Cultivation an Equal Oppoturnity Society Essay Sample free essay sample

I owe my being to the hills and the vale. the mountains and the clearings. the rivers. the comeuppances. the trees. the flowers. the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land. My organic structure has frozen in our hoars and in our latter twenty-four hours snows. It has thawed in the heat of our sunlight and melted in the heat of the noon Sun. The cleft and the rumbling of the summer booms. lashed by galvanizing buoy uping. have been a cause both of shaking and of hope. The aromas of nature have been as pleasant to us as the sight of the wild blooms of the citizens of the veld. The dramatic forms of the Drakensberg. the soil-coloured Waterss of the Lekoa. iGqili noThukela. and the littorals of the Kgalagadi. have all been panels of the set on the natural phase on which we act out the foolish workss of the theater of our twenty-four hours. At times. and in fright. I have wondered whether I should profess equal citizenship of our state to the leopard and the king of beasts. the elephant and the springbuck. the hyaena. the black mamba and the pestiferous mosquito.A human presence among all these. a characteristic on the face of our native land therefore defined. I know that none daring dispute me when I say – I am an African! I owe my being to the Khoi and the San whose desolate psyche hangout the great sweeps of the beautiful Cape – they who fell victim to the most unmerciful genocide our native land has of all time seen. they who were the first to lose their lives in the battle to support our freedom and dependance and they who. as a people. perished in the consequence. Today. as a state. we keep an hearable silence about these ascendants of the coevalss that live. fearful to acknowledge the horror of a former title. seeking to kill from our memories a cruel happening which. in its memory. should learn us non and neer to be cold once more. I am formed of the migrators who left Europe to happen a new place on our native land. Whatever their ain actions. they remain still. portion of me. In my venas courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. Their proud self-respect informs my bearing. their civilization a portion of my kernel. The chevrons they bore on their organic structures from the cilium of the slave maestro are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should non be done.Read Also:  Our Changing SocietyI am the grandchild of the warrior work forces and adult females that Hintsa and Sekhukhune led. the nationalists that Cetshwayo and Mphephu took to conflict. the soldiers Moshoeshoe and Ngungunyane taught neer to dishonor the cause of freedom. My head and my cognition of myself is formed by the triumphs that are the gems in our African Crown. the triumphs we earned from Isandhlwana to Khartoum. as Ethiopians and as the Ashanti of Ghana. as the Berbers of the desert. I am the grandchild who lays fresh flowers on the Boer Gravess at St Helena and the Bahamas. who sees in the mind’s oculus and suffers the agony of a simple provincial common people. decease. concentration cantonments. destroyed homesteads. a dream in ruins. I am the kid of Nongqause. I am he who made it possible to merchandise in the universe markets in diamonds. in gold. in the same nutrient for which my tummy yearns. I come of those who were transported from India and China. whose being resided in the fact. entirely. that they were able to supply physical labor. who taught me that we could both be at place and be foreign. who taught me that homo being itself demanded that freedom was a necessary status for that human being. Being portion of all these people. and in the cognition that none daring competition that averment. I shall claim that – I am an African.I have seen our state lacerate asunder as these. all of whom are my people. engaged one another in a titanic conflict. the one damages a incorrect that had been caused by one to another and the other. to support the untenable. I have seen what happens when one individual has high quality of force over another. when the stronger appropriate to themselves the prerogative even to invalidate the injunction that God created all work forces and adult females in His image. I know what if signifies when race and coloring material are used to find who is human and who. sub-human. I have seen the devastation of all sense of self-pride. the consequent endeavoring to be what one is non. merely to get some of the benefits which those who had improved themselves as Masterss had ensured that they enjoy. I have experience of the state of affairs in which race and coloring material is used to enrich some and impoverish the remainder. I have seen the corruptness of heads and psyches in the chase of an ignoble attempt to commit a regular offense against humanity. I have seen concrete look of the denial of the self-respect of a human being emanating from the witting. systemic and systematic oppressive and inhibitory activities of other human existences.There the victims parade with no mask to conceal the beastly world – the mendicants. the cocottes. the street kids. those who seek consolation in substance maltreatment. those who have to steal to pacify hungriness. those who have to lose their saneness because to be sane is to ask for hurting. Possibly the worst among these. who are my people. are those who have learnt to kill for a pay. To these the extent of decease is straight relative to their personal public assistance. And so. like pawns in the service of brainsick psyches. they kill in promotion of the political force in KwaZulu-Natal. They murder the inexperienced person in the cab wars.They kill easy or rapidly in order to do net incomes from the illegal trade in narcotics. They are available for hire when hubby wants to slay married woman and married woman. hubby. Among us prowl the merchandises of our immoral and amoral yesteryear – slayers who have no sense of the worth of human life. rapers who have absolute contempt for the adult females of our state. animate beings who would seek to profit from the exposure of the kids. the handicapped and the old. the predatory who brook no obstruction in their pursuit for self-enrichment. All this I know and know to be true because I am an African! Because of that. I am besides able to province this cardinal truth that I am born of a people who are heroes and heroines. I am born of a people who would non digest subjugation. I am of a state that would non let that fright of decease. anguish. imprisonment. expatriate or persecution should ensue in the prolongation of unfairness. The great multitudes who are our female parent and male parent will non allow that the behavior of the few consequences in the description of our state and people as barbarian. Patient because history is on their side. these multitudes do non despair because today the conditions is bad. Nor do they turn triumphalist when. tomorrow. the Sun radiances. Whatever the fortunes they have lived through and because of that experience. they are determined to specify for themselves who they are and who they should be. We are assembled here today to tag their triumph in geting and exerting their right to explicate their ain definition of what it means to be African. The fundamental law whose acceptance we celebrate constitutes and univocal statement that we refuse to accept that our Africanness shall be defined by our race. coloring material. gender of historical beginnings. It is a steadfast averment made by ourselves that South Africa belongs to all who live in it. black and white. It gives concrete look to the sentiment we portion as Africans. and will support to the decease. that the people shall regulate. It recognises the fact that the self-respect of the person is both an aim which society must prosecute. and is a end which can non be separated from the material wellbeing of that person. It seeks to make the state of affairs in which all our people shall be free from fright. including the fright of the subjugation of one national group by another. the fright of the disempowerment of one societal echelon by another. the fright of the usage of province power to deny anybody their cardinal human rights and the fright of dictatorship. It aims to open the doors so that those who were disadvantaged can presume their topographic point in society as peers with their fellow human existences without respect to color. race. gender. age or geographic dispersion. It provides the chance to enable each one and all to province their positions. advance them. endeavor for their execution in the procedure of administration without fright that a contrary position will be met with repression. It creates a law-governed society which shall be unfriendly to arbitrary regulation. It enables the declaration of struggles by peaceable agencies instead than fall back to force.It rejoices in the diverseness of our people and creates the infinite for all of us voluntarily to specify ourselves as one people. As an African. this is an accomplishment of which I am proud. proud without reserve and proud without any feeling of amour propre. Our sense of lift at this minute besides derives from the fact that this brilliant merchandise is the alone creative activity of African custodies and African heads. Bit it is besides constitutes a testimonial to our loss of amour propre that we could. despite the enticement to handle ourselves as an exceeding fragment of humanity. pull on the accrued experience and wisdom of all world. to specify for ourselves what we want to be. Together with the best in the universe. we excessively are prone to pettiness. irritability. selfishness and short-sightedness. But it seems to hold happened that we looked at ourselves and said the clip had come that we make a super-human attempt to be other than human. to react to the call to make for ourselves a glorious hereafter. to remind ourselves of the Latin expression: Gloria est consequenda – Glory must be sought after! Today it feels good to be an African.It feels good that I can stand here as a South African and as a pes soldier of a titanic African ground forces. the African National Congress. to state to all the parties represented here. to the 1000000s who made an input into the procedures we are reasoning. to our outstanding compatriots who have presided over the birth of our founding papers. to the negotiants who pitted their marbless one against the other. to the unobserved stars who shone unobserved as the direction and disposal of the Constitutional Assembly. the advisors. experts and publicizers. to the mass communicating media. to our friends across the Earth – praises and good done! I am an African. I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa.The hurting of the violent struggle that the peoples of Liberia. Somalia. the Sudan. Burundi and Algeria is a hurting I besides bear. The blue shame of poorness. agony and human debasement of my continent is a blight that we portion. The blight on our felicity that derives from this and from our impetus to the fringe of the ordination of human personal businesss leaves us in a relentless shadow of desperation. This is a barbarian route to which cipher should be condemned.This thing that we have done today. in this little corner of a great continent that has contributed so resolutely to the development of humanity says that Africa reaffirms that she is go oning her rise from the ashes. Whatever the reverses of the minute. nil can halt us now! Whatever the troubles. Africa shall be at peace!However unlikely it may sound to the skeptics. Africa will thrive! Whoever we may be. whatever our immediate involvement. nevertheless much we carry luggage from our yesteryear. nevertheless much we have been caught by the manner of cynicism and loss of religion in the capacity