Item 645 - Speech by President Mandela on the results of Census '96

TRANSCRIPT [Prepared]

Minister of Finance
Head of Statistics South Africa
Distinguished guests


When we embarked four years ago along the path of peace, unity and freedom, our central mission as a nation was to build a better life for all South Africans.

In deciding to hold a national census in 1996, five years earlier than might have been expected, we were acting upon our urgent need for accurate information, so that our plans should be based on the real situation.

A census under any circumstances is a mammoth undertaking. To organize a unified national census, in just one year instead of the usual three years, in a country only beginning to emerge from a system that fragmented every aspect of social and political life, was a major feat in the transformation of our institutions.

The Census itself was one of the defining milestones in the building of our new nation. Census 96 and its army of one hundred thousand enumerators, marked a break with our divided past; by reaching every part of the country; by using the same methods for everyone; and by ensuring that as far possible everyone was asked for information in their own language.

We should take this opportunity to say to all those men and women who made it happen: Congratulations to you all!

At the end of the day we have detailed, all-inclusive, information about our people which we can use to achieve our shared goals.

In breaking new ground, and so early in our transition, the census had to deal with many difficulties and much had to be learned. It is in keeping with the spirit of openness of our democracy, and the early need for information, that preliminary estimates were for the first time shared with the public. But it is also in the nature of such information that it might need revision, as indeed proved to be the case.

No doubt the next Census will be still more accurate, building on the gains of Census 96. But we do at last have results with which we can work, numbers that count for the nation!

It will take time to absorb the full detail of this intricate picture of our complex society. But the broad outlines should act as a clarion call to rededicate ourselves, in every sector of our society, to the historic mission of a generation charged with transforming South African society in order to eradicate the poverty and imbalances that derive from our past.

They show a society in which the lines between rich and poor were, with little qualification, the historical lines of a racially divided society.

They show a society which had enormous basic needs to be met, whether it be in terms of access to clean water; electricity, telephones or schooling. By measuring the extent of deprivation in October 1996, the results provide us with benchmarks against which our performance, as government and nation, should be measured year by year.

This picture was drawn mid-way through our country's first democratically elected government, when the programmes of socio-economic change were only beginning to gather pace.

We are right to take pride in the fact that in the two years since then, the character of our society has been changing day by day, through an active partnership of government, communities, and the structures of civil society including the private sector. The installation since then of some three quarters of a million telephones; the connection of about a million households to the electricity grid; and the supply of clean water to another 1.8 million people do improve the situation.

But the scale of inherited social inequality and deprivation, confirmed by the results, makes our task one of many years and one in which reconstruction and reconciliation; nation-building and development are all of critical importance.

The results remind us that we have only started along the path towards that goal which was at the heart of our nation's founding consensus: namely, to overcome together the legacy of our divided past.

May the publication of this portrait of our nation strengthen our commitment to building a democracy that is worthy of the name: a society in which the needs of all South Africans, and especially the poor, are at the heart of the nation's efforts.

I thank you.

TRANSCRIPT [Verbatim]

