PRINCE MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI

What can one say in response to such an eloquent and thought-provoking lecture delivered by such an illustrious son of Africa? I can only thank Your Excellency, Dr Obasanjo, for travelling to be with us and for giving us the gift of your profound insight into the realities of our continent, both past and present. Above all, however, we appreciate your vision for the future, for it is hope, more than anything else, that will sustain us in our pursuit of Africa’s highest aspirations.

In being the servant of us, as the people of Africa, for so many decades, His Excellency has hardly any peers. It is humbling indeed to have such an eminent and respected African leader accept the invitation to deliver this inaugural lecture. More so because the invitation did not come from me, I would have been very shy to approach His Excellency to speak about our friendship, about the work I have done to secure liberty, democracy, and justice, and about so much that he has done to serve all of us as people of Africa.

However, the Board of the Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi Foundation invited His Excellency to speak and received his kind confirmation before they informed me of this wonderful news! Of course, I was delighted not only by the prospect of hearing His Excellency’s wisdom but by the opportunity to see him again.

I extend my gratitude to the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for inviting me to witness this afternoon’s groundbreaking ceremony.

You are indeed breaking new ground, for this will be the second temple built in South Africa, following the first in Johannesburg, which was the first on the African continent. We therefore have reason to mark this significant moment as we celebrate the beginning of construction.

I look forward to seeing this temple, for I know that throughout the world the temples of the Latter-day Saints are magnificently designed and beautifully constructed. Visually, they convey the idea that this is a sacred place.

The presence of this temple will prompt those outside the Church to ask questions about their faith in what they believe. For those inside the Church it will provide a place where marriages and families can be sealed, baptisms conducted, and knowledge expanded. It will be a reminder to all to be mindful of the kind of life we are leading.

I appreciate the emphasis on marriage and family through the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints. I married my wife, Princess Irene, in July 1952, and we have remained committed to one another for almost 64 years. The Lord blessed our marriage with eight children, and I am a proud grandfather to many grandchildren. I know what it is to be family-focused.

I also know what it means to lose family members, for my wife and I have buried five of our children who preceded us into eternity. We take great solace in believing that this separation is temporary, and we look forward to being reunited with our children in the presence of the Lord.

This life, undoubtedly, is a testing experience. When I consider the hardship, trials and battles I have endured throughout more than sixty years in leadership and public life, I find it difficult to agree with the hedonists that the primary purpose of life is pleasure. I have had many moments of joy, and I consider myself happy. But I know that my happiness is a gift from God, for only He could bring me through the life I have lived with a smile on my face!

Nevertheless, I would do it again. It was all well worth it. This, I think, is a sentiment that all believers have the satisfaction of expressing, for we live not according to our own dictates, but according to the leading of the Lord. This has allowed me to have no regrets, for, faced with difficult choices, I have simply done what moral conscience dictated.

I know that this too is a central tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: to live a morally upright, ethical life, faithful to one’s spouse and family. It is admirable that so many young members of this Church are called into fulltime mission work and spend a considerable amount of time as missionaries at a young age.

There are so many temptations for our youth to follow, and they are so quickly led astray into greed, substance abuse, criminal behaviour, and damaging relationships. By focusing young people on mission work first, before they embark on their own careers, they are being taught the principle of seeking first the Kingdom of God. In this way they will be better equipped to face temptations, and turn away.

We need to give our youth an alternative to despair and destruction. These are very difficult times in South Africa, in which widespread unemployment, poverty and hardship are taking a toll on human dignity. Young people are looking for something they can believe in, for someone to follow. They want to believe that they can create change with their own actions.

This is the promise of democracy: that every individual has a voice and that every voice has significance. Throughout this weekend I am going from community to community encouraging people to register to vote in the coming Local Government Elections. This is about protecting democracy and seeing its promises fulfilled.

In this final Voter Registration weekend, the Electoral Commission has set up stations across South Africa to enable you to register, to check whether you are on the voters’ roll, to see where you will vote on election day, and to record any change of address.

As patriots who believe in doing the right thing for our families and our country, we who are present at this ground-breaking must surely involve ourselves in securing good governance. I have never considered my Christianity separate from my work in politics. I am a Christian who believes in serving my country. As I walk this road, it is good to spend time with fellow believers and to share celebrations like this.

I wish you well as you build the Durban temple, in the hope that the principles of moral living, commitment and family values will deepen in South Africa.

