International Mother Language Day is held worldwide on 21 February to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. Observed since 2008, the date of 21 February corresponds to the day in 1952 when students in what is today Bangladesh who were demonstrating for the recognition of Bangla as one of the two national languages of East Pakistan, were shot dead by police.
THE FW DE KLERK 2016 GOODWILL AWARD TO PUBLIC PROTECTOR, ADV, THULI MADONSELA AND HER TEAM The Board of Trustees of the FW de Klerk
Letter first published by The Times of London
26 December 2015
Dear Sir
It is regrettable that the “Rhodes Must Fall” folly has spread from South Africa to Oriel College. My people – the Afrikaners – have greater reason to dislike Rhodes than anyone else. He was the architect of the Anglo-Boer War that had a disastrous impact on our people. Yet the National Party government never thought of removing his name from our history.
The remarkable developments of the past week have raised a number of fundamental questions about our President; about the ANC, about power – and about our constitutional democracy.
The first of these relates to the ability of Mr Zuma to carry out the grave responsibilities that our Constitution devolves on him. In the wake of his inexplicable – and still unexplained – decision to dismiss the Finance Minister, Nhlanhla Nene, it is perhaps more important than ever to try to understand what motivates Jacob Zuma.
On the eve of the 22nd Reconciliation Day after the founding of a democratic South Africa, the question must be raised: What happened to the reconciling rainbow nation of Mandela, De Klerk and Tutu? Because it is, sadly, very clear that reconciliation and tolerance are in short supply in South Africa today.
A few examples will prove the point: xenophobic attacks on foreigners, intolerance amongst and even inside political parties (especially in Parliament), the recent examples of attacks on and damage to statues, and the violence and racist undertones of some of the student protests.
Tony Ehrenreich’s now infamous statement in the controversy over the naming of a Cape Town street after FW de Klerk said it all: “The phase of reconciliation that brought together fair-minded white and black people is over. We are now engaged in a struggle for economic and social justice.”
In his remarks to the ANC’s National General Council on 9 October 2015 President Zuma provided some crucial insights into how he views his Alliance partners and how he foresees their future relationship after the goals of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) have been achieved. (President Zuma’s comments in isiZulu are indicated by italics.)
President Zuma spelled out the ANC’s role as follows:
“The ANC, the leader of the Alliance, is a multiclass national liberation movement advancing the NDR, the primary objective of which is the establishment of the National Democratic Society, which is united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous. That is the objective of the ANC.”
PRESIDENT ZUMA’S CELEBRATION OF MEDIA FREEDOM DAY By Dave Steward, Executive Director of the FW de Klerk Foundation President Zuma is understandably unhappy with the
President Zuma is understandably unhappy with the treatment he receives from the media – and particularly from the print media. He is regularly depicted with a shower emerging from his head. Artists paint him with his genitals exposed. He is castigated for corruption and the media continue to hound him over the expenditure of R246 million on his retirement home.
So, it is not surprising that when he went off text during his recent address to mark Media Freedom Day, the President expressed some emotion.
In his address on 15 October 2015 to the Higher Education Transformation Summit in Durban, Deputy President Ramaphosa made the following statement:
“Though we have made a decisive shift from the fragmented, inefficient and inequitable higher education system of the apartheid era, we still feel its effects. Had the apartheid rulers not been so thorough, so methodical, so malevolent in the denial of education to the black majority, then South Africa would today be on a completely different developmental trajectory. We would be a more equitable nation, a more prosperous nation. We would have an advanced, diversified, more inclusive economy.”
