Racist rumours should be ignored

Nov 27, 2007 – The Nelson Mandela Foundation continues to receive inquiries from people concerned about rumours claiming that there is a plan to kill white people in South Africa after Mr Nelson Mandela passes on. 

Some of the inquiries are motivated by genuine concern. Others border on the manipulative. Their demands that Mr Mandela “take action” are, in the Foundation’s view, designed to lend credibility to an unfounded and malicious rumour. 

Similar rumours earlier this year were investigated by the South African Police and deemed completely without any basis.  The South African Police Service confirmed that a shadowy extremist organisation was being investigated as the suspected source.

The Foundation would like to take this opportunity to remind people that 14 years ago, on November 17 1993, negotiators representing all South Africans agreed on a non-racial interim constitution that paved the way for our first democratic elections in 1994. Those elections confirmed the non-racial ethos that had been articulated as far back as 1955 when the Freedom Charter was adopted. The Charter declared: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it – black and white.”

The signing of our country’s constitution in 1996 and subsequent elections in 1999 and 2004 confirmed that non-racialism is at the very heart of our young democracy.

It was not Mr Mandela who decided as an individual that South Africa belonged to all – it was the people of South Africa and the political organisations that participated in the making of our non-racial society.  It is therefore not Mr Mandela’s sole responsibility to ensure that this ethos is nurtured and entrenched in our legal and political system, and in our hearts. That responsibility lies with all true democrats, whatever their colour, creed or political persuasion.

On the day he was elected as South Africa’s president he addressed the people of Cape Town from the balcony of the City Hall. Reflecting on our long struggle for non-racism, Mr Mandela said:

“We have fought for a democratic constitution since the 1880s. Ours has been a quest for a constitution freely adopted by the people of South Africa, reflecting their wishes and their aspirations. The struggle for democracy has never been a matter pursued by one race, class, religious community or gender among South Africans. In honouring those who fought to see this day arrive, we honour the best sons and daughters of all our people. We can count amongst them Africans, Coloureds, Whites, Indians, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews – all of them united by a common vision of a better life for the people of this country.”

Every time he has spoken about non-racism in South Africa, Mr Mandela has been expressing the views of the African National Congress and of all other peace-loving South Africans.

Whatever differences there may be among people, whatever the political contestations of the day, non-racialism remains one of the most fundamental binding principles of our country.

Indeed, government leaders regularly emphasise this.  Earlier this year, President Thabo Mbeki was speaking in parliament about the sacrifices people had made to achieve our liberation and about the challenges ahead. He said:

“But we need still to build on this achievement. All of us – workers, peasants, students, priests, chiefs, traders, teachers, civil servants, poets, writers, men, women and youth, black and white - must take our common destiny in our own hands.”

The Nelson Mandela Foundation salutes the women and men who helped to establish non-racism as the bedrock of a democratic South Africa and also those who are building on it for future generations. We call on fellow South Africans to ignore these rumours, which are clearly designed to undermine that bedrock, and instead to focus their energies on working together for a better future for all.