Chairperson, colleagues and comrades, it is special occasions such as this one that afford us an opportunity to pause and reflect on the long road we have traversed as a nation - reflect on where we are and the road ahead.
It is especially those amongst us who are most vulnerable - women, particularly girl-children and children in general, the disabled, the elderly, people affected and infected by HIV and Aids - on whom we should focus, owing to the particular and peculiar circumstances that confront them, the challenges that they have to overcome and the need for us as a people to ensure that human rights give meaning to their everyday lives. The ANC has been, and continues to be, committed to the principles and values of human rights. Way back in 1955, in Kliptown, we led our people in the adoption of the Freedom Charter. Even today the principles enshrined in the Freedom Charter are still valid and, in fact, many of them can still be found in the founding principles of our Constitution.
In nearly a century of leading the struggle against oppression, the ANC challenged apartheid laws such as the Group Areas Act, which limited where a person could live, and many other similar laws that restricted people's ability to live their lives to their fullest potential. Our people were restricted from accessing equal and quality education because of race. They were even limited in whom they could marry or fall in love with. That's how absurd the apartheid regime or system was in seeking to take social, political and economic engineering to the very extreme.
Today we enjoy liberty. Many amongst our people are now experiencing a better quality of life. But it is important not to forget those amongst us for whom the African sun has not yet shone. The challenge is upon all of us to ensure that in everything we do, we do not lose sight of the primary goal, which is the vision that we should be sharing irrespective of political affiliation or bias - and that is to ensure that all amongst our people eventually get to enjoy a better life.
As the ANC, in our manifesto with regard to this year's elections, we particularly emphasised three key priorities, namely, promoting access to education and health care; protecting our people from crime, especially violent crime; placing particular emphasis on rural communities and ensuring that economic prosperity reaches them as well. All of this was because we were inspired by our unwavering commitment to ensuring that our people enjoy the same rights and the same quality of life irrespective of where they live, irrespective of the colour of their skin or their gender.
We still have a long road ahead. It is important to recall the words of some of our forebears like O R Tambo who reminded us that a nation that does not give particular attention to its children has no future. That is where I would want to suggest we focus as a point of departure: The quality of life of our children - ensuring that their survival is promoted, that their nutritional needs are taken care of, that they have access to education, that they have access to health care and that their general wellbeing is improved.
We have to ensure that in all our endeavours we promote a culture of tolerance amongst our people, recognising cultural and social differences and not allowing them to be the basis of division but rather the basis for promoting what we call a rainbow nation. We need to celebrate our diversity rather than see it as a weakness.
The challenges in our country remain, amongst other things, domestic violence in which women and those that are considered weak are subjected to unfair and unjust humiliation through violence, whether psychological, physical or otherwise.
As we approach our commitment to the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign, we must take all the necessary steps, both in government and civil society, to mobilise our resources and our energies to ensure that, especially in this period, women and children live lives that are free from violence.
Our society is particularly endowed with resources of different kinds, but it is especially our cultural heritage of ubuntu that should guide us and that should give us strength in addressing issues of equality and equity and ensuring that all of us have access to all that we most treasure, namely, economic prosperity, social equality and a better life in general. I thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.