STATEMENT: INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE 2015
2015-09-21
Former President De Klerk’s views on peace – based on an extract from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech delivered in Oslo on 10 December 1993.
“Peace does not simply mean the absence of conflict. Throughout history, there has been an absence of conflict in many repressive societies. This lack of conflict does not have its roots in harmony, goodwill or the consent of the parties involved – but often in fear, ignorance and powerlessness. There can thus be no real peace without justice, consultation or consent.
Luister, the video that was recently produced by the Open Stellenbosch (OS) movement, should be viewed by everyone who is interested in the future of our universities and the future of South Africa as a multicultural society. It presents 32 interviews – primarily with black students – regarding their sense of racial exclusion at Stellenbosch University. They complain of subtle – and not so subtle – racism in their interactions with white Afrikaans-speaking students – including accusations of out-and-out racial abuse in student bars and on the internet.
In a recent speech in Cape Town, FW de Klerk discussed the topic of why business should continue to invest in South Africa.
We welcome reassurances by South African Communist Party (SACP) deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin of his devotion to the Constitution (A distortion to stir the demagogues, Letters, Business Day, August 11.
The FW de Klerk Foundation has called on the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to remove quotas based on national demographics for Coloured fishermen from its recently announced Draft Sector Specific Policies for the Allocation of Fishing Rights in a wide range of fisheries.
The Department of Trade and Industry has just published the latest version of the Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill. The Bill has its origins in the government’s wish to reassure foreign investors who were alarmed by South Africa’s decision three years ago to terminate its Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with a number of European countries. Its purpose is supposedly to provide for “the legislative protection of investors” and the “promotion of investment”.
In celebration of the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, and in keeping with the theme of ‘take action; inspire change’, staff of the FW de Klerk Foundation and its Centre for Constitutional Rights (the CFCR) will be donating their ‘67 minutes’ to Autism Western Cape on Friday, 17 July. The Foundation has a long-standing relationship with Autism Western Cape, which provides support, advisory services, training, counselling and other resources to autistic children and their families – free of charge.
There has recently been a revealing polemical exchange between Joel Netshitenzhe, the former chief ideologist of the National Democratic Revolution, and the SACP’s chief ideologist, Jeremy Cronin.