Deputy Speaker, hon members, on the day of his inauguration as the first President of a liberated South Africa 18 years ago, Mr Nelson Mandela spoke about the time having come to heal the deep wounds and close the wide social chasm created over many decades by a callous system of racial oppression and social and economic deprivation, which was suffered by black South Africans and perpetuated by the white minority.
The right of franchise that was extended to the black majority put in place the final Constitution of 1996, with an independent legislature or Parliament if you like, an independent judiciary, and an independent executive. The Constitution enshrined a bill of fundamental human rights and established related institutions, all for the purpose of building and safeguarding a free and democratic state.
A lot has been achieved through this political freedom. Action has been taken to battle poverty, social inequalities, poor education, poor health conditions, homelessness, etc. However, a lot more still has to be done to attain true emancipation. Even when this political freedom empowered us with the ability to act, unfortunately, as a people, we have not grappled truthfully with the essence and the meaning of the depth of the wounds and the width of the social divide that Mr Mandela referred to. By being so inclined, we lost a vital opportunity to choose primarily the freedom to create and transform ourselves both as individuals and as civil society in order to lay a firm foundation for the emergence of a reconciled nationhood.
We have instead used the idea of reconciliation and nation-building as an opportunity to paper over the cracks of deep racial animosity, and wished away black internecine rivalry as commonplace and self-perpetuating. The reason for this is that, after 18 years of freedom, we, as South Africans, are even more afraid to confront and exorcise the political demons that constrain us from achieving all the freedoms we want.
It is of vital importance to appeal, once more, to President Jacob Zuma to take all the leadership of the land by the hand and to revisit the political crossroads together. Indeed, as the President of the IFP said on Freedom Day celebrations: "Eighteen years of democracy meant that it was time to tie up the loose ends of the reconciliation thereof." Otherwise, the chances are that we are conforming to the historical and the psychological fantasies that have upheld the system of apartheid for many years, while it took away the human worth, pride and dignity of South Africans. I thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]