Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, I welcome you to the 14th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture. Thank you for being here in the third year since our beloved Founder's passing. Your support is a source of great encouragement for his Foundation.
Many individual expressions of thanks are due, and they will be conveyed by Mr Sello Hatang, our Chief Executive in his closing remarks. But a few from me at the outset.
Vice Chancellor Cheryl de la Rey of the University of Pretoria, thank you for hosting us.
To the community of Mamelodi, thank you for receiving us. We have dedicated this 14th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture to those from Mamelodi who lost their lives in the long, and never to be forgotten, struggle for liberation in South Africa. I would love to acknowledge each one individually, but that would mean reading names for a very long time. So many from this community gave their lives for the democracy South Africans are still working at.
Some names loom large in the public imagination – Solomon Mahlangu, Stanza Bopape, and the Ribeiros, for example. But far more are little-known or unknown. We honour them all with this lecture. In particular we remember those who gave their lives in 1986, exactly thirty years ago – the Mamelodi Ten, the Kwandebele Nine, Walter Alset, Samuel Ledwaba, Reginald Kekana, Madiphoso Masuku... I could go on.
Some are represented by their families today who accepted our invitation to be part of this occasion. Sitting at the front of this gathering, they honor us with their presence.
In making contact with them we were privileged to listen to the stories of their lives. We learned that when you carry every day the memory of the sacrifices of your sons, daughters, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and grandchildren and then you look at the gap of fulfillment between what is and the dream of what was sacrificed for, you can feel lost and even discarded.
Then we ask: how can we live together in dignity in the face of this gap?
Mme Maria Ntuli and Mme Lizzie Sefolo, you took us by the hand to find many other families in the community who felt lost and discarded. Many mothers and grandmothers of Mamelodi are grateful to you. So are we.
We are grateful to the Missing Persons Task Team of the National Prosecution Authority, and the Mkhonto weSizwe Veterans Association for their research data and contacts. Special thanks to Alpheus Sealetsa, Anthony Khalo, Bonnie Kgosana, Madeleine Fullard, Naomi Madima, Ethel Arends, Joe Ditabo, Buyi Sishuba and Sahm Venter.
As is so often the case in South Africa, just finding people can be a challenge. Just putting people and their addresses on the voter''s roll somehow seems unachievable. And then again, one moment you are on an electoral list, the next moment you are not. One moment you are within a municipal boundary, and then you are not. One moment you exist, the next you are lost and discarded. The dream of inclusion is swallowed up by the reality of exclusion.
The effects of being lost and discarded can be devastating. Universities, schools, libraries, clinics, business premises get burned. Here again, I could go on.
And so it is that the social tapestry we have been weaving together since 1994, and which has many beautiful spots, remains difficult to complete.
But still we continue to weave. Our gifted young South Africans around the country show amazing entrepreneurial flair.
There are civil servants across the spectrum of public service, who never give up doing their best to serve the public; politicians who strive to bring honor to their calling; business people who strive to maximize the social benefit of the wealth they have created; workers committed to the common good through enhanced productivity; teachers, students, and academics who endeavor to bring public attention through research and public discussion, to the inheritance of structural inequality and its resilient effects. They all remind us that these effects cannot be solved at the level at which they were created.
As we struggle within the nation state there is much in the global order that includes and excludes in which large portions of the world are lost and discarded.
Being present in the world affirms; being outside disempowers. None of us should ever feel lost and discarded. How does living together be a factor of how we all feel the empowering sense of presence?
I trust that it is not necessary to persuade you of the relevance of our theme for today’s Lecture – ‘living together’.
To explore this theme and stimulate our thinking towards sustainable solutions to the challenge of living together, we have invited Mr Bill Gates to be our 2016 Lecturer. A household name around the world, he hardly needs introduction.
He has shaped and influenced social good agendas and pushed boundaries over some four decades. The shape and trajectory of international philanthropy is unimaginable without him. His voice is one that all of us must reckon with. Not surprisingly, our 2015 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecturer, acclaimed economist Professor Thomas Piketty, cited him (and challenged him) a number of times.
I have no doubt that he will concentrate our minds and ignite our best passions today. It only remains for me to invite him to this lectern. Bill, we await your words and welcome you warmly to this esteemed platform.
Njabulo S Ndebele
Chairman: Nelson Mandela Foundation