Exactly!
Dr M B KHOZA (KwaZulu-Natal): That's because we don't want a repeat of the past. Therefore it is very important for us to remember that we all have the responsibility to work at this.
In KwaZulu-Natal, we have learnt the hard way that freedom is not an event, but a continuous process that has to be improved upon on an ongoing basis. We have had to reflect on our past, and critique our present. Through this process of self-assessment and dialogue we have come to understand that it takes two to tango.
Most of you would know that we had civil war in KwaZulu-Natal. We had violence that was portrayed as black-on-black, and yet we know that it was an apartheid-sponsored war. Therefore, we have learnt that you have to sometimes swallow a bitter pill and allow the process of reconciliation.
The hon member who spoke before me has made me remember that, by the way, as women today we can claim that we are free, but it doesn't mean that the struggle is over. This is because freedom is a continuous process, although freedom is the outcome of the struggle. Both of these things are a continuous process.
We owe our rights as women to women like Mkabayi kaJama, a Zulu matriarch, who played a critical oversight role on at least three Zulu kings to protect her nation against the abuse of power. This she did without any colonial influence.
When women speak about their rights, these are not rights that they are borrowing from the colonisers or the missionaries; they were also intellectuals in their own right. Ingcuce - the young maidens - today speak of pro-choice and we think this pro-choice just came now, but we had ingcice during the 1800s. There were young Zulu maidens who revolted against King Shaka's policy of forcing young women to marry older men. [Interjections.]
Those women died; yet we speak of pro-choice today. Let us remember women like Charlotte Maxeke; she was a philosopher, a real revolutionary, a visionary. Our history books are doing a disservice to this woman who was the first African woman to receive a BSc degree in 1905.
This woman spoke about African unity long before the founding of the Organisation of African Unity. We talk of her only when reducing her role to one of liberating women, but she was actually talking about the liberation of the continent. She saw the importance of unity.
On this particular day I also want say we must not forget Pixley Ka Seme. Today we are speaking as a nation because it was he who actually challenged all the ethnic groups to say, "Let's come together; we are not going to win this war if we fight as ethnic groups, as tribes, but let us unite and build a democratic country".
Today we stand here in this Parliament and all of us have been exercising that right to speak freely. In 1964, that was unheard of. Now you have just made a deep testimony. All of us have been speaking freely since then. As South Africans, we also have to stop underplaying the role that has been played by the ANC Women's League.
Women like Lilian Ngoyi, who was the first woman to serve on the national executive committee, NEC, of the ANC - we sometimes think that things in the ANC have always been equal, and the reality of the situation is that there are struggles within struggles - should not be forgotten.
We also have to learn that national reconciliation does not just come because you have allowed people to speak about the pain of the past. For pain needs healing, and healing is a process. We have had to learn from Comrade Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela that national reconciliation cannot be founded on bitterness; neither can you notice that freedom is on your doorstep if you think selfishly, for only those who are selfless understand the true meaning of freedom.
I just want to close with this quote from R V Selope Thema, who had this to say about Pixley Ka Seme:
After finishing his studies in America and England, this ambitious young African thought of returning to South Africa, his fatherland. The free life of the United States and Great Britain, with its pleasures and happiness could not hold him. He realised that the knowledge that he acquired was not only for his self-aggrandisement and enrichment, but also for the upliftment and the emancipation of his downtrodden people.
Let us remember on this Freedom Day that we have to fight corruption because it is a counterrevolutionary force. It is antichange and it is taking us backwards. [Applause.]