I think we would like to make it clear in this House that while we, as the ANC, are committed to national reconciliation and building national unity, we will not allow our history to be rewritten and the heroic struggles of our people to be rubbished. We must also say that we are particularly offended when the people who are at the forefront of this issue are people who were at the forefront as combatants for the criminal apartheid regime. [Applause.]
I think that we all have a responsibility. The generosity of the majority of black people who suffered under apartheid must not be taken for granted. We all have a responsibility to make sure that, in building national unity, we respect the history of our country and then engage on how that history needs to be written. But for that history to be wiped out is completely unacceptable to us. That is why we have said that we are going to appeal this judgment - not out of disrespect for the courts, but to say the courts should not be the arbiters of our own heroic struggles against apartheid. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, also allow me, then, to make my final response to the statement by hon Malgas and thank her for her comments on our state of readiness as government for the matric exams ...