Thank you, Mr Chairperson. If I may proceed, on 15 December 2008 the National Post and The Star reported the following statement that was made by the president of the ANC:
It is better when you have an enemy that you do not know than the one that you know.
The one that you know is more difficult. In Zulu we refer to a form of witchcraft called "ukuphehla amanzi", where your enemy would mix dirt from your body in a calabash and stick a spear into the mixture to cause you sharp body pains. [Applause.] When the witch is a family member, we know that it is more dangerous than an enemy from outside. [Applause.]
In November of last year, in an interview with Al Jazeera, Themba Ndaba, the chairperson of the Sedibeng ANC Youth League, was reported to have said, and I quote:
People like Terror Lekota and all those people who want to destroy the history of our organisation behave like cockroaches and they must be destroyed. [Interjections.]
Mr Chairperson, we cannot choose to have our cake and eat it. If we are proud of our democracy, then we must uphold that democracy with the responsibility and integrity that it deserves. And this must not happen some of the time, but all of the time.
In a democracy, those who choose to be in opposition cannot be termed witches, traitors, dogs, snakes or baboons. [Applause.] When the rhetoric of politics descends to this level, it becomes a blight on our democracy and diminishes the soul of our great nation. Madiba would never have countenanced this. [Applause.]
Polokwane is behind us now. [Interjections.] The common road that many of us walked ... [Interjections.]