of the people. allow us mistake today and state – nil can halt us now! Thank youThabo Mbeki’s surrender addressThabo Mbeki22 September 2008Address to the state by the South African president September 21 2008Fellow South Africans.I have no uncertainty that you are cognizant of the proclamation made yesterday by the National Executive Committee of the ANC with respect to the place of the President of the Republic.Consequently. I would wish to take this chance to inform the state that today I handed a missive to the Speaker of the National Assembly. the Honorable Baleka Mbete. to tender my surrender from the high place of President of the Republic of South Africa. effectual from the twenty-four hours that will be determined by the National Assembly.I have been a loyal member of the African National Congress for 52 old ages. I remain a member of the ANC and hence esteem its determinations. It is for this ground that I have taken the determination to vacate as President of the Republic. following the determination of the National Executive Committee of the ANC.I would wish unfeignedly to thank the state and the ANC for holding given me the chance to function in public office during the last 14 old ages as the Deputy President and President of South Africa.This service has at all times been based on the vision. the rules and values that have guided the ANC as it prosecuted a hard and unsafe battle in the decennaries before the attainment of our freedom in 1994. Among other things. the vision. rules and values of the ANC teach the cells of this motion life-long lessons that inform us that wherever we are and whatever we do we should guarantee that our actions contribute to the attainment of a free and merely society. the upliftment of all our people. and the development of a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it.This is the vision of a South Africa that is democratic. non-racial. non-sexist and comfortable ; a state in which all the people enjoy a better life.Indeed the work we have done in chase of the vision and rules of our release motion has at all times been based on the antique values of Ubuntu. of altruism. forfeit and service in a mode that ensures that the involvements of the people take precedency over our desires as persons.I genuinely believe that the authoritiess in which I have been privileged to function hold acted and worked in the true spirit of these of import values.Based on the values of Ubuntu. the significance of which we learnt at the pess of such giants of our battle as Chief Albert Luthuli. OR Tambo. Nelson Mandela and others. we as authorities. embarked. from 1994. on policies and programmes directed at drawing the people of South Africa out of the mire of poorness and guaranting that we build a stable. developed and comfortable state.Consequently. among many things we did. we transformed our economic system. ensuing in the longest sustained period of economic growing in the history of our state ; we introduced an indigent policy that reaches big Numberss of those in demand ; we made the necessary progresss so as to convey about a developmental province. the better to react to the many and varied challenges of the transmutation of our state.This is. of class non the juncture to enter the accomplishments of authorities. An extra critical few are nevertheless deserving adverting. They include our accomplishments with respect to many of the Millennium Development Goals. the authorization of adult females. the determination to let us to host the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup and our election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council two old ages ago.Despite the economic progresss we have made. I would be the first to state that even as we ensured consistent economic growing. the fruits of these positive consequences are still to be to the full and equitably shared among our people. hence the low poorness we still find coexistent side by side with extraordinary luxury.Importantly. we had an duty to guarantee that democracy becomes the lasting characteristic of our lives and that all our citizens respect the regulation of jurisprudence and human rights. This is one of the basiss of our democracy. which we have systematically striven to protect and neer to compromise.We have besides worked continuously to battle the twin challenges of offense and corruptness. to guarantee that all our people live in conditions of safety and security. We must acknowledge that we are still faced with many challenges in this respect.Work will hence hold to go on to beef up and better the operation of our condemnable justness system. to supply the necessary resources for this intent. to trip the multitudes of our people to fall in the battle against offense and corruptness. and to accomplish new triumphs in the battle for moral regeneration.With respect to the latter. our consecutive authoritiess from 1994 to day of the month hold worked systematically to promote the intrenchment in our state of a value system whose observation would do all of us Proudly South African. a value system informed by the principle of Ubuntu – umuntu ngumuntu ngabanye. Among other things this means that we must all act in a mode that respects the self-respect of every human being.We have sought to progress this vision exactly because we understood that we would neglect in the battle to accomplish the national and societal coherence that our state needs. every bit good as the national integrity we require to enable us to move together to turn to the major challenges we face.Fellow South Africans.Since the attainment of our freedom in 1994. we have acted systematically to esteem and support the independency of the bench. For this ground our consecutive authoritiess have honoured all judicial determinations. including those that went against the Executive. This did non intend that the Executive did non at times have strong