Chairperson, this is one Bill in which we should have had the Chair saying, "As there is no speakers' list, the Bill will be sent to the President for concurrence," or something like that. [Applause.] I don't know what this is all about, because are you here to suppress other people, to take away their rights? I can't understand you. What are you talking about? I just can't believe you.
I take the podium as a disadvantaged person in the sense that I don't know what happens with technology. This is not the first time that the Minister of Defence has handicapped me. I used to play soccer and I was a star, I'm sorry to tell you. I played in Durban for Zulu Royals. I was called "Terror". [Applause.] And, as he is younger than me, when he came into the picture playing for Claremont Home Defenders - we were playing at Msizini - just because Claremont Home Defenders wanted him to be seen like terror, they nicknamed him "Terror". So all the time he has been following me. [Laughter.]
So, this time I wrote my speech, and the title is: Rights. Now I see he has taken everything - every word - I have written in my speech. [Laughter.] I'm really, really disadvantaged. I don't know what happens with technology today. I'm not sure.
I want to highlight two things. I won't bore you now by going back to what my namesake has said. I grew up in Empangeni in the rural area. When I opened my eyes, our neighbour - I'm telling the IFP - was Mulondo. This baba was a huge man, bearded like myself. He used to dress up like this, and then take a doek and put it on his head and put on a pinafore. He was staying with a man, and this was in my youth. When I talk about my youth, you must know I'm talking about the 1940s. He was staying with a man in the rural area, but, for God' sake, the community respected and accepted that situation. [Applause.] There was no problem whatsoever.
In the early 1960s when I started working, I worked for the Department of Bantu Administration in KwaMuhle, Durban. I went with Durban boy - the ANC used to call him "Durban boy" - Johnny Makhatini. He stayed in North Street. Black people could not stay in town, but he stayed in a back yard.
One day I was with him in his house and we were sitting there talking. There were two guys there I didn't know - with ... [Inaudible.] ... Ngoma, who was the leader of the youth league. The next thing I saw a curtain open - there was no door leading to the bedroom - and there tata Sulu came out. That was at the time when they wanted tata Sulu dead or alive. He was hiding in Johnny Makhatini's room in North Street. He started saying to these guys: Hey, what are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to go and do one, two, three? They jumped up and left. Afterwards, Johnny told me that they were gay, but they were doing underground work for the ANC. They had been part of us in the struggle. So, what are you saying today? [Applause.]
So, just to highlight my speech now ... [Laughter.] When we went out to these public hearings, there was the outcry of "Change the Constitution; call for a referendum". All the time I was morose, feeling so out of place. I asked myself that if people were saying: "Call for a referendum; change the Constitution", what does that mean? Does that mean that they want us to change the Constitution so that we suppress other people? Because, in short, that is what they were saying with their call for "change the Constitution; call for a referendum". Are you sitting here, wanting to suppress other people's rights? No, people, you can't say that. I won't give my speech now; Terror, my namesake, has said everything. The other thing I want to highlight is that when you say "Change the Constitution" and so forth, what does that mean? Are you telling me you are the first people sitting here to say: "This is our success; today I'm going to have a very good, peaceful sleep"? Because I would say to myself this is one time I have made a contribution because I have liberated other people, I have freed them; I have given them equal rights just like everybody else. So, this is a good time for members to pass and endorse this Bill. [Interjections.] And, understand one thing: when the Constitutional Court said we must amend, what it was saying to us was: "Parliament, you have repealed all discriminatory laws, but I think you have overlooked this one. Just go and repeal this law so that everybody is equal." So, it is not actually the court that told us what to do. It reminded us of our duty, of our function, to change and repeal this discriminatory law.
The other thing that bothered me during the hearings was people saying, "Don't use a certain word like 'marriage'." I was saying to people, "Where do you get the right to say to other people 'don't use this word'?" No one seated here has the right to say "The word 'marriage' belongs to me; it's my right. Don't use it." Where do you get the right to say, "This word belongs to us", or "to me" and "You mustn't use the word 'marriage'"?
I don't want to say it's all crazy when we use those terms. A very important part of this is that today we are fulfilling the requirements of the Freedom Charter. When you look at it all, all of our struggling, being arrested for freedom, arrested for nondiscrimination, arrested for uplifting the lives of other people - how on earth could we think, in all of those respects, of not allowing and giving other people their rights? We are fulfilling our document that was crafted and done by the ANC. That is all we are supposed to do today.
I should thank you that finally we have now honoured the wishes and the aspirations of other people by voting solidly for this Bill. I thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]