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MESSAGE FROM AMBASSADOR: H.E. Norman Manuel Mashabane

The past we have come from

Apartheid divided society along racial lines. Black people did not have the right to vote. The social exclusion and neglect of the majority was state policy. The country was isolated and the economy was in crisis. Growth had come to a standstill in the early 1990s. The public sector was out of control.

The security forces and justice system violated most human and civil rights and it was used to defend apartheid. The South African Defense Force was fighting the liberation movements. Right until after the 1994 election, parts of the country lived in a state of war, with assassinations and bombings of democracy activities.

The government was largely shaped by a National Security approach with little respect for the rule of law. The state became more isolated, more corrupt and more dependent on force to maintain itself. By the late 1980s, South Africa had become ungovernable, torn apart by division, hatred and conflict.

The apartheid regime faced an all-round crisis that resulted from a broad revolutionary offensive, together with internal contradictions among the rulers. The crisis of racial tyranny could not be resolved, except by the revolutionary transformation of our country. The crisis of apartheid was the result of a combination of factors: the economic impasse of South African capitalism, internationally isolated divisions in the ruling bloc and, above all, the broad revolutionary struggle.

On the economic front the crisis had many features, such as a severe shortage of skills as a result of cultural and educational oppression of the majority. Also, there was large-scale, underutilization of productive capacity -- an increasing reluctance of capitalists to invest in fixed capital and massive unemployment. The capitalist economy was stagnating, while the apartheid state itself sank deeper into financial crisis.

New democratic order

In celebration of 10 Years of Freedom, we are calling upon our friends and allies who stood side by side with us in the broad revolutionary struggle for liberation of our country to join us on this historic occasion on April 27, 2004.

Ten years since our country's first democratic election, South Africa is taking stock of the progress that freedom has brought towards a better life for all. The government is looking at how far it has gone in building a caring society since the attainment of democracy. It has also been assessing the weakness in our experience and challenges of the next decade of liberation in 2014.

It is hoped that every sector of our society, including sports, arts and culture, universities, professionals, trade unions, faith-based organizations and businesses will assess what the past decade has meant for them. Reviewing this together with the government will help the entire nation to evaluate itself in its first decade of freedom.

We, however, should remain vigilant and ready to confront new challenges with the same tenacity as before. Accordingly, the revolutionary struggle against racism should be intensified at all fronts. In this regard, our political strategy should be based on information that is objective on internal and international situation. Whatever forms of struggle we employed in the past, and may still have to in the future, the golden link is always our absolute determination to consolidate and advance democracy. On this, we are never to be found wanting. At no stage should anyone be left in doubt regarding our will and readiness to defend the gains of 10 years of democracy.

The spirit of nonracism should not only extend to the people as a whole, but should also be a firm foundation stone upon which our new society stands. Each of us should, therefore, foster a spirit of oneness among our people. Even though suspicions will not disappear overnight, the building of one South African nation is a national task of paramount importance.

All this signifies that, after our long and painful experience of racist and sexist oppression and exploitation, we will continue to work consistently to realize the goals set in our constitution of building a nonracist, nonsexist, prosperous and democratic society. To achieve this objective, more than 10 years ago we decided that we should group our interventions under the various tasks contained in the Reconstruction Development Program (RDP).

To effect the revolutionary transformation of our society to which we are committed, we have to carry out specific tasks on a daily basis. This means that we must recognize and sustain the dynamic relationship between the processes of revolution and reform.

Without the revolutionary goals we have set ourselves, we would never be able to determine the correct tasks that would enable us gradually to reform our society to reflect the revolutionary perspective we have chosen. At the same time, if we do not engage the task of reforming our society in daily struggle, we will not be able to effect the revolutionary transformation for which so many of our people sacrificed their lives during a century-long struggle for genuine liberation.

The budget is one of the principal instruments in the hands of the democratic state to bring about the changes we need to make to achieve our revolutionary goals. For us, the budget is not merely an annual record of revenue and expenditure figures decided by the government to address whatever issues might seem important during a particular year. It represents the financial interventions of the democratic state to give effect to the dialectically interconnected processes of revolution and reform.

In reality, each annual budget is a program and instrument of the reform. However innovative and ground-breaking with regard to particular items, as an annual program and instrument it cannot assume the character of a comprehensive revolutionary process. Rather, it is the accumulation of annual budgets that leads to such a comprehensive revolutionary process.

Once the detailed and stable revolutionary and reform policy framework has been established, as we have done during our first decade of liberation, the funding instrument, the annual budgets, would also reflect this detailed and stable revolutionary and reform policy framework. This is what characterizes the 2004 to 2005 budgets.

It has provided for increased expenditure to meet the needs of the people. This includes additional funding for social grants, such as old-age pensions and child support grants, as well as goods and services in the areas of health, education, housing, nutrition, water, electricity and so on.

This gives concrete expression to the objectives in the RDP to meet the needs of the people, which is itself based on recognition of the imperative that the democratic state has a responsibility to intervene to improve the quality of life of the millions deliberately impoverished and marginalized by the previous social order that considered these millions "surplus people".

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

Government is about the collective, democratic management of people's lives, and extends beyond government itself: Good governance requires the involvement of the entire civil society, including labor and business, in the decision-making process and development of society.

The South African democratic government is taking steps to promote participatory democracy and the culture of liberation in all institutions of governance, and even further that these steps should accommodate the need for an effective involvement and participation of both illiterate people as well as those with literacy, the rural poor, the working people and the disabled.

Mechanisms and strategies for determining a clear role for appropriate organs of civil society in promoting participatory democracy must also be implemented.

Resources are available for the expansion and consolidation of democracy in our country.

South African democracy is entrenched in its democratic constitution.