ADDRESS BY
MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI, MP
MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND
PRESIDENT, INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY
KING CETSHWAYO STADIUM, ULUNDI : OCTOBER 5, 2002
Thank you for inviting me to participate in
the Mack Omega Shange Scout Competition Rally of 2002. Throughout many years
I have maintained close interactions with the South African Scout
Association and I have had the honour to attend a number of its meetings. I
consider this one significant however, because in meeting to hold this
rally, we pay tribute to a man for whom I have always had the greatest
admiration and respect. It is appropriate that Mack Omega Shange’s name
should be on the banner of this gathering. His exceptional leadership within
the scout movement in KwaZulu Natal remains one of the most outstanding
contributions to the development of goodwill and social solidarity which I
have witnessed in our Province during my lifetime. His vision and dedicated
service remain an expression of what lies in my own heart. Indeed, we shared
a commitment to making education, personal growth, leadership, respect,
integrity and discipline, central features of the development of young
people in KwaZulu Natal.
Mack Omega Shange built on the foundation
laid by Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the scout movement, more
than 90 years ago. While the scout movement now operates in a multitude of
countries throughout the world and attracts the participation of millions of
young people, there is a special significance to the South Africa Scout
Association. The international scout movement is not foreign to our soil,
but was taken as a seed from this very place and planted in countries
throughout the world. As a Commanding Officer in Her Majesty’s army, Sir
Robert Baden-Powell spent a significant and impressionable period of his
life in South Africa. Being a naturally observant, keen discoverer, Sir
Baden-Powell took note of the characteristics of African people, from our
social structures to our children’s upbringing. He was inspired by what he
saw and was moved to ensure that his own experiences of the African way of
life were not lost to anyone who could benefit from them.
History records how Sir Baden-Powell’s
experiences in the British army brought him into close contact with African
traditions, for which he developed a deep and lasting respect. After the
clash between the Usuthu section of the Zulu nation led by King Dinuzulu and
the Mandlakazi section led by Zibhebhu in 1888, Sir Baden-Powell
participated in the arrest of King Dinuzulu. It was during that time that
Sir Baden-Powell discovered the wood bead necklace of the King which he left
behind during their pursuit of him. Traditionally, King Shaka ka
Senzangakhona presented wooden beads to young men as orders of merit. These
were considered highly valuable by Zulu warriors, not because of any
intrinsic value in the bead, but because it represented their triumph in
some test or battle, or the distinction of some heroic deed. King Dinuzulu
himself wore at least 1000 of these wooden beads. Sir Baden-Powell,
apparently unaware of the custom of presenting wooden beads to outstanding
warriors, nevertheless mimicked this custom in the scout movement, bestowing
the Wood Badge beads on scouts who had completed a certain aspect of
training. Since then, millions of young people throughout the world wear the
bead as part of their uniform.
In 1987, at an important rally of the Scout
Movement, the Chief Scout, Garnet de la Hunt, took from around his neck four
Wood Badge beads and handed them to me as the guest of honour at that event.
In this symbolic way, the beads were restored to their rightful home. My
mother, Princess Constance Magogo ka Dinuzulu, was King Dinuzulu's daughter.
On my mother's side, I am the King’s grandson. I was honoured to receive
this gift, because to me it was an acknowledgment that a movement of such
enduring dignity and success was birthed in our own country, among our own
people.
It was here, on African soil, that Sir
Baden-Powell discovered the importance of instilling discipline, competence
and teamwork within young people. He developed the notion that by improving
the moral make-up of a young generation, it is possible to forge a better
humanity and, through this simple philosophy, he established a world-wide
movement towards the moral education of youth. The very first meeting of the
Boy Scouts at Brownsea Island in England in 1907 was called to attention
with the reverberating sound of the Kudu horn. Today, much of what has
become international practice in training scouts has been taken directly
from my own Zulu culture, and from the cultures of other African peoples. I
am proud to know that the training and education of young people through
such an admirable curriculum as that employed by the Scouts, was originally
inspired by features so familiar to us as Africans. It reminds me that we
have always been correct in placing such great emphasis on the development
of our children as the hope of our future.