TREVOR MANUEL: Mr President, before you speak, I noticed that you were borrowing my copy [LAUGHTER] and it’s appropriate that you have your own copy so that you can advise us on the decisions [APPLAUSE]
MANDELA: Thank you
Minister of Finance
Head of Statistics South Africa
Distinguished guests
What the Minister has done is not going to save him [LAUGHTER] from the harsh remarks I’m going to make [LAUGHTER]. It is now a matter of common knowledge that I’ve said I’m going to step down at the end of my term which I believe will be in May next year. I had assumed that I would disappear under a cloud of glory [LAUGHTER] but it is quite clear from everything that has happened recently and this morning that many of people I thought would appreciate what I have done as an old man now regard me already as a has-been [LAUGHTER]. This report should have been given to me first [LAUGHTER] and latterly to the Minister. I must consider very carefully whether I should hold on [LAUGHTER] until May next year [LAUGHTER]. As a former boxer I know how to hold on [LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]. But I’ll have to consider very carefully whether I should do so or step down today [LAUGHTER].
When we embarked four years ago along the path of peace, unity and freedom, our central mission as a nation was to build a better life for all South Africans.
In deciding to hold a national census in 1996, five years earlier than might have been expected, we were acting upon our urgent need for accurate information, so that our plans should be based on the real situation.
A census under any circumstances is a mammoth undertaking. To organize a unified national census, in just one year instead of the usual three years, in a country only beginning to emerge from a system that fragmented every aspect of social and political life, was a major feat in the transformation of our institutions.
The Census itself was one of the defining milestones in the building of our new nation. Census 96 and its army of one hundred thousand enumerators, marked a break with our divided past; by reaching every part of the country; by using the same methods for everyone; and by ensuring that as far possible everyone was asked for information in their own language.
We should take this opportunity to say to all those men and women who made it happen: Congratulations to you all!
At the end of the day we have detailed, all-inclusive, information about our people which we can use to achieve our shared goals.
In breaking new ground, and so early in our transition, the census had to deal with many difficulties and much had to be learned. It is in keeping with the spirit of openness of our democracy, and the early need for information, that preliminary estimates were for the first time shared with the public. But it is also in the nature of such information that it might need revision, as indeed proved to be the case.
No doubt the next Census will be still more accurate, building on the gains of Census 96. But we do at last have results with which we can work, numbers that count for the nation!
It will take time to absorb the full detail of this intricate picture of our complex society. But the broad outlines should act as a clarion call to rededicate ourselves, in every sector of our society, to the historic mission of a generation charged with transforming South African society in order to eradicate the poverty and imbalances that derive from our past.
They show a society in which the lines between rich and poor were, with little qualification, the historical lines of a racially divided society.
They show a society which had enormous basic needs to be met, whether it be in terms of access to clean water; electricity, telephones or schooling. By measuring the extent of deprivation in October 1996, the results provide us with benchmarks against which our performance, as government and nation, should be measured year by year.
This picture was drawn mid-way through our country's first democratically elected government, when the programmes of socio-economic change were only beginning to gather pace.
We are right to take pride in the fact that in the two years since then, the character of our society has been changing day by day, through an active partnership of government, communities, and the structures of civil society including the private sector. The installation since then of some three quarters of a million telephones; the connection of about a million houses holds to the electricity grid; and the supply of clean water to another 1.8 million people do all improve the situation.
But the scale of inherited social inequality and deprivation, confirmed by the results, makes our task one of many years and one in which reconstruction and reconciliation; nation-building and development are all of critical importance.
The results remind us that we have only started along the path towards that goal which was at the heart of our nation's founding consensus: namely, to overcome together the legacy of our divided past.
May the publication of the this portrait of our nation strengthen our commitment to building a democracy that is worth y of the name: a society in which the needs of all South Africans, and especially the poor, are at the heart of the nation's efforts.
I thank you. There are remarks which I’ve been making wherever I go in the recent past and I think it’s important for me to make those remarks here. Many people have tried to assess the performance of my government and in doing so they at times use standards far more severe than they applied to the apartheid regime and its bantustans forgetting that there is a fundamental differences between the governments of this country that preceded 1994 and the present government.
Not a single individual here can stand up and contest the claim that in the 346 years of white rule in this country no government has delivered services such as we have done during the last four years [APPLAUSE] unless one thinks in terms of a white minority of less than 14% of the population. But if you think about the entire country there is no government which can compare with what we have achieved.
But the fundamental difference which ought to be taken into account is that all previous governments, the incumbents, were trained in governance. They were able to go to school, universities, technikons, teacher training institutions and acquire knowledge, skills and expertise. So they are proficient because of that training. What is more, you were dealing with a white minority where the environment at school is exactly the same as the environment at home because you have parents who had a high level of academic qualification and the child when he or she comes back home is able to get professional assistance from parents in an environment of relaxation knowing that I have got parents who love me. They ate well; they had ample accommodation where the child has a room and facilities for studying and concentration.
But what is the position with the blacks in this country, with Africans, coloureds and Indians? In most cases they were excluded from schools, to say even less of tertiary education because you did not have the facilities, you could not go to the best schools in the country which are well equipped to enable you to grasp sophisticated concepts fully. And the environment between the school and the home was totally different. You come to parents, some of whom have never seen the inside of a school. Housing facilities where about five children share one room, sleeping on the floor; where children have to study on the floor with candlelight as somebody has said here.
