Hon Deputy Speaker, hon Deputy President, hon members, the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, represented the triumph of inhumanity over the common good. It symbolised the victory of racial segregation and discrimination perpetuated by colonial authorities over nonracialism and equality advanced by the downtrodden black majority.
The institutionalisation of racial discrimination through the enactment of apartheid laws in 1948, as well as the proclamation of the Republic 13 years later in 1961, served as a consolidation of the inhumane, racist projects of 31 May 1902 and 31 May 1910.
It was therefore the democratic breakthrough of 1994, 84 years following the formation of the Union, that represented the triumph of the common good over inhumanity. It ushered in an era of democracy, freedom and nonracialism in a popular rejection of the centuries old system of colonialism and apartheid oppression.
It provided us with the hope to live again. It also gave us a belief that a better tomorrow for all our people was possible, and granted us an opportunity to bring into reality the aspirations of those who came before us.
The centenary anniversary of the Union of South Africa invokes ambiguous feelings on our journey to the democratisation of our country. It is geared at rolling back the effects of the legacy of the brutal system of exclusion, white supremacy and illegitimate rule over the majority by the minority.
The results of the 1910 parliamentary elections - the first under the Union's constitution - showed a government that was committed to bringing about reconciliation between Boer and Briton, and the exclusion of blacks from the political life of the country. It was this government, which was dedicated to promoting the exclusive interests of whites and the degradation of black people, that took office on 31 May 1910.
Even the African franchise in the Cape, which was entrenched in the Union's constitution, was a flimsy protective cover, which in time was scrapped and thereby rendered all Africans voiceless. It placed the Afrikaners and English in a position to determine the place of Africans in their scheme of things.
Subsequently, in the very first session of the Union Parliament in 1911, the government fired the first shot in what would become a barrage of legislation that was designed to strip Africans of the means to defend themselves. This was to render them helpless in the face of capitalist exploitation by mining and farming interests.
Two important statutes were passed in that first session. The Mines and Works Act reserved certain occupations in the mining industry for whites only, and thus laid down the principle of the industrial colour bar. The second piece of legislation passed during the same session of Parliament was the Native Labour Regulation Act.
In terms of this Act, the government armed itself with powers of control over the movement of Africans. Not only was the movement of Africans from one area to another strictly determined by this law, but their vertical mobility was to be strictly controlled through subsequent legislation, which condemned the African worker to a position of menial labourer.
The government was able to create a pool of cheap labour in the native reserves by controlling the movement of African labourers. They could be drawn up to satisfy the needs of employers in the white areas, be it the mines, manufacturing industries, commerce or farms.
After the defeat of the African kingdoms, the British imperialists and the colonialists faced what came to be known as the Ethiopian or Native Problem. This coincided with the partitioning of Africa by European powers and the discovery of gold around the Witwatersrand in 1885. The mining industry not only made the Witwatersrand the gravitation point of African labour, but also an important centre for missionary work.
Racism and racially discriminatory practices as well as the suppression of African culture and traditions in the missionary churches in Africa and the Diaspora, led to the secession of the African converts from the missionary churches. This resulted in the formation of African independent churches, popularly known as the Ethiopian churches. These were notably the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the USA, and the Ethiopian Church of South Africa, established by Rev Mangena Mokone.
In 2009, President Zuma posthumously honoured Mokone as the father of African Ethiopian theology. But the Dutch and English colonialists saw Mokone and his Ethiopian movement as the biggest threat after wars of resistance. Ethiopianism was indeed a threat to racism, which was becoming the cornerstone of their policies.
However, during the Anglo-Boer War, now the South African War, of 1899 to 1902, African people fought on both sides hoping that in the event of victory, they would regain their civil and political rights. In 1900, while the war was still raging, W E du Bois told the first Pan-African conference that the biggest problem of the 20th century would be the colour line. The conference also condemned the atrocities perpetrated against African people during this war.
At the end of the war, the Dutch and the British concluded the Peace Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902, which made racism or the colour bar the cornerstone of their constitutional vision. Meanwhile, delegates from the First Pan- African Conference joined officials of the AME Church in Cape Town, from where they spread Ethiopianism and Pan-Africanism into the interior. At the same time, Ethiopian Christians swelled the ranks of the emerging Native congresses, which were formed in all four colonies, and came together to form the Union of South Africa in 1910.
