Mr Speaker, comrades and hon members, in my own capacity and on behalf of the APC, I wish to convey heartfelt condolences to and express solidarity with the Mandela family and the ANC on the passing away of our former President, Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela. May his soul rest in peace. He has served his country, Africa and humanity with a distinction equalled by few.
As we mourn and celebrate Nelson Mandela's legacy and passing on, let us remember that he is a product of our past - a past of oppression, of struggle, of victory. It is an understanding of this past with its pain, tribulations, loneliness, frustrations, tears and death that will help us appreciate Nelson Mandela and those of his generation who served, suffered and sacrificed for us to be here today. He stands head and shoulders above his generation. He is an expression of the best of that generation.
On his life, we celebrate freedom. On his life, we honour service - selfless service in the interests of all, in particular the poor majority.
The struggle of which Mandela was a leader - a struggle for which he was prepared to sacrifice his life - was about restoring the dignity of the African people and changing their material conditions for the better. As Amilcar Cabral said, when people fight for freedom, they are not fighting for ideas or things in anyone's head; they are fighting for material benefits and to see their lives move forward.
The sacrifices that Nelson Mandela made will be in vain if we continue to wax lyrical about him while the majority of our people continue to wallow in gut-wrenching poverty, either because those of us given the responsibility to run the affairs of state at whatever level fail our people through inefficiency, waste, corruption, theft of public resources and maladministration, or because those of us for whom conditions were created under white minority rule to acquire land, farms, factories, mines and better education, resist transformation and redistribution of the wealth of this country.
President Mandela left us on 5 December 2013. Yes, 5 December. It is a date that has been reinforced in our consciousness, for it is the birth date of another patriot, an outstanding leader of our struggle, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. Sobukwe was born on 5 December 1924 in the little Karoo town of Graaff-Reinet.
Long live Madiba! Long live! [Applause.]