Notwithstanding that difference nevertheless the media, analysts judge us more severely than they judged the apartheid regime. Our people went into exile in order to mobilise the international community to isolate South Africa, to make it a polecat of the world. Others went in and out of jail, operated underground, like the present Minister of Finance. Still others served long terms in jail. Suddenly you found on the 27th of April 1994 that we were now entrusted with the task of running an advanced country with modern ports and harbours, with a sophisticated banking and insurance system, with improved communications – either by road, by air and so on.
We were taken literally from the bush in order to run this country and yet we have delivered services, which no government in the country has done. We ought to be complimented with that [APPLAUSE].
Naturally we have made many mistakes, some of them fundamental. Then we have shown weaknesses because we came to government determined to clean it of corruption and yet we found that our own members, some of them who held leading positions in the liberation movement, themselves became corrupt and in some cases, even more corrupt than the civil service of the apartheid regime. That was a great disappointment, still is, to us because we believe in clean government.
But the difference between the apartheid regime and ourselves is that we have set up a commission under a senior judge to investigate corruption in government and we have arrested a lot of people, some of them highly placed and exposed them because we have given instructions that anybody who is corrupt must be arrested and if there is evidence he must be convicted even if he belongs to the African National Congress [APPLAUSE]. We must compliment Judge Heath for having investigated no less than 90 000, and having recovered, for having recovered more than R10 billion which were embezzled by state employees. That is our position – transparency even about weaknesses amongst ourselves.
But what I want to say to you is that nevertheless South Africa occupies a special place in the hearts of the international community. What you have done collectively has been hailed as the miracle of the world. We know who brought about these changes – it was the liberation movement, it was Azapo, it was the PAC, it was the African National Congress. But we could not have made this peaceful transformation without the co-operation of other sections of the population, especially whites. If we had not done that, if we not asked for their co-operation, there would have been rivers of blood flowing across this country. But we were able to go to the government, as the African national Congress and said let us sit down and sort out our problems. We have brought about this miracle.
When you go to the world you need just to say, ‘I am a South African’ – whether you are black or white – and the doors of the world become wide open to you. That is a reality – I want you to understand that. The leaders of this country when they go abroad – are feted right and left. They are given rare honours, some of which have been only given to two people in history. That is not a compliment just to individuals, it is a compliment to the entire South Africa, black and white because we have been able to confound the prophets of doom and had a peaceful transformation where everybody predicted that there will be violence which would last for years, if not centuries and we are honoured by the world because of that.
I want you to keep that in mind, to respond to the call for unity and reconciliation and not to behave in a way which will let down those who trust us inside and outside the country. You have become an example, a shining beacon to the entire world. Some of our people here are aware of this: business for example. Ever since I came out of jail in 1990, I’ve gone round the country, the private sector to say to them, ‘our people in the countryside lack facilities. I want you to help, to build clinics and schools.’ The response has made me to say I was born and brought up in South Africa but I certainly did not know my country well. I never knew that white business would respond so positively. Where everyone is prepared now to share his resources with those who are disadvantaged. This year alone, I have taken out no less than 30 different business people to the countryside, each one to build a clinic and a school and I have made it clear that I don’t just want walls and roofs. I want a clinic which is equipped with modern facilities which can link up with medical institutions throughout the country. I want schools which are properly equipped so that our children should be able to grasp these sophisticated concepts. I am 81 but I don’t know what internet means I can see people pressing a button, what happens after that I do not know [LAUGHTER]. Now we want to change that situation and the response of business is marvellous and this project, the first one to respond, and I think he deserves to be mentioned was Dr Venter of Altron who built a school where I went for my Sub-A. But this has happened throughout the country: Northern Province, KwaZulu-Natal and almost all the provinces, Western Cape, the Northern Cape.
And this is what is happening and many people in this country who says we represent this particular community are not aware of what is happening in those communities. Those communities are forgetting the past and they do not want to be a part of the minority. And that is what I want to say: Refuse to be part of the minority; ne part of the majority. Be like Trevor Manuel who can go to a meeting either of the National Executive of the ANC or the government and attack an old man like myself [LAUGHTER] confidently, because they know, that in our organisation, if there is anything I have taught the National Executive is that: ‘Tell me when I’m wrong’ – I want to go out to the public confident that what I say cannot be challenged. If somebody challenges it he will lose, he or she will lose credibility [LAUGHTER]. Be like Derek Hanekom; be like Eric, Alec Erwin, who are taking part in decision making.
Make no mistake no white rule will ever return to this country. And those parties who still want to foster the idea of whites keeping their privileges are living in a fool’s paradise. That will never happen again [APPLAUSE]. The whites are already playing a critical role in the transformation in this country and I want you to continue to do so. This Census 96 is a good example, where people, professionals from all groups, have worked together to produce these excellent results. There is a lot of work to be done in the countryside because almost all these businessmen when I take them to the countryside, they can smell from the helicopter in the air, they can smell the poverty, the disease, the ignorance that afflicts people in the countryside. And one of the first questions they ask, ‘are things of this nature still happening in our country?’ And I want you to participate in the program to better the lives of everybody. With all your advantages, go to the countryside, train people just to read and write their names, train people to be able to speak modern languages, train people to be able to think correctly and to express their opinions.
That is the work which will make you part of the majority. I am not saying join the African National Congress. If you join the African National Congress I will not be angry with you [LAUGHTER]. But I am merely asking you to use your advantages. We have forgotten the past but we are appealing to you to use your advantages in order to better the life of all South Africans. That will be a gain to the entire country and not to the individuals that you benefit because of your knowledge and expertise. With these few words, I have delivered a very short address [LAUGHTER] and but you’ll understand that in my tradition an old man is never limited to 30 minutes or so, I can speak the whole day [LAUGHTER] thank you [APPLAUSE]