Deputy Chair, hon Ministers present here, hon members, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate on national Freedom Day, which the country will be celebrating tomorrow, 27 April 2012. On this day our freedom will be 18 years old. Our freedom is in its teenage years, an age category in which proper monitoring and guidance is needed to sustain our constitutional democracy.
This is a significant day of reflection and celebration for all the people of South Africa and our friends across Africa and the world. On this day we celebrate the attainment of freedom, democracy, national reconciliation, unity and the restoration of human dignity. We celebrate a Freedom Day that brought us, black and white, together across the racial divide. We are celebrating freedom and democracy obtained through the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifices of scores of freedom fighters, ordinary South Africans and freedom-loving people in Africa and the world. On each Freedom Day, we remember that scores of South Africans laid down their lives so that we could be free.
We are proud of the substantial progress we have made together since 1994. In comparison to many countries that have deteriorated after liberation, we have done exceptionally well, against all odds, in only 18 years. We have established a solid, sound, stable and functional constitutional democracy.
Our task at the moment is to make sure that the gains we have made since 1994 translate into the economic betterment of our people's lives. To broaden economic empowerment to reach the masses of our people, we encourage various forms of collective ownership of the economy, such as employee shareholding schemes, co-operatives and public ownership.
We know that many more South Africans still need water, electricity, sanitation, jobs and other basic necessities. That is why we must continue working together to expand access to services and reverse the legacy of apartheid and colonial oppression.
When we celebrate our achievements and ponder the work that must still be done, we must never forget the huge sacrifices that were made for our freedom. Many South Africans laid down their lives so that we could be free. We should never allow ourselves to lose sight of the value of our freedom. All South Africans, black and white, must continue to work together to deepen the reconciliation and unity of the rainbow nation, as encapsulated by the theme for this year, 2012, which is "Working together to build unity and prosperity for all".
We must recognise that South Africa is a country blessed with massive mineral wealth, which could provide resources for a flourishing society. But thanks to apartheid's rapaciousness, there is a legacy of immense poverty and deprivation for the majority of the people. In dealing with this matter, the ANC-led government chose to implement an economic policy that has been successful in introducing macroeconomic stability and, until recently, low inflation, a balanced budget and a sound economic framework.
The government had no illusions about the fact that the political freedom that we attained in 1994 would be meaningless without the economic freedom of the majority of South Africans who were subjected to all forms of deprivation and poverty. Our economic policies have created a good grounding for business to flourish in the South African market but besides the cushion that most South Africans enjoy against poverty occasioned by the social security net, a lot still has to be done to empower our people economically.
Unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment are still challenges that government must confront, especially unemployment among the youth of our country, but linked to this is the need to re-examine what freedom means from the perspective of our social transformation agenda. This matter calls upon us to create a society that is the embodiment of social virtues that serve as examples to our young children, and there is the concomitant responsibility to cultivate a culture of respect for human dignity among our children.
Our moral regeneration programme cannot be more relevant than at the present time, when we are seeing a prevalence of social ills that is unprecedented in our history. The story of the teenage girl allegedly being raped by a group of young boys and the video thereof being posted on the social communication networks is a departure from the norms and standards of a good society; the kind of society we are attempting to build. This matter embodies an utter disrespect for the rule of law and is a setback for our campaigns against gender-based violence and oppression. This kind of behaviour must be uprooted in all its forms and manifestations. Our children cannot enjoy freedom under circumstances like these and it is increasingly becoming a cause for concern that the social communication media are contributing towards a culture of moral degeneration. I base this on the reported incidence of date rape, the posting of messages that border on immorality and the posting of pictures and videos that explicitly reveal sex, and the fact that there appears to be no regulation or limit to access of what is posted on the likes of Twitter, Facebook and others. Our freedom cannot find practical expression under these circumstances and we call on our youth to desist from engaging in practices that can only harm their future and consequently the future of our country as a whole. A happy Freedom Day to all of you. [Applause.]