Chairperson, hon members, hon Premiers - I've seen my Premier here - hon members from the nine provinces ...
... ndiyavuya xa ndinibona nilapha. [I am happy to see you here.] The road to an inclusive, participatory and free society based on the will of the people, irrespective of race, sex, belief, language, ethnicity and geographical location, is a road only too familiar to the women of South Africa in particular, and the women of Africa and the world in general.
This road has been built throughout history with the sweat and blood of women in different corners of the world: Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984; the women who led the anti-pass law march to Parliament in 1956; Ms Bertha Gxowa; Sophie de Bruyn; Lillian Ngoyi; Ms Helen Suzman, who for a very long time was the lone opposition voice in the apartheid Parliament; and Ms Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmental and political activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to mention but a few.
It is a road that the women of South Africa and the world over are continuing to work on in various areas of life. The women parliamentarians, women academics and women from civil society organisations held a conference at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Friday, 5 March 2010, to mark the celebration of International Women's Day and to celebrate the achievements of women and the roads that women are continuing to build in South African society and beyond.
Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa provides a Bill of Rights in celebration of the women of the world. The Bill of Rights provides, among other things, for the protection of human dignity, freedom and security of the person, and freedom of movement and residence. These rights benefit women and empower them to reap the fruits of the labour of all women who have travelled this road before us.
The 52nd national conference of the ANC declared that precisely because the oppression of women was embedded in the economic, social, religious, cultural, family and other relationships in all communities, its eradication was a strategy and tactic that had to be embarked upon in order to free the women of our land.
African communalism, which was in place before the colonial period in South Africa, was based on collective and inclusive governance through direct participation. This society was not only characterised by peace, harmony and prosperity, but also by social cohesion, justice and unity. These qualities did not arise as a coincidence but as a result of a genuine system of democratic participation in which the words, hopes and aspirations of every member received equal attention and consideration, irrespective of his or her gender.
These qualities demonstrated themselves in the early years of the SA Native National Congress when, even at its launch in Bloemfontein on 8 January 1912, women regents such as Queen Manthatisi of Lesotho were in attendance.
Participation in itself is never enough. The noble right and opportunity to elect the leadership of the country and representatives in Parliament must be linked to equal participation and the inclusion of women in a free society where society members not only live as equals but where women experience equal treatment - not just in law, conduct and culture, but also in the material conditions with which they have to contend. The ANC-led government is hard at work to bring about lifetime changes to the women in rural areas and informal settlements, enabling them to participate in the decision processes that affect them and to lift them from abject poverty and strife.
Equal participation and inclusion should result in the transformation of the lives of all. Equal participation should not only move women up into decision-making structures, but meaningfully empower them to be champions of their own destinies. Women should lead in ensuring that there is speedy delivery of services to all our people. They also should ensure that participatory democracy is not abused by those who cause anarchy and have no experience of exclusion from privilege. Their only ill-intended goal is to score short-lived political points and to keep the revolution marking time or, at worst, to reverse the gains of the revolution.
Women as the custodians of good conduct should rise up - as they did against the fascist apartheid regime - against the faceless antirevolutionary elements that burn down our libraries and other communal assets.
Women who bear the scars of the tyranny of triple oppression should make their voices heard against the forces of darkness which deliver poor service to the people whilst enriching themselves through tender-rigging and a combination of other improper tendencies which are strange to the spirit of ubuntu. [Applause.] It is only the genuine and constructive anger of women that will ensure that there is inclusivity, participatory democracy and a free society.
Article 1 of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's Principles of International Cultural Co-operation provides that each culture has a dignity and value which must be respected and preserved. It further provides that every people has the right and the duty to develop their culture. In this regard, article 17 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights guarantees the right of individuals to take part in the cultural life of the community. It also provides that the promotion and protection of moral and traditional values recognised by the community shall be the duty of the state. Cultural rights should take a central place in the consideration of rights issues and the striving towards a more just world order.
Cultural values are intimately related to our sense of identity. Challenges to our culture thus become challenges to the integrity of each of us as a person and to the values that are closest to our hearts. They threaten our understanding of ourselves and our world. As a result, challenges to culture generate strong and emotionally charged survival responses.
For example, I know what our culture prescribes when we address people such as Madiba. Sometimes I become highly emotional when a person pleads ignorance with regard to our cultural norms such as greeting, or any of our cultural values. In such instances I just put aside gender issues and become highly emotional about our culture as the Madiba clan.
International and local authorities are in agreement in upholding and deepening the right of all individuals to practise their individual cultures. They are also in agreement that other people who do not subscribe to such cultures have a duty to respect them and treat them with dignity. It is therefore not only in bad taste but unconstitutional for anyone to use any public platform to speak down to or condemn other cultures, polygamy not excluded. [Applause.]
Through the struggles of women whom I have referred to earlier, women such as Ms Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela and Mrs Albertina Sisulu, the women of South Africa can talk about the taste of freedom in our lifetime. For women, freedom is not only the right to vote and make decisions for ourselves, but also the ability to lift others up where we can.
We have to go back to the words of the president of the ANC, the late O R Tambo, who said, while speaking at a women's conference in 1981, and I quote:
Women in the ANC should stop behaving as if there was no place for them above the level of certain categories of involvement. They have a duty to liberate us men from antique concepts and attitudes about the place and role of women in society and the development and direction of our revolutionary struggle.
[Applause.]
In conclusion, the fact that patriarchy and other discriminatory conduct are practised in many areas of our society does not make them acceptable. Thus, united in our diversity, all of us South Africans should rise to fight for the final elimination of such conduct from our society. The legislative grounding is firm enough to ensure success in the building of a truly inclusive, participatory and egalitarian society. What remains is the building of durable walls to protect and advance our hard-won democratic gains. Let us all join hands and march together as one to a united state based on the will of the people, without regard for race, sex, belief, language, ethnicity and geographical location.
Malibongwe igama lamakhosikazi! [Kwaqhwatywa.] [Let the name of women be praised! [Applause.]]