silence while traditional healer General Andrew Masondo "talked" to the ancestors.
The President then washed his hands, a custom practiced when leaving a
sacred area, before delivering his speech.
In his speech, Mbeki said he had seen "with his own eyes" that the country had transformed in the past 10 years.
"I have seen it with my own eyes that the sons of the formerly oppressed and the sons and daughters of former oppressors have been able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood and sisterhood.
"I have seen this with my own eyes that little black boys and black girls have been able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walked together as sisters and brothers.
"I know it as a fact that we have begun to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood and sisterhood."
South Africans had begun to work, pray, and struggle together, Mbeki said, urging people to continue working together to eradicate poverty and bridge the racial and gender divide created by the past.
December 16 was for many years a divisive commemoration in South
Africa.
Since 1948, when the National Party came into power, it was commemorated as the Day of Vow, to honour a vow made by Voortrekker leader Sarel Cilliers and about 400 men in 1838 when they defeated about 10 000 Zulu warriors at Blood River in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
African people, however, did not feel the same about the holiday. To them it symbolised the theft of their land by the Voortrekkers.
After the 1994 democratic elections, the day was retained as a public holiday, but was changed to Reconciliation Day in an attempt to encourage reconciliation between black and white South Africans.
The President wished everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, saying people should take particular care, as they set off for the holidays, to ensure they arrived alive.
Source: BuaNews
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