South African History Online

2 July 1990

A Chinn Chomhairle!
A Thaoisigh!
Deputies and Senators;
Friends,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is with a feeling of great privilege that we stand here today to address
this house. We know that the invitation you extended to us to speak from this
podium is one that is rarely extended to a visitor, even one who comes to you as
the guest of the head of Government. I thank you most sincerely for the honour
you have bestowed on me individually, on our organisation, The African National
Congress, as well as the struggling people of South Africa.

We recognise in the possibility you have thus given us the reaffirmation by
the members of this house and the great Irish people whom you represent, of your
complete rejection of the apartheid crime against humanity, your support for our
endeavours to transform South Africa into a united, democratic, non-racial and
non-sexist country, your love and respect for our movement and the millions of
people it represents.

We know that the joy with which you have received us and the respect for our
dignity you have demonstrated, come almost as second nature to a people who were
themselves victims of colonial rule for centuries.

We know that your desire that the disenfranchised of our country should be
heard in this house and throughout Ireland derives from your determination, born
of your experience, that our people should, like yourselves, be free to govern
themselves and to determine their destiny. The warm feeling that envelopes us as
we stand here is therefore but the affinity which belongs to peoples who have
suffered in common and who are tied together by unbreakable bonds of friendship
and solidarity.

The very fact there is today an independent Irish state, however long it took
to realise the noble goals of the Irish people by bringing it into being,
confirms the fact that we too shall become a free people; we too shall have a
country which will, as the great Irish patriots said in The Proclamation of
1916, "Cherish all the children of the nation equally."

The outstanding Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, has written that too long a
sacrifice can make a stone of a heart. He spoke thus because he could feel
within himself the pain of the suffering that Irish men and women of conscience
had had to endure in centuries of struggle against an unrelenting tyranny. But
then he also spoke of love, of the love of those whose warm hearts the
oppressors sought to turn to stone, the love of their country and people, and,
in the end, the love of humanity itself.

For three quarters of a century, under the leadership of the ANC, our own
people have themselves confronted a racist tyranny which grew more stubborn with
each passing day. It had to be our lot that even as we refused to take up arms
to save lives, we still had to bury many martyrs who were shot down or tortured
to death simply because they dared to cry freedom.

The apartheid system has killed countless numbers not only in our country but
throughout Southern Africa. It has condemned to the gallows some of the best
sons of our people. It has imprisoned some and driven others into exile. Even
those whose only desire was to live, have had their lives cut short because
apartheid means the systematic and conscious deprivation and impoverishment of
the Black millions.

It could have been that our own hearts turned to stone. It could have been
that we inscribed vengeance on our banners of battle and resolved to meet
brutality with brutality. But we understood that oppression dehumanises the
oppressor as it hurts the oppressed. We understood that to emulate the barbarity
of the tyrant would also transform us into savages. We knew that we would sully
and degrade our cause if we allowed that it should, at any stage, borrow
anything from the practices of the oppressor. We had to refuse that our long
sacrifice should make a stone of our hearts.

We are in struggle because we value life and love all humanity. The liberated
South Africa we envision is one in which all our people, both Black and White,
will be one to the other, brother and sister. We see being born a united South
African nation of equal compatriots, enriched by the diversity of the colour and
culture of the citizens who make up the whole.

This cannot come about until South Africa becomes a democratic country. We
therefore insist that everybody should have the right to vote without
discrimination on any grounds whatsoever. Equally, all adult South Africans
should have the right to be elected to all organs of government without any
artificial hindrances being put their way.

To safeguard the freedom of the individual, we will insist that the
democratic constitution should be reinforced with an entrenched bill of rights
which should be enforced by an independent and representative judiciary. At the
same time, all our people will be free to form and join any party of their
choice within the context of a multi-party political system.

The struggle we are waging is also for the economic transformation of our
country. The system to which we are heir was designed and operates for the
benefit of the White minority at the expense of the Black majority. Clearly the
situation cannot be allowed to continue in which millions know nothing but the
corrosive ache of hunger, in which countless numbers of children die and get
deformed as a result of being afflicted by Kwashiokor and other diseases of
poverty. Millions are today without jobs and without land. Nothing awaits them
except death from starvation and want.

We must also make this point very clear that no political settlement in South
Africa, however democratic and just, can take hold and survive, if nothing is
done radically to improve the standard of living and the quality of life of all
our people, and especially the Black masses of our country. This will inevitably
demand that the economy should achieve significant rates of growth, while it
undergoes a process of restructuring and a reallocation of resources to ensure
prosperity and equity.

