Deputy Speaker, hon Acting President and hon members, the issue that we are debating today remains as relevant as it was 100 years ago.
I have listened to what some of my colleagues before me have said. It is not a question, as far as I am concerned, about "Swartgevaar" or not "Swartgevaar", about racism or inhumanity. It is a question of how to get the recipe right in this country to live together as one nation, understanding the cultural diversity, the reality of South Africa, of how to become a winning nation.
Why do we have this debate today? We have this debate because the centenary of the Union is part of our history, something that we cannot deny. That is what happened 100 years ago. Somewhere down here in the basement is a huge picture of the National Convention. That is part of our history. Maybe one day we should display it, together with new pictures of the new South Africa and the new Cabinet and the new Presidents, because that is all part of our history.
I listened to the Chief Whip of the ANC, and he made the point that we are celebrating the victory of humanity over inhumanity, the victory of nonracism over racism. Yes, we are all brilliant with hindsight, but sometimes it is not that simple.
Ek kan u verseker dat vir Afrikaners wie so pas uit die Anglo-Boereoorlog gekom het waar hulle alles verloor het - hul vryheid; hul huise; hul geliefdes; hul alles - het 1908 of die Nasionale Konvensie nie oor 'n oorwinning oor swartmense gegaan nie.
Dit het daaroor gegaan om te probeer herwin en teen Britse imperialisme op te staan; om te probeer om selfregering en selfbeskikking in daardie tyd terug te kry. Ons moet ons geskiedenis in die regte konteks sien. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[I can assure you that for those Afrikaners who had just come out of the Anglo-Boer War where they lost everything - their freedom; their homes; their loved ones; everything - 1908 or the National Convention was not about a victory over black people.
It was about reclaiming, and standing up against British imperialism; an attempt to reclaim self-rule and self-determination at that time. We must look at our history in the proper context.]
On 31 May 1910 the Union of South Africa came into being, precisely eight years after the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging, which brought an end to the Anglo-Boer War. It was a Union under the British imperial flag. The head of state was King George V. The British had achieved with the war what they had set out to achieve right from the beginning. Why? The world's richest gold mines were now safely under the control of British imperialism, not Afrikaner nationalism. They were in the hands of British imperialism.
It was expected of Afrikaners to rebuild the destroyed Boer Republics and the Union of South Africa, and for that they received limited self-rule under British supervision.
The birth of the Union in 1910 was a direct result of the deliberations of the National Convention that started in October 1908 in Durban, and that National Convention - I mentioned the picture - consisted of 30 persons: 12 from the Cape Colony, eight from the Transvaal, five from the Free State and five from Natal. Now of those 30 people, 16 were of British descent and 14 were Afrikaners - my time is long gone.
The point I wanted to make is that Afrikaners were there at that stage to play their role. They have been here over the past 100 years to play their role. They have played their role and they will continue to do so. The challenge that we all have is: What is the final recipe to make us a winning nation in all respects? The goodwill is there. We still need to find that final recipe. Thank you. [Applause.]