Reconciliation requires sacrifice, should ‘not be one-day event’

A Stellenbosch University academic yesterday echoed a Reconciliation Day message from President Cyril Ramaphosa, emphasising that for true reconciliation to work, it required sacrifice and acknowledgement of past injustices.

According to associate professor Daniel Malan, of the university’s business school’s department of ethics and corporate governance, reconciliation should “not be a one-day event” because South Africa continued to face huge and systematic challenges “going beyond celebrating a braai or the Springbok World Cup win”.

“Although it is a significant day for us to celebrate, it should be said that we have made very limited progress in instilling true reconciliation among South Africans over the past two decades. Given our history, we still live in a divided society. We have a tendency of going to so-called safe spaces, which signify divided suburbs and communities.

“While we cannot forget the past, we still have ultra right-wing people among us who celebrate battles against black people, like the Day of the Vow,” said Malan.

During the apartheid era, December 16 was known as the Day of the Vow. On this day in 1838, the Voortrekkers prepared for their battle against the Zulus, which was known as the Battle of Blood River, vowing before God that they would build a church, should they emerge victorious.

Malan’s comment resonated with the message delivered by Ramaphosa before thousands in the Bergville Municipal Sports Complex of KwaZulu-Natal’s Okhahlamba local municipality.

In what has been seen as one of the most significant gestures made by Ramaphosa and Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola over the weekend, they announced a special remission of sentence for specific categories of sentenced offenders, probationers and parolees to mark Reconciliation Day.

During his keynote address, Ramaphosa also touched on the importance of land restitution, saying there could be “no reconciliation without the land question being addressed”.

He said: “We cannot have true reconciliation without addressing the issue of land.

“Bergville is a stark example of the necessity of transforming patterns of land ownership for the benefit of our people.

“This town is the centre of a dairy and cattle ranching area and plays an important role in the economy of the province and the country. But skewed patterns of racial ownership have played out here for centuries, where communities and subsistence farmers were removed from their ancestral land to make way for white-owned commercial farms.

“The story of land dispossession in this province is indeed a painful one, and mirrors the lived experiences of millions of our people across this country.”

He said it was government’s priority to accelerate the land reform process, and it would be guided by the recommendations of the presidential advisory panel on land reform.

“We call on private landowners, commercial farmers and the private sector to take proactive steps to accelerate the land reform process by supporting farmworkers and communities to acquire and farm land.

“Reconciliation requires that we end inequality in all its forms, not only in access to land, but in access to water, education and skills, to employment, to housing, to healthcare and to basic services.”

– brians@citizen.co.za

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