They do not look upon them as people with families of their own; they do not realise that they have emotions - that they fall in love like white people do; that they want to be with their wives and children like white people want to be with theirs; that they want to earn enough money to support their families properly, to feed and clothe them and send them to school.
They are crude; they are not smooth. That is a problem. [Applause.]
We are thus challenged to work harder still, to eradicate racism and related intolerances from society. It must not find its way into what we call "democratic expression". It must not. In our "democratic expression" we must detect that we are trying to bring reconciliation to all of us; that we are trying to build a new South Africa, a rainbow nation, in earnest.
There should be no insinuations of any other type, including those that undermine other people's cultures. There must not. We must build the nation that we want; the one that we all say we are working to build, particularly this House. This House represents the people out there, who have many different views, which is why we have many political parties. But I think there are ideas on which we all come together, namely that we want to unite our country and that we want to live in a nonracial South Africa - because a racial South Africa caused problems. Those ideas must come out in our interventions. We cannot play around with those matters - unless we did not know what apartheid and racialism was. Maybe some of us were not born then.
We trust that some members of the opposition will not be found wanting in this regard. When we talk about some of these things, we need to agree, as the leaders of political parties. These are some of the matters we cannot play around with. If this man Madiba, whom we love so much, could at one time, as a freedom fighter, have said the words I have just quoted, then that must tell you where we come from. [Interjections.] Don't make that remark, because I am going to talk about that changing of your mind. Usually, I do not want to do so. I am dealing with these matters here because some of us have the view that we are changing this Parliament into something that our own people, the ones who elected us, do not understand. They do not understand what is happening. They say so because they do not hear constructive things. [Interjections.]
I have said to the leaders of the opposition that I will respect an opposition that is constructive; not negative and destructive. An opposition that closes its eyes to reality because it has to find something negative reduces this Parliament into something that makes even young people say, "What is happening to this Parliament of yours?" They don't understand. [Interjections.] [Applause.] There is no respect - nothing. What are we teaching the citizens who voted for us?
I would imagine that we all need to accept reality. We are not helping people out there - nor the country, for that matter. Even if we differ, let us differ with respect. [Applause.]
One of the strong points of the ANC is that for over a century, it has always differed from its opponents with respect. [Interjections.]
HON MEMBERS: Oh no, no, no!