SPEECH BY PRINCE MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI MP, PRESIDENT OF THE INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY, TO THE JOINT SITTING OF PARLIAMENT

Today a nation mourns. The passing of Nelson Rohlihlahla Mandela closes a chapter in history that will be remembered as a time of struggle, of freedom and of great transformation. Yet this chapter was only the preface, pointing towards the story that is yet to come.

As we continue to write the story of South Africa, let us be inspired by Mandela’s legacy.Let us remember his passion for reconciliation, his capacity for forgiveness and his bold leadership. Let us also remember his honesty.

Mandela’s old-style honesty was a value that my generation admired. I respected him for an admission he made in April 2002. He said, “We have used every ammunition to destroy [Buthelezi] and we failed. He is still there. He is a formidable survivor. We cannot ignore him.”

That admission made many in his organisation unhappy. But that was the kind of brutal frankness that positioned Mandela as a leader among his peers.

Even as a Head of State, his honesty drove him to make admissions that few others at the helm of their country would dare. On 1 June 1995, President Mandela spoke in the National Assembly about the Shell House Massacre of 28 March 1994, in which eight civilians died when security at the ANC’s Headquarters opened fire.

In total, 60 lives were lost and 300 were injured. A year later, in the National Assembly, Mandela said, “‘I gave instructions to our security that if they attacked the house, please you must protect that house – even if you have to kill people.”

This admission that he himself had given the order distressed Mandela’s comrades. But six days later he stood again in the National Assembly and reminded us all, “For reconciliation to have real meaning, the truth should be brought to light.”

As painful as it was for me to hear, President Mandela’s honesty about Shell House enhanced my admiration for him. He was a man of truth.

I know that many still carry the wound of Shell House, and the multitude of wounds inflicted by the ANC’s People’s War. I too carry scars in my heart. But there is a saying that has defined my life, and one that Mandela used to repeat as well: “The definition of a saint is a sinner who dies trying”.

There is no one more deserving of forgiveness than Nelson Mandela, and few who epitomise forgiveness more.Now that the Lord has called him home, I urge those who carry wounds, to forgive him. It is true, after all, that Errarehumanumest.

Following the rupture between Inkatha and the ANC in 1979, I endured vilification and pain. But even at the height of the campaign to destroy me, Mandela himself showed integrity.

In 1986 the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group visited South Africa to assess the situation under apartheid, and met with Mandela on Robben Island. General OlusegunObasanjo, the former Head of State of Nigeria, later recounted to me that they asked Mandela who I was, because they were hearing so much about me. Mandela answered, “Buthelezi is a freedom fighter in his own right.”

This was an expression of honesty as much as an expression of our friendship, which endured for as long I knew him. He expressed his confidence in me time and again as we served in a democratic Government, appointing me as Acting President in his absence. He was not obliged to do that.

My only regret, as we prepare to inter the remains of our beloved Madiba, is that his long-pursued vision of reconciliation is not complete. He charged those who came after him to take up the cause of reconciliation. Yet he enters eternity with this dream still unachieved.

The dishonoured agreement of 19 April 1994, signed by Mandela, de Klerk and myself, still haunts our efforts. There is an echo in the dishonoured agreement of 30 November 2000 which promised to uphold the powers and functions of traditional leaders. This had nothing to do with Mandela. But it forces us to consider whether we as a nation maintain the integrity of our first democratic leader.

In the twilight of his life, the need for reconciliation still weighed heavily on Mandela’s heart, as it does on mine. Unfortunately, he was prevented time and time again from acting on his convictions. He was a remarkable leader, but not a sovereign, and few within the leadership of the ANC shared his commitment to reconcile with past opponents.

Yet we cannot honour Madiba’s legacy without taking up his passion and adopting his mission. The liberation he fought for must encompass freedom from the wounds of the past, committed not only by minority against majority, but by brother against brother.

In memory of Nelson Mandela, I pray that that is where our story will lead.

As a starting point, in honour of our fallen hero, may consideration be given to releasing the political prisoners who still await their freedom twenty years on.

My condolences to the Mandela family, and to the many who grieve. May Nelson Mandela rest in peace.

by Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi

Dear friends and fellow South Africans,

On the 18th of July 1978, Nelson Mandela spent his 60th birthday on Robben Island. In celebration of the man whom the London Times called “the colossus of African nationalism”, Mr Walter Sisulu and Mr Ahmed Kathrada delivered speeches, while governments and individuals across the world sent messages of support. These messages were addressed to Mrs Winnie Madikizela Mandela, who also gave an interview to the New York Times.

