I'm sure those who know this history and participated in it are not interested in the details. But the Verwoerdian mentor did not end there, but went on to say something that is particularly important for today's debate. Strijdom was quoted extensively by his studious proverbial genie, and went on to say that:
In our factories, etc, Europeans and non-Europeans should not be allowed to work among one another but separately and that certain sorts of work should be reserved for the Europeans.
Unemployment is a historical phenomenon in South Africa and will remain persistent and structural as long as we do not deal with the underlying and systemic futures of the old apartheid system.
The system of apartheid affected all the attributes that lead to a person being employed. These include, inter alia, the level of education and skills; the poverty cycle; the allocation in relation to industry; the financial capacity to be able to be connected with a job; and the wider family phenomena, particularly in our townships, and rural areas and informal settlements. The historical manifestation of unemployment also had an international factor due to the long periods of exclusion and sanctions within our economy.
The other critical and historical question is, why there are so many black people who are dependent on jobs, and is this because opportunities for sustainable livelihoods such as entrepreneurial endeavours and working on the land are closed completely to them.
What Verwoerd, Strijdom and some in this House for that matter and some in the F W de Klerk Foundation concocted - of course, just like Judas, some will deny their involvement in the concoction of the apartheid system. [Applause.] It was a system that was to leave an indelible mark in history and in the lives of many of our people.
The Commission on Employment Equity was quoted by the Mail & Guardian of 4 August 2011 and states that:
... Whites occupy 73,1% of top management positions and ...
... wait for it -
... it would take 127 years ... before blacks who are economically active are able to catch up with this percentage.
This is a study made in more than 16 000 firms that covered and included more than 5,2 million employees. We ask, is this because of the doing of the ANC government that refused to be drawn into chaos when the De Klerk regime unleashed mayhem in order to force the ANC negotiators to concede to the so-called Sunset Clause?
These are the same people, the senior managers, who are in control of who are employed in their firms, and who would therefore ignore legislative requirements. Somebody said here "making laws more and more protective." When we say, let us ensure that we enforce employment equity, the hon Harris comes here and says that we are making laws tighter and tighter. That's all that he could say.
I must hasten to say that those who seek to defend the legacy of Verwoerd and Strijdom will oppose any of those particular measures and ensure that we keep the situation as it is. It is not by accident that unemployment affects the black child more. It is not a mistake that a white child who goes to school have much better opportunities to get employment, even 20 years after democracy. It is not by choice that many in the opposition benches want to divert our attention from that and from those facts and say to us that this is about Mangaung. For your information, Cosatu has no voting rights at Mangaung. You need to learn that. If you're interested in learning so much about what happens in the ANC, at least you need to learn that Cosatu has no voting rights at Mangaung.
Because of the lack of access to education and skills, and being locked into rural areas, our people migrate to the city provinces of Gauteng and the Western Cape in order to find hope and jobs for themselves. This migration is not a new phenomenon, but the only distinction between apartheid migration and modern-day migration is that today people are no longer forced to migrate to those cities to go and build the fort that we go and see as a museum in Cape Town, or the mines that we see in Johannesburg. People are forced to do so by the economic conditions that they are faced with. They are also building on the culture was begun hundreds of years ago by their forefathers, who built all of these things that we are talking about. Even if they are called "refugees" they belong to any part of this country. You may call them, whatever you want to call them but they will go to any part of this country to look for jobs and an education
It's quite interesting that the hon member from Cope comes here and says we must not blame the DA whereas the DA is the one that says that people come from other provinces to seek jobs, an education and all of that here. But he then hastens to defend the DA. Maybe the so-called rainbow colours of Cope may actually turn blue when we go to the 2014 elections. Maybe that's why there is a crisis in the so-called rainbow colours of Cope.
But yesterday and the day before we said that it is our responsibility to build on the future and ensure that our children will harvest the efforts of today. The new interventions will not become the silver bullets that resolve unemployment, poverty and inequality, especially amongst young people. The only reason our youth will listen to is the reasons and solutions that come from them and that are not imposed by fake demonstrations or rented people in blue T-shirts. As a youth leader myself, I understand the anger, the firmness and the resolve of our youth about the long time taken after apartheid to resolve this crisis. I will not, however, swallow any pill pushed down my throat, such as the quick fix and election-motivated solutions concocted by modern- day Verwoerd and Strijdom.
I'm not prepared to eat from the crumbs of the princely laid tables for those who ruled the roost then and continue to rule the roost today. The future lies not only in the National Development Plan, that was presented yesterday, which we fully embrace as the ANC, or the intention to rubbish the New Growth Path, but in the National Employment Accord and incentives that were announced by the Minister today.
As Verwoerd concluded in his maiden speech:
South Africa has to deal with one of the greatest problems ... the question of war and peace, which is no more serious to other countries than the clash between white and black.
Many came here to speak about the potential revolt by young people as a result of unemployment. When they speak about this potential revolt by young people, they hope that their attack will be directed at the leaders of the ANC, the President and members of the Cabinet, but they do not know that it is not those young people who are unemployed and impoverished who stay in the suburbs of Sandton and who stay here in Camps Bay. That's where the anger of the youth will be directed and those are the same people that the DA, now joined by Cope, are defending. That's where that anger is going to be directed ... [Interjections.]