Madam Deputy Speaker, hon members, our first ever Freedom Day will always be remembered as a time which brought out the best in South Africa. The national mood on that bright day was one of confidence and generosity of spirit. People said it could not be done, but South Africa did it.
We transcended the divisions of the past to negotiate amongst ourselves a peaceful solution to one of the bitterest and longest conflicts in history. This is why today we declare, with unshakeable confidence: "Honour your past; own your future."
I remember, however, how difficult the times were in the period prior to 27 April 1994. I grew up in Umlazi, in KwaZulu-Natal, a province that was ripped apart by a low-intensity civil war in which 20 000 people perished. KwaMashu was a hotbed of political violence. Massacres rocked the country from the Reef to St James.
I recall the Casspirs in the streets and the suffocating stench of teargas. Fear and foreboding stalked our communities. Peace seemed to completely elude us when prominent antiapartheid activists like Chris Hani were summarily murdered in cold blood. Our agonising history means that the transition was less the stuff of a miracle, and more the product of hard work, skilful negotiation, and the courage of the many. It concentrates our minds that if such a high price was paid for our freedom, we are duty-bound to make good on it, and to use that freedom every single day. So we all look back to that joyful day, 18 years ago, when it was first possible for every citizen to experience the sweet taste of freedom at the ballot box. We remember the lines of voters stretched infinitely, the heady chaos of a new democracy, and the air heavy with a sense of expectancy. We remember the exhilaration of South Africans from every walk of life and community standing patiently side by side. At last, it seemed, we had found a willingness to face our imperfections, and we began to see ourselves in each other. I vividly remember standing with my mother in one of those long queues in Pinetown, in KwaZulu-Natal, when, at the age of 44, she cast her first ever vote.
Madam Deputy Speaker, most people voted for the ANC on that day for one clear reason. President Nelson Mandela's vision of reconciliation had triumphed not simply by the power of his words, but by the nobility of his personality and his example.
President Mandela knew that democracy and freedom would not be self- sustaining. He famously only served one term as President to demonstrate that no individual or party is greater than democracy itself.
As our democracy has progressed, it has become clearer to us all that freedom is not something that is just exercised every five years at the ballot box, nor does the vote itself make a person free. We have learned that it is how we exercise our votes that will determine if it brings to power ...