Mandela himself received only eight messages from family and friends. One of those messages was from me, and Mandela responded warmly. We had maintained a friendship that began in the fifties, when I discovered that Mandela was close to my father-in-law, Zachariah Mzila. Whenever Mandela visited him at the Eloff Street compound where he worked, Mr Mzila’s daughter, Irene Thandekile Mzila, would serve him tea and become the target of his gentle teasing.

I was in Durban at that time, completing my studies at the non-European section of the University of Natal, and I attended meetings of the ANC in Nichols Square, together with people like Tambo, Sisulu, Luthuli, Monty Naicker, Yengwa and Mandela. My political activism at the University of Fort Hare, where I had belonged to the ANC Youth League, had seen me rusticated from that institution. Mandela himself, who was a founding member of the Youth League, had been expelled from Fort Hare before I arrived.

When my father-in-law passed away, I asked Mandela to wind up his estate, as a lawyer and family friend.

Following the Rivonia Trial and Mandela’s incarceration, we continued to correspond. Some of Mandela’s letters had to be smuggled out by his visitors. At other times, he wrote to me through my wife, Princess Irene. There are two letters that I remember well. The first is his letter of condolence upon the passing King Cyprian Bhekuzulu ka Solomon. As the King’s traditional Prime Minister, confidante and cousin, I was pained by his death in 1968.

The second letter that stands out in my mind was written just before his release, in which he laments the violence between our organisations and urges that we meet immediately upon his release. I agreed wholeheartedly, knowing that the message of reconciliation needed to filter down to the grassroots from the top.

My advocacy of non-violence, which I maintained throughout the ANC’s People’s War, had caused a schism between Inkatha and the ANC’s mission-in-exile, when I refused to engage the armed struggle. I had been vilified for my stand, but I remained the champion of non-violence. I therefore welcomed Mandela’s eagerness to end the bloodshed.

I regret, however, that a year passed before Mandela and I met, due to pressure he received from some ANC leaders. When traditional leaders in the Eastern Cape asked Mandela why we had not yet met, considering our well-known friendship, he admitted that ANC leaders from KwaZulu Natal had “almost throttled” him.

But Mandela remained clear on his intention to stop the violence. On the 25th of February 1990, Nelson Mandela addressed thousands of supporters at King’s Park Stadium in Durban and said, “Take your guns, your knives and your pangas, and throw them into the sea.” It was a message that many ANC supporters were loath to hear. But it was a call to return to the path of non-violence on which the liberation movement was founded.

When we did meet, on the 29th of January 1991, Mandela and I issued a joint statement committing ourselves to sharing a podium at joint rallies, to bring ANC and IFP supporters together and begin the process of reconciliation. Unfortunately, due to pressure from ANC leaders, again Mandela could not fulfil that commitment.

Based on the interim Constitution, a Government of National Unity was formed after the April 1994 elections, and President Mandela appointed me as Minister of Home Affairs. Whenever both he and Deputy President Mbeki were out of the country, President Mandela appointed me as Acting President of the Republic. I filled this position 22 times, and Mandela often jokingly referred to me as “Mr Acting President”.

In 2004, when my son, Prince Nelisuzulu Benedict, passed away, I took the unprecedented step of acknowledging in public that my son had succumbed to HIV/Aids. Shortly thereafter, Mandela’s own grandson died and he emerged with enough courage to say that HIV/Aids had claimed another life. No other leader had spoken so forthrightly about Aids. Not only did Aids carry a stigma, our culture did not allow us to talk about matters of sex.

But Mandela and I sought to de-stigmatise HIV/Aids so that more people would be tested, seek treatment and be willing to disclose their status to prospective partners. We gave the leadership in this fight, and I believe we saved lives.

For me, there is one pivotal moment in which Mandela’s integrity was displayed. This was in 2002, when he publically admitted, “We have used every ammunition to destroy (Buthelezi), but we failed. And he is still there. He is a formidable survivor. We cannot ignore him.”

The ANC has tried for years to remove me from the political landscape. President Zuma himself advised me, face to face, to step out of leadership. But only Mandela has had the integrity to admit that the ANC wants to “destroy” me. I am sure that if anyone knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of so much antipathy, it is Nelson Mandela.

But Mandela also knows, more than anyone else, what it is like to be loved as an international icon. As we all get caught up in the spirit of Mandela Day, I hope that the lessons of peace and integrity truly create change.

Yours in the service of our nation,

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi MP