Chairperson and hon members, I greet you in this Heritage Month. As we celebrate our heritage and the hard work of our nation, united in its diversity, we also thank the people of this nation for all the good work done during the historic first 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup to be held on African soil.
This year's national Heritage Day celebrations will be held in Durban on 24 September at the Moses Mabhida Stadium with the theme "Celebrating the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup successes: Our heritage", and will be addressed by President Jacob Zuma.
Our religious communities will lead a thanksgiving service to give thanks for a successful 2010 World Cup. On this occasion political leaders will also be requested to participate through presenting their messages to the nation.
Our sports teams from various sporting codes and our football legends will be given pride of place at this event. Our artists will also participate and show their commitment to a nation united in action.
Truly, the 2010 World Cup was an event where our people stood together, where they displayed great patriotism and great confidence in themselves. In this way, as a nation, we exhibited a renewed consciousness of who we are as a people and what we can do together; a sense of pride in what we have achieved and can achieve together, through displays of the South African flag; and also a sense of an African identity evident in our collective support for the other African countries participating in the 2010 World Cup.
As a people united in action, the challenge moving forward is how to use this example as a living legacy to propel our people into the future, to be confident about our own destinies, our own abilities, and to be proud of our history and to honour our living human treasures.
The theme of national Heritage Day, therefore, is a call to all South Africans who pooled their efforts in making the 2010 World Cup a success to use their energy to make this country a better place and to work together towards social cohesion. Let the achievements of this year be a source of inspiration, hope and strength, especially when we are confronted with the challenges we face as a nation in our daily lives.
This was, in fact, ubuntu in action. Ubuntu is our core value, encompassing inclusiveness, communal solidarity, empathy, kindness and sharing, which sums up the spirit of togetherness and generosity characterised by the South African participation in the 2010 World Cup.
Yet I am sure that you will agree that the full story of how we, as a nation, rallied together to welcome guests to our shores is yet to be told. How we constructed stadiums, how we built roads, how we offered our homes to others, supported our national team and all African teams, how we rallied behind our national flag, how we prepared and practised, and how we sang and danced to our vuvuzelas and makarapas and welcomed the world, is a story yet to be told.
This is a story, of course, of discipline and selflessness, of industriousness and family values - a story of profound humanism that celebrates a united nation at its best. It was a timely reminder of the very foundations, values and principles that are enshrined in our Constitution and also of what we have come to stand for. It is a reminder that in winning a long and hard battle for equality, for a nonracial and nonsexist society, we, as South Africa, were seeking to take humanity forward through helping ourselves and the world to turn over a new leaf, to enter a new productive space of possibilities and, out of this, to give birth to a new man and a new woman.
It is in this context that the topic of today's debate on living out the values of a just and caring society gains meaning. Our leaders, such as Charlotte Maxeke, Chief Albert Luthuli, Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Oliver Tambo placed emphasis on nonracialism, nonsexism and an inclusive society as being essential for the transformation of our nation. They lived their lives with these values guiding their actions. We need to follow their example. On culture, President O R Tambo said:
Our people, with their varied cultures, which are continuously mingling and interacting to their mutual enrichment, exhibit, despite their conditions, a great love for life and a sensitive joy in the creative and human endeavours of the people of the world, without exception. These ordinary, industrious and peaceful people want to revolutionise themselves and their country.
It is this selfsame spirit described by Comrade O R Tambo that characterises our people today. It is indeed our great love for life and a sensitive joy that enables us to make our stories and to value our cultural experience.
It is precisely our commitment to the creative and humane endeavours of the peoples of the world that has propelled us to want the story of our people and our nation to take its pride of place in the narratives of the world as our contribution to our own development and as part of world culture.
It is in this context of drinking from the fountains of history and learning from the men and women of practical wisdom in our communities and those who gave birth to us that we are embarking upon an initiative to honour and to celebrate our living human treasures.
"Celebrating South Africa's living human treasures: The custodians of our intangible cultural heritage" is an initiative of the Department of Arts and Culture to draw attention to the role played by our living legends and to seek to protect and preserve this knowledge and to transmit it to future generations.
The programme also makes provision for the posthumous recognition of living treasures where strong recommendations are made by bearer communities. Accordingly, this policy will ensure that the status of national living treasures is a lifelong status.
The arts and culture sector is full of such distinguished individuals. I am sure we have some of them up there amongst our beautiful women. Malibongwe! [Praise!] [Applause.]
The symbols of our nation are also important parts of our heritage. Earlier this month, one of the flags flown beneath the helicopters at President Mandela's inauguration in 1994 was rescued for our country by a great patriot, Mr Giuseppe Ciucci. This flag will be formally handed over to our government at an event on 27 September at Stellenbosch University.
We are also going to host a national seminar on human living treasures on 30 September 2010. The main objective of the seminar is to start a national dialogue that will further expand and elaborate on the concept of living human treasures.
During Women's Month, we honoured Charlotte Maxeke, Lillian Ngoyi and Helen Joseph by declaring their graves national monuments. We honoured Dulcie September by instituting a Dulcie September Memorial Lecture at the University of the Western Cape.
On Thursday, tomorrow, we shall also launch the Social History Centre at the Iziko Museums here in Cape Town. This centre will also play an important role in the preservation of our heritage.
Last week I also announced our department's support for the design and construction of the Steve Biko Centre in Ginsburg in the Eastern Cape which will comprise a museum, an archives centre, a community media centre, performance spaces and a commemorative garden. In this way, new generations will be able to understand their history with confidence and renewed consciousness.
In this way and through these initiatives, we are beginning to make strides, as South Africans, to preserve and promote our creative and humane endeavours, as Comrade O R Tambo coined it. I thank you. [Applause.]