ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT, MARY ROBINSON, IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT MANDELA’S TOAST TO IRELAND
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT, MARY ROBINSON, IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT MANDELA'S TOAST TO IRELAND AT THE STATE BANQUET IN CAPE TOWN
Mr. President.
It was a moving experience to address, in your presence, earlier today, the first truly democratically elected Parliament of South Africa. It is equally special to be your guest at this banquet in the historic Tuynhuys in Cape Town.
Mr. President, the South African author Andre Brink in his fine novel "A Chain Of Voices" has one of his characters recount how two Irishmen instigated the slaves to revolt in the Swartland here in the Cape. He says that they "stuffed their heads full of wild tales of freedom". That was the slave revolt of 1808, a singularly unsuccessful affair which ended with one of the Irishmen turning informer and the other being hanged.
But it is a fact that the chain of voices that echoes back for thousands of years includes also, in South Africa's more recent history, Irish voices. It pleases me that this early Irish-South African encounter should have had to do with "freedom".
There were of course stronger and more lasting voices. Daniel O'Connell, the Irish Liberator, in the great debates in Westminster in 1833 on the abolition of slavery referred specifically to conditions in the Cape of Good Hope and defended liberty as "a natural right which no one, untainted with crime, could be deprived of".
Later in the same century, the Irish Attorney General of Cape Colony, William Porter, who owed his appointment to O'Connell, drafted a constitution for the new Cape Parliament and strongly defended a universal franchise which would shut nothing out but "vagrancy and crime". Porter argued that: "No people ever ripen till the sun of freedom has begun to shine upon them".
We remember those early liberal voices with pride.
We remember also the Irish religious and humanitarian contribution to South Africa. One of the earliest published accounts in English of the Moravian mission settlement at Genadendal - a mission which did so much to protect the interests of the oppressed races in the Cape - is to be found in the "Historical Sketches of the United Brethren" written by John Holmes, Minister of the Brethren Congregation in Dublin in 1818. Later Irish Catholic, Church of Ireland, Methodist and other Christian religious devoted their lives here to the education and social welfare of the poor and the oppressed. In education their record is well-known. Here in Cape Town, the Irish Dominican Sisters at Springfield were among the first to insist on the opening of their school to children of all races, in defiance of the apartheid laws then in existence.
In the long years of the struggle for liberation and for equal rights, the oppressed people in South Africa showed enormous courage. Their struggle became the struggle of all those who stood up against colonialism and racism in the world, and I am proud that Irish people played a part in that process of liberation. I pay warm tribute here to your Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Professor Kader Asmal, and his wife Louise, who for a quarter century in Ireland mobilised public opinion in support of the rights of the oppressed in South Africa in opposition to the racist apartheid laws. When you visited us in July, 1990, you saw for yourself the enormous popular solidarity for your cause.
I would like to assure you, Mr. President, that we in Ireland have a continuing interest in South Africa's development and a continuing commitment to assist. Both bilaterally and as a member of the European Union we will do all we can to help you to achieve your goals of a non-racist non-sexist society, dwelling in peace, harmony and in prosperity. Earlier today our two Governments have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding on Development Co-operation, underlining the Irish commitment to assist.
Mr. President, I recall your inauguration in Pretoria as a time of great joy. South Africans can indeed count themselves fortunate in the manner of their change to multi-racial democracy. When your Government came into office:
- there was the political and institutional programme agreed in the interim Constitution: that programme you have ably put into effect
- there was agreement in principle on a Reconstruction and Development Programme: this also has taken shape and is producing results.
- in addition, there has been the remarkable patience of ordinary people who have shown that they know that change for the better takes effort and time, and, finally,
- South Africans had President Nelson Mandela as their wise leader.
You and your Government, with the support of Parliament and your people, have worked with determination, wisdom and vigour. The results have been far beyond expectation.
The uncertainty has been replaced with confidence. There is political and social stability of a sort unknown in the past. Your economy is growing after years of stagnation and the economic indicators are set fair for the future. The process of carefully planned social transformation has begun in major areas such as education and health. You have re-established links with your African neighbours and with the world at large. South Africa is once again an active member of the United Nations. You are building up new economic links in trade and tourism. And, I must compliment you also that in three important sports you have become the champions.
Of course South Africa has problems: the poverty and grossly unequal distribution of wealth that owe their origins to the distorted apartheid policies of the past, the problem of unemployment and the many social problems that are associated with rapid urbanisation including criminal violence. But thinking back only a few years ago, when South Africa was convulsed with social strife, when the gap between the parties appeared insurmountable and the country seemed on the brink of political and economic disaster, who then would realistically have expected such marvellous progress in so few years? Who would have thought that the fear of those times would have been succeeded by the faith and optimism of today? Truly, the people of South Africa have begun to ripen under the sun of freedom.
I am convinced, Mr. President, that, with good government and the continuing good will that is so manifest a feature of your society today, South Africa can indeed achieve its great potential.
And so, it gives me great pleasure to ask those present to join in a toast to you, President Mandela and to the people of the Republic of South Africa.