Throughout my life, I have considered it a
priority to educate and train young people in order to empower them to seize
opportunities and fulfil their potential, to the greater benefit of our
society. I have dedicated much of my work to promoting education, education
and education in South Africa. During my time as the Chief Minister of the
erstwhile KwaZulu Government, I worked hand in hand with even the poorest of
our communities to ensure that the right message could permeate our
liberation struggle. During those days, there were powerful components of
the struggle who had chosen the path of an armed conflict, and raged against
the inferior education afforded to black people, by burning schools and
keeping children out of classrooms with fiery speeches. Young people were
provoked to destroy school buildings and to react with violence to the
morally repugnant regime of apartheid. Chaos was welcomed. Ungovernability
was pursued. Young people who took up arms and shed blood were called
"a new breed of young lions, with iron in their souls".
The message that was sent to our young people
was that liberation was more important than education, and education could
wait until after apartheid fell. I knew this was not true. I knew that
education was indeed a tool with which we could gain our liberation from
ignorance, inferiority and social oppression. Our dignity was not dependent
on crushing those who were called our enemies. I believed then, as I do now,
that no one is an enemy to be defeated or destroyed. We are equally human
beings, though we may think in a right or wrong way and may act in a right
or wrong manner. Our true dignity was dependent on our realising that the
moral high ground belonged to us, who were oppressed, and that so long as we
maintained the high ground, apartheid could not be sustained. Therefore, I
pursued education as a means of teaching our young people not only what it
means to be a dignified human being, but how to live by one's own labour and
ingenuity.
Sadly, the thousands upon thousands of young
people who turned to violence and lawlessness are now the very same
generation which is unemployable for lack of skills and knowledge. These are
the same people who have had guns taken from their hands by the triumph of
history, and now find nothing to keep their hands occupied. Together with
our poorest communities in this Province, in the midst of the chaos, I
fostered self-help and self-reliance and encouraged our people to raise
funds to build schools and secure teachers. I rallied under the banner of
"Education for liberation". My vision was to see a liberated South
Africa in which our people were already well-equipped to embrace the new
opportunities which would open for us. I wanted our young people to be able
to become a productive work-force from day one of our political liberation.
I wanted young leaders who could take our new country from the ashes of
apartheid towards a future we could be proud of. I wanted ordinary people to
be capable of operating as competent citizens in a country vastly changed,
widely opened and ready for business.
I believe that there were men and women who
shared my long-term vision for a new South Africa throughout the days of our
liberation struggle. Among these was Mack Omega Shange, who worked side by
side with my KwaZulu Government to train and equip our young people with the
skills and character of good citizens. Mack Omega Shange worked through the
scouts movement, recognising in it the foundation of good values, an
excellent curricula and sound principles for human development. I am proud
to say that he saw in Sir Baden-Powell's movement the roots of what Sir
Baden-Powell himself saw in Africa, which is a tradition of Ubuntu Botho
whereby we each are responsible for one another. Today, this principle
stands. In our present context it is evident that we will either stand
united, or together we will fall. With a handful of morally upright, capable
young people of goodwill, we can influence entire communities towards
solidarity. Changing a country begins with changing individual hearts and
minds. As we shape the character of young people, we are securing a future
transformation of South Africa towards hope, productivity, social discipline
and the precedence of the rule of law.
During the lifetime of Mack Omega Shange, the
challenge was to keep our young people from blindly following the call to
arms and violence in reaction to the prevailing social evil of oppression.
It was not easy to keep our children on the path of discipline, when many
powerful people were calling for lawlessness and chaos. It was no easy task
to instill in our young people the ability to see beyond the present times,
when the present times were so vivid in their injustice and so immediately
experienced by us all. Yet I was determined to enable our youth to believe
in something greater than the tragedy we suffered together. I wanted them to
believe in their own ability to change their world through positive actions,
by applying knowledge, with skill and creativity. I wanted to change our
communities internally, teaching them to depend on their own efforts and
collective strength. Considering the circumstances, I knew this task would
be extremely difficult. Yet time and time again, I saw the tangible results
of practical goodwill.