Ethiopianism was so influential that the Orange Free State Native Congress used the rules of the Ethiopian Church as its constitution. Ethiopianism became such a threat to the racial ideology of the colonialists that they appointed the SA Native Affairs, SANAC, Commission to investigate it. The Commission found that many Ethiopian Christians participated in the Bhambatha War.
This growing unity and co-operation of black people, including Indians and Coloureds, forced the colonialists towards greater unity. Their unifying factor was the threat of Ethiopianism rooted in the slogan "Africa for Africans", at home and abroad. This resistance movement came to be known as the "black peril" or "swartgevaar".
This was the birth of the Native problems. The birth of Ethiopianism meant that there were two constitutional visions in South Africa at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the racial ideology of the colonialists and the nonracial ideology of Ethiopianists and Pan-African nationalists who were profoundly influenced by, inter alia, the nonracial Christian message, which was distorted by the missionaries. These two constitutional visions became clearer with the whites-only national convention held in Durban and the blacks-only national convention held in Bloemfontein, in the same year, in 1908.
The passage of the South Africa Act of 1909, which gave birth to the Union of South Africa in 1910, marked the triumph of racism over nonracialism. The formation of the SA National Native Congress, SANNC, renamed the ANC in 1923, marked the beginning of a national political resistance against colonialism and its underlying racial ideology.
However, on the contrary, as early as 1892, John Langalibalele Dube had called for a different society; a society that would be spiritual, humane and prosperous. Dube was a self-confessed Ethiopian Christian. His vision of a new Africa was echoed by Pixley Isaka ka Seme, convener of the founding conference of the ANC, in his oration entitled: The Regeneration of Africa.
Seme also called for the creation of a unique civilisation for Africa and Africans based on both spirituality and humanness. Both Dube and Seme had come under the influence of Ethiopianism during their studies in the United States.
The Ethiopian Movement was more than a religious movement, as our icon Mr Mandela observed. It went beyond the African interpretation of the Scriptures to address native grievances side-by-side with all sectors of society. Its fundamental tenets were self-worth, self-reliance and freedom. These tenets drew the Ethiopian Christians to the growing political movement of the early 1900s that culminated in the formation of the ANC in 1912.
The Ethiopian clergy and lay preachers, including people like S M Makgatho, the ANC president from 1917 to 1924, used the church platform to recruit members for the ANC. In this sense, Nelson Mandela observed, the ANC traces the seeds of its formation to the Ethiopian Movement of the 1890s.
Nelson Mandela has observed, quite correctly, that the links between the Ethiopian Church and the ANC and the struggle for national liberation, go back to the activism of the 1890s, when the products of missionary education observed and recorded that African people were not only dispossessed of their land and cattle, but also of their pride, dignity and institutions.
As we mark the hundred years since the formation of the Union of South Africa, it should also be noted that Ethiopia is this year observing the 114th anniversary of the victory of the Battle of Adwa, where the Italian fascists who attempted to colonise Ethiopia were defeated by the Ethiopian army led by Emperor Menelik II in 1896. The defeat of the Italians by the brave, ancient Ethiopian martyrs represented the rejection of racist, colonial oppression in defence of African sovereignty.
When the fascist Italian forces made a second attempt at invading Ethiopia in 1935, African and other Third World countries expressed solidarity with that country. This Pan-African solidarity culminated in the Fifth Pan- African Conference, which called on peasants, workers, women, students and intellectuals to use all means in their power to fight for freedom and the independence of their countries. The Ethiopian clergy in the ANC also played a critical role in shaping its moral vision. For instance, Rev Mahabane, the ANC president in the 1920s, challenged the colonial status of the African people in terms of which they were treated not as adult citizens with full rights, but as children to be spoken for and controlled.
Mahabane argued that the racist rulers of South Africa had denied Africans their basic human right to self-determination and that any advance in human rights in the South African context had to begin with the affirmation of African humanity.
As I conclude, the point we are making here is that today we are celebrating the victory of humanity over inhumanity and the future that lies ahead of us. Thank you. [Applause.]