South African History Online

Speech at the National Awards Ceremony

10 June 1999

Distinguished guests;

South Africans have much to be proud of as we approach the installation of
our second democratic government.

What many hailed as the miracle of our peaceful transition has sustained
itself in the ongoing life of our nation. For five years now, for the first time
in the history of our country, we could justly say that the people governed.

In these first years of freedom our country, our government and our people
have faced enormous challenges and problems. Certainly there have been mistakes
and failures at all levels of government. In the end, though, what we have done
as a nation has been remarkable.

We have brought peace to our country. Our people are united around a sense of
common destiny as never before. Basic services are being delivered to all
sectors of our population, to millions for whom they had been a mere dream.

Above all we have made great progress in restoring the dignity of all our
people. No matter where one goes in the world today, one is proudly and warmly
received as a South African, whatever one's colour.

Our successful second democratic elections demonstrated once more the
strength of our nationhood and the depth of our people's commitment to
democracy. This time around, the differences and tensions had more to do with
technicalities and procedures that with the essence of our political order and
our nationhood.

Such was our confidence in the strength of our democracy that we could
confront one another vigorously in debate and in the various courts of our
country. The Independent Electoral commission did us proud. It illustrated once
more how national unity is being consolidated in institutions that safeguard the
common interests of all of us, whatever political or other differences we may
have.

We can face the future with confidence. As we set out to build a better life
for all our citizens, especially the poor and the vulnerable, we do so on the
foundations we have laid together in these five years.

And we look back even further to take inspiration from our common efforts to
save and serve our country. it might have been the liberation movement that was
in the first place responsible for freeing our country from the scourge of
apartheid. We do know, however, that without the commitment of all sectors of
our society, the widely forecast bloodbath could not have been averted. What the
world admires us for, is the achievement of all of us.

When we confer national orders on a number of individual South Africans,
living and posthumously, it is to honour our long held dream of nationhood and
to celebrate a united South Africa, at last at peace with itself.

The preamble to our Constitution, fashioned and adopted by our people as the
supreme law of our Republic, states that we: "recognise the injustices of our
past; honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land; respect
those who have worked to build and develop our country; and believe that South
Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity."

The range of individuals receiving national orders today seeks to celebrate
those precepts.

Each of the men and women who we recognise and acknowledge today has
excelled, as an individual South African, in his or her chosen field. The award
by themselves can never, and all of them collectively, represent the spirit of
nationhood we honour today.

There are millions more other South Africans who could be honoured, in each
of the categories of national awards, and we invite the nation to participate in
this celebration as if everyone of us had received such an award. For that is in
fact what is happening. All of us are being acknowledged for what our nation, in
all its rich diversity, has brought about.

As my term of Presidency enters its last few days, I can only say how
exceedingly privileged and honoured I feel to have been allowed by the
circumstances of history to lead this remarkable nation, and to have been a part
of its achievements.

My God protect our people.
God seen Suid-Afrika.
Hosi katekisa
Afrika.