After many years of struggle, during which many in our country and region
have paid the supreme sacrifice, it appears that our country is set on the path
towards a negotiated political settlement. This is a goal which our movement has
pursued throughout the 78 years of its existence. In the past, however hard we
knocked at the door of the powers that be in our country, that door remained
locked and barred. Inspired by the arrogance of racism,successive White minority
regimes held fast to the view that they could, through the use of brute force,
maintain the tyranny of White minority domination for ever.

But you know this more than we do, that no power on earth, even when it
commits the sacrilege of invoking God's blessing for its inhuman cause, as did
the apartheid regime, can defeat a people that is determined to liberate itself.
Nothing can stop the evolution of humanity towards the condition of greater and
ever expanding freedom. While the voice of an individual can be condemned to
silence by death, imprisonment and confinement, the spirit that drives people to
seek liberty can never be stilled.

The struggle of our people, so magnificently supported and reinforced by your
solidarity actions and those of the rest of the international community, have
obliged the South African government to recognise the validity of these truths.
President De Klerk has come to understand that the apartheid system can no
longer hold and, at our instance, has accepted that he and his colleagues must
enter into dialogue with the genuine representatives of the people to find a
peaceful solution to the conflict in our country. We have taken the first steps
in this process leading to the situation in which the obstacles to negotiations
will be removed.

A good start has indeed been made. Furthermore, we do not doubt the integrity
of President De Klerk and his fellow-leaders and are convinced that they are
committed to honour all agreements that may be arrived at during the process of
negotiations. Despite this, we should not mistake the promise of change for
change itself. The reality is that the apartheid system continues. Our country
continues to be ruled by a White minority regime. All the fundamental features
of the South African racist system remain unchanged. In other words, no profound
and irreversible changes have taken place leading to the final abolition of the
apartheid system.

In addition, many among our White compatriots are still determined to resist
change at all costs, arms in hand. They are ready to drown the masses of our
people in a bloodbath to save the system of White minority rule, assert the
permanence of the criminal and insulting ideology of White supremacy and ensure
the further entrenchment of White privilege. None can therefore guarantee the
process of negotiations will soon inevitability lead to the victory of the
democratic cause.

It is for these reasons that the struggle against the apartheid system must
continue. In this regard, we would like to extend our thanks to the Tishak, the
government and the people of Ireland for the enormous contribution you have made
to the international struggle for the isolation of apartheid South Africa. We
salute you for the leadership you have given only recently, within the European
community to ensure that the pressure against the apartheid system is
maintained. We reiterate that we must continue to keep the pressure on until
such time that the people of South Africa themselves signal that the time for
change has come.

For more than a quarter of a country, your country has had one of the most
energetic and effective anti-apartheid movements in the word. Irish men and
women have given wholehearted and often sacrificial support for our struggle in
the fields of economic, cultural and sports relations. We therefore salute your
sports people, especially the rugby players, your writers and artists and the
Dunne's and other workers. All of them will not be forgotten by the masses of
our people .

We ask that you stay the course with us. We need your support for the
democratic perspectives that we represent. We need your support to generate the
material resources we need to repatriate and resettle those of our compatriots
who were forced into exile and to reintegrate into our communities the political
prisoners who will be released. We need financial resources to help us carry out
the massive political work among all sectors of our population that has to
accompany the process of the negotiations. We need resources to reconstruct the
ANC which has been an illegal organisation for 30 years. We trust that, as in
the past, you will stand with us until our common victory is accepted.

In future, we will also need to institute important measures to reconstruct
the economy of our country along the lines that we have already indicated. We
shall require your cooperation in this as well, so that we build a system of
relations that will be of mutual benefit to both our peoples and that will seek
to ensure that the conditions are removed when racism can once more impose
itself on our people and those of Southern Africa as a whole.

We would also like to take this opportunity to convey to you our thanks for
everything you did to secure our release from prison. Even behind the thick
prison walls of South Africa's maximum security jails, we heard your voices
demanding our release. So strong did that call become that we knew that contrary
to the wishes of our jailers, we would return. And as you can see, we have
returned.

Our reception in this house and outside is a moving indication that the Irish
Parliament and people will stay the course with us, recognising that while
apartheid remains, while South Africa is unfree, the community of nations and
the conscience of the world can never be at peace. This gives us enormous
strength and assures us of the certainty of our common victory. That victory
will come sooner rather than later. Together we will win.

Thank You.