Sello Hatang's vote of thanks after 14th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture

Honourable Premiere, Trustees, VC, Mamelodi families: we are here because of you. Two of our Legacy Champions are here with us: the Motsepe family, Dr Precious Motsepe, ntate Patrice Motsepe and ntate Tokyo Sexwale.

Let me start by thanking ntate Bill Gates. I think you will agree with me that Bill has offered us a strong challenge to action. We invited him to deliver the 14th Annual Lecture precisely because he is a global player engaged in searching for sustainable solutions to what have become critical challenges to the human project and stimulates debate.

Bill, your central thesis is compelling. Africa can achieve the future it aspires to; and to do so we have to learn to do differently, on the one hand, and on the other we have to find creative ways of empowering youth to make the difference. The past offers us lessons. Sometimes inspiration. But it is the future which must call us to action.

Many of the points you make have strong resonance with work being done by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and its many partners. Let me note just a few:

• One.  Nelson Mandela legacy work cannot be about invoking his name when it suits us.  It has to be about making the country and the continent of his dreams.
• Two.  Given the size of our youth populations, exclusion and alienation of the youth constitute a time-bomb.
• Three.  We must fix our education systems.  Here in South Africa we have to meet the challenge given us by the Fees Must Fall movement and must find ways to fundamentally transform our institutions of learning.
• Four.  Food security is critical, particularly given the growing impact of climate change on our continent.  It is no accident that a growing focus of our Nelson Mandela International Day campaign is precisely food security.  (Tomorrow, of course, is Mandela Day, so let me use this moment to call on our audiences today to support the campaign tomorrow.) We also want to make a contribution to improving food security. It is in this regard that we will be launching The Great South African Cookbook. This is in partnership with PQ Blackwell, Food and Trees For Africa, SA Harvest and Tiger Brands designed to support both feeding schemes and food gardening projects. Thank you for reminding us that food insecurity predominantly affects children and young people that you said need proper nutrition to thrive, it is unacceptable to hear that 25% of South Africans go to bed hungry and 1 in 6 children suffer from severe malnutrition.
• Five.  We must enable young people growing up outside metropolitan areas to stay on the land and to thrive on the land.  In particular we must invest in an agriculture that is at once productive but not extractive.

I could go on. You have given us much to think about Bill. Thank you.

Of course, for Africa to thrive, for the potential of our youth to be unleashed, for doing differently to be successful, we must change fundamentally the prevailing global structures and systems of power.  It is these structures and systems which have created the deep-rooted patterns of poverty and inequality underlying all the problems you have spoken about today. 

And it is these structures and systems which undermine our best efforts to solve the problems.  This, I believe, is our greatest challenge - how to effect the structural change necessary for human beings to learn to live together rather than against one another.

Let me offer an anecdote from Mamelodi to make my point in a different way.  It is the story of a young man who found himself living here in this township in the 1990s.  He came from an impoverished mining township of Khuma in what is now North West province. 

Through many sacrifices his family and community made it possible for him to come to university here.  Although an outsider who couldn't speak the local lingo but purely Setswana he was welcomed into this community, studied at this campus, felt at home.

The Mathebulas, the Manyakas and the Mahlangus parented him. Recent events in Mamelodi make me wonder if that young man would have been accepted as easily or treated as an outsider due to where he was born in the country. One should be able to lead anywhere in the country, and indeed we are able to lead anywhere in the world. May I remind you that the apartheid government displaced many people through forced removals, migrant labour system and banishment.

People like Dr Mamphela Ramphele who was bannished to Limpopo and Mme Winnie Mandela to Brandford. If local communities had rejected them the struggle against apartheid would have been made all the more difficult. Let me go back to that anecdote: He got a job in government, got to work for the TRC, made connections, was mentored and supported in other ways, left Mamelodi, found ways to access networks of social and other forms of capital, and ultimately became the chief executive of one of the leading civil society institutions.  This year he has spent time in Mamelodi again, preparing for a big event, looking for ways of investing in the community.  Living together comes to him relatively easily.

The subject of this anecdote, of course, is me. You can understand why today is very emotional for me. The point of the anecdote is that I am one of the few who despite the prevailing structures and systems of power has been enabled to escape the path determined for me. Living together must enable a young person from any background to dream big knowing his country, community will create an enabling environment for them to thrive, despite the high levels of inequality and poverty in their country. As long as I am one of these few, our country is in trouble. 

As long as the fruits of liberation are enjoyed by only a small elite, the privileged few, we are in trouble. As long as the great majority of our youth feel excluded systemically, we are in trouble.

I say again, we face a major challenge. But one we can do something about, as Bill Gates indicated.

It remains for me to thank the many people and organisations who have supported this year’s Annual Lecture:

My Board of Trustees, thank you for your wisdom and unstinting support.

The SABC, thank you for working with us as always to get the Lecture out to bigger audiences than we can fit in any auditorium.  I understand that this Lecture has been accessed by over 50 African countries through Channel 404.  Greetings to the viewing parties organised in Kenya and Nigeria.

Thank you to our sponsors, funders and supporters: Audi, Brand South Africa, Coca Cola, Monitor Deloitte, Rupert and Rothchild, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, the University of Pretoria and Vodacom. Of course Kaya FM and Skhumba Hlophe for the wheelchairs which were used by old folk. Thebe Investment Corporation for the buses that ferried families to the venue, re a leboga.

To my colleagues, all of you, a big thank you. You have done us proud.

Then I want to name again the community of Mamelodi and in particular the families of those who died during the struggle years.  To repeat Prof Ndebele’s words – we are honoured to be here, and honoured to have you with us today.

Lastly, thank you all for attending today or watching on television and the Internet.  Ultimately it is you who determine the success of the Lecture. We have to take responsibility for our future and our country and communities future. It is in our hands to play our part and make a difference in the lives of others.

I thank you.