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Former pro-apartheid leader hails Gandhi?s contribution
South African leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk has stressed the need for 'satyagraha' to remove global racism.
This year's annual Gandhi Memorial Lecture in South Africa was ironically delivered by former pro-apartheid leader, South African minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk, who stressed the need for 'satyagraha' to remove global racism and poverty.
The talk was hosted by the Phoenix Settlement Trust, located in Mahatma Gandhi's 19th century home north of Durban.
Ironically, Van Schalkwyk, now minister of environmental affairs and tourism, was the last leader of the National Party before its demise a few years ago, 40 years after it ruled the country with oppressive apartheid laws forcing the resettlement of non-white communities.
The National Party had also in the 1940's advocated the repatriation of all South African Indians to their "motherland" of India, seeing them as a threat to the economy of the minority white Afrikaner community.
Given his background, Van Schalkwyk, who sounded the death knell for the National Party when he threw in his lot with the ruling African National Congress, sounded strange as he spoke passionately about the relevance of Gandhi's three-pronged philosophies of ahimsa, sarvodaya and satyagraha in South Africa and the world today.
Significantly, his mere presence highlighted the spirit of reconciliation in South Africa today.
"To be asked to deliver this annual memorial lecture is to be placed in a position of no small responsibility," Van Schalkwyk said.
"It was here that the first call was made for the release of Nelson Mandela. It was here that Steve Biko, Rick Turner, Barney Pityana and so many others shaped the course of South African destiny. Few other sites in Africa have been so often visited by heads of state, ministers, religious leaders and eminent scholars, yet it remains among the most accessible and welcoming locations on our continent."
The Minister said last year's celebrations of South Africa's first decade of freedom must stand as the "first and most concrete tribute to the life and message of the Great Soul."
He added, "When (celebrated writer) Andre Brink delivered this lecture in 1970, the year after it was inaugurated, he argued that love was the centre of Gandhi's teaching of Ahimsa - not simple non-violence or passive resistance, but a positive force that says there is no room for an enemy, and that love requires you to resist those who do wrong, without thought to the costs of such resistance."
"Perhaps the single greatest achievement of our new democracy is the growing national consensus that has been forged across the political spectrum; of pride in our shared South African identity, through the creation of a truly non-racial society," he said.
As Van Schalkwyk put it, "I would hazard a guess that even the Mahatma would have been pleasantly surprised to see former political enemies joining forces in South Africa to work towards a better, common future."
With remarkable candour, the minister admitted that economic imbalances in South Africa had not been addressed yet: particularly the issue of poverty, which Gandhi had called the worst form of violence.
"The most lasting tribute that I believe South Africa can make to the Gandhi legacy is to therefore move this debate about the two economies, and by implication first- and second-class citizenship, into the arena of global economic debate," he said.
Recognising the need for Satyagraha in today's times, he stressed, "There is a need for a new paradigm, and new non-violent direct action - Satyagraha at a new level - to ensure that no people, nation, region, or continent are permanently consigned to the second- or third-class cabins of the world economy."
Emphasising the need to continue with Gandhi's legacy, the minister said, "It is our responsibility, in paying tribute to the life of Mahatma Gandhi, to ensure that here in South Africa we live the truth of his words to: "Be the change you want to see in the world."