positions which we would hold publically pronounced upon. The cardinal attack we adopted has ever been to support the bench instead than move in a mode that would hold had a negative impact on its work.Indeed. on the infrequent cases when we have publically expressed positions contrary to those of the bench. we have done so aware of the demand to protect its unity.Consistent with this pattern. I would wish to repeat the place of Cabinet on the illations made by the Honourable Judge Chris Nicholson that the President and Cabinet have interfered in the work the National Prosecuting Authority ( NPA ) . Again I would wish to province this flatly that we have neer done this. and hence neer compromised the right of the National Prosecuting Authority to make up ones mind whom it wished to prosecute or non to prosecute.This applies every bit to the painful affair associating to the tribunal proceedings against the President of the ANC. Comrade Jacob Zuma.More by and large. I would wish to guarantee the state that our consecutive authoritiess since 1994 have neer acted in any mode intended willfully to go against the Constitution and the jurisprudence. We have ever sought to esteem the grave Oath of Office each one of us made in forepart of the Chief Justice and other Judgess. and have ever been witting of the fact that the legal order that governs our state was achieved through the forfeits made by infinite Numberss of our people. which included decease.In this context it is most unfortunate that gratuitous suggestions have been made seeking to impugn the unity of those of us who have been privileged to function in our country’s National Executive.Compatriots.Again. as you know. we have frequently pointed to the fact that our release motion has ever been pan-African in its mentality and hence that we have an duty to lend to the Renaissance of the African continent.All of us are cognizant of the immense and dashing challenges that face our continent. In the short old ages since our freedom. as South Africans we have done what we could to do our low part to the regeneration of our continent.We have devoted clip and resources to the undertaking of accomplishing the Renaissance of Africa because this is what has informed coevalss of our liberators. even before the ANC was formed in 1912. We have done this to the full understanding that our state portions a common fate with the remainder of our Continent.I hence thank the many dedicated compatriots – work forces and adult females – who have made it possible for us to lend to the declaration of struggles and the strengthening of democracy in a figure of states including the Kingdom of Lesotho. the Democratic Republic of Congo. Burundi. Cote d’Ivoire. Comoros. Zimbabwe. Sudan and elsewhere. We have besides done this work conscious of our duties as a State Member of both SADC and the African Union.I would wish to thank my co-workers. the many Heads of State and Government on the African continent whose staying vision is that Africa must be free ; that all our states. separately and jointly should go democratic. developed and comfortable. and that Africa must unify. These African nationalists know as I do that Africa and Africans will non and must non be the wretched of the Earth in sempiternity.Similarly we have worked to lend to the accomplishment of the aspirations of the states and peoples of the South. conscious of the demand for us to move in solidarity and in integrity with the one million millions with whom we portion the common challenge to get the better of poorness and underdevelopment. Consequently. I depart the Office of President of South Africa cognizing that this state has many work forces and adult females who have dedicated their lives to guarantee that South Africa. Africa and the states of the South will. in clip. manage to guarantee a better universe for all of humanity. I depart this Office conscious that the sterling work done by the Presidency. the Ministries and sections. the states and local authorities constructions will go on. driven by the finding to accomplish the end of a better life for all. I am convinced that the incoming disposal will break the work done during the past 14-and-half old ages so that poorness. underdevelopment. unemployment. illiteracy. challenges of wellness. offense and corruptness will discontinue to specify the lives of many of our people. I have received many messages from South Africans. from all walks of life. through e-mails. telephonically and through cell phone text messages every bit good as those conveyed through my co-workers. I thank all of you. fellow South Africans. for these messages.To everyone. and reacting to these messages. I would wish to state that somberness and despondence have neer defeated hardship. Trying times need bravery and resiliency. Our strength as a people is non tested during the best of times. As we said earlier. we should neer go despondent because the conditions is bad nor should we turn triumphalist because the Sun radiances. For South Africa to win there is more work to be done and I trust that we will go on to endeavor to move in integrity to speed up the progress towards the accomplishment of our shared national ends. In this respect. it may be deserving reiterating what I said during the startup of the President of the Republic in 1999. Using the metaphor of the Comrades Marathon. I said so that: â€Å"Those who complete the class will make so merely because they do non. as fatigue sets in. convince themselves that the route in front is still excessively long. the slopes excessively steep. the solitariness impossible to bear and the award itself of dubious value. † Once more. I thank you most unfeignedly for affording me the chance to function you and to function the people of Africa. Thank you. Ngiyathokoza. Ke ya Lebogang. Ndo livhuwa. Ndiyabulela. Ndza khensa. Baie dankie. Ngiyabonga Issued by The Presidency September 21 2008