Not only did we build schools, but we built
the value of education into the fabric of our communities. Today many of our
communities in KwaZulu Natal are able to embrace projects of sustainable
development simply because of their background of self-help and
self-reliance. We know how to provide for our own families, to secure food,
to live successfully within the law and to strengthen our own hand by
joining hands with those around us. The long-term consequences of what I
worked to gain for so many years during our struggle, are well worth the
battle. I know that now, as we look ahead again to the future ten or fifteen
years from today, we again need to be committed to making the long-term
investments required to secure prosperity, stability and strength in South
Africa. I believe that our commitment must again, unwaveringly, be focused
on education, and again, without fail, we need to look at how our young
generation is developing and guide them on a course towards morality, good
character, leadership, teamwork, integrity, discipline and goodwill.
Today the battle is waged in a different
context. As young people, you are undoubtedly fully aware of the new social
evils which threaten to curtail the fulfilment of your human potential.
Among these are drug and substance abuse, gang sub-cultures, alcoholism, the
threat of HIV/AIDS, racial hatred, criminality and apathy. Our present world
is wide open and there are a multiplicity of messages being aimed at young
people. Even the campaign of information to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS
among our youth is setting itself up as an authority on moral behaviour,
acclimatising our youth to the new standards of a vastly opened world. As
young people, each of you here knows how difficult it is to find a solid
base on which to build your own frame of reference, particularly one that
withstands any set of circumstances, no matter how varied. Relative truth is
becoming increasingly accepted, because an unequivocal, unchanging
foundation on which to base what we believe in, is becoming hard to find.
I wish to put out a challenge to our scouts
here today. The foundational principles of scouting are discovery and
respect. Scouting develops a respect for our natural environment, for other
people and for ourselves. Starting from this foundation, I challenge each of
you to seek out an unshakeable set of basic beliefs on which you may base
your future decisions, actions and way of thinking. This is the route of any
scientist or discoverer. There must be some basic incontrovertible fact that
you can accept as being true. Once you find that, you can begin to lead a
life that is consistent and gives evidence of integrity, deliberate action
and purpose. These are also the characteristics of a leader, and I believe
they should be evident in the example of every scout. I appreciate that
scouting teaches the values of generosity, helpfulness, practical hard work
and leadership. The training you receive as a scout is indeed training for
life.
What you learn as a scout will stand you in
good stead to face the challenges of adult life. Since Sir Baden-Powell
established the scout movement at the beginning of the last century,
however, much about our world has changed. We can still apply the need for
integrity and teamwork to our present context. We can still apply the value
of a good attitude, honesty, diligence, discipline and goodwill. These
principles are not outdated. But I believe the scout movement must remain
relevant to the present day, and that it must equip young people to operate
in a modern world with the same success, fulfilment and benefit experienced
by scouts in years past. In order to do this, we must acknowledge the
quickly diminishing period between childhood and adulthood, and teach our
young people not simply to respect authority, but to seek out an authority
they can respect. In this way, we will teach a new generation to take
ownership of our country, to demand a government of integrity and
competence, to insist on proper training and education, to hold all
leadership accountable and to pursue their own greatest potential.
I am convinced that our young South Africans
are a generation able to effect change. I believe that as scouts, this group
of young people before me is equipped to make good decisions and perform
actions which will change our present circumstances for the best. By
choosing against drugs and alcohol, you are choosing a fuller life. By
choosing to act responsibly when it comes to matters of intimacy and
relationships, you are choosing to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. By choosing
to reject criminality, you are choosing justice for our society. By choosing
to find an authority you can respect and seeking a foundation of firmly held
beliefs on which to base your own life, you are choosing to become good
citizens and excellent leaders. Your personal decisions will have a profound
effect on the future of South Africa. I believe Sir Baden-Powell was correct
in thinking that we can change humanity for the better by shaping a
generation of young people as thinkers, workers, and leaders of integrity.
Today, I wish to congratulate each scout
present for committing to develop excellence within your own character. I
also take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the leaders in
education and culture, to the Chief Scout, the provincial, regional and
national Commissioners, and the parents of these outstanding young people.
Together, we are fulfilling the vision of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and
carrying forward the work of Mack Omega Shange. Together we are securing a
future in which our posterity are leaders of progress, not followers of the
haphazard winds of ideological change. Our young people will create their
own future. You will determine whether dignity becomes the full property of
every man. You will decide how prosperous South Africa will be. You will
write our future history. I am encouraged that tomorrow lies in the hands of
young people such as yourselves. May you rise to the challenge of shaping
it.
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