A letter to Matt. GP

I say this because it is true. I say this because you need to hear it. I say this because I need to let it out. I say this to you. I say from the heart.

Ever since I can remember you were by my side. Very few memories did I enjoy without you knowing about it. At my strongest you celebrated with me, and at my weakest you're still by my side. Blood surely is thicker than water but I'm not worthy to call you my brother.

Ever since I can remember you were by my side. Very few memories did I enjoy without you knowing about it. I had dreams. You knew about them. I still have dreams and you know about them. I've made choices, some bad some good but its only the bad ones that we choose to acknowledge.

Few years ago I made a choice, a big decision. I made it because I believed in it. I believed that I had to make it. So I did, I made that choice. I ignore all voices of reason, for at that time, my inner voice was the only voice of reason. I took no advice from anyone else, including you for I knew better at that time, or so I thought. Your support has never change, it has never came short or came doubtfully. For that bro, I thank you.

I from when we were young, I've promise you the world. For that's what I believed we deserve. I still believe that but have very little to show for it. We were not suppose to be at this place in life. I could not lift you up as promised. I could not lift myself up as hoped. I have failed on my promises. I have failed you, but I'm not yet done fighting. Don't bet against me yet, this horse still has a kick or two in it. Hang on bro, this is not the end. This is not my end. This is not our end.

You often described me as strong but quick to anger. I speak of me as I never hurt emotionally. You even go as far as to say you wish you were as strong as me. That's all not true bro, I wish I was as strong as you. Is not that I don't get disappointed, heartbroken or few weak or down. Not, its just that anger is a much easier emotion to display. I envy you man. After all you have been through, you still standing. Smiling and you forgave those who brought you pain. I'm not that strong. You are more of a man than I'll ever be. I thank God I have you in my life.

With this quote I close, "My head is bloody, but unbowed." - Invictus by William Ernest Henley

I AM AN AFRICAN

On 8 May 1996, then deputy president Thabo Mbeki made a speech to the people of Africa and the world. The speech tells of President Mbeki’s belief in the capacity of all people from Africa.

“Friends, on an occasion such as this, we should, perhaps, start from the beginning. So, let me begin.

I am an African!

I owe by being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land. My body has frozen in our frosts and in our latter day snows. It has thawed in the warmth of our sunshine and melted in the heat of the midday sun. The crack and the rumble of the summer thunders, lashed by startling lightening, have been a cause both of trembling and of hope… The dramatic shapes of the [landscape] have… been panels of the set on the natural stage on which we act out the foolish deeds of the theatre of our day.

At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal citizenship of our country to the leopard and the lion, the elephant and the springbok, the hyena, the black mamba and the pestilential mosquito. A human presence among all these, a feature on the face of our native land thus defined, I know that none dare challenge me when I say – I am an African! …

Today, as a country, we keep an audible silence about these ancestors of the generations that live, fearful to admit the horror of a former deed, seeking to obliterate from our memories a cruel occurrence which, in its remembering, should teach us not and never to be inhuman again. I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me. In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture a part of my essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies from the lash of the slave master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should not be done… My mind and my knowledge of myself is formed by the victories that are the jewels in our African crown, the victories we earned from Isandhlwana to Khartoum, as Ethiopians and as the Ashanti of Ghana, as the Berbers of the desert….

I have seen our country torn asunder as … my people, engaged one another in a titanic battle, the one redress a wrong that had been caused by one to another and the other, to defend the indefensible. I have seen what happens when one person has superiority of force over another, when the stronger appropriate to themselves the prerogative even to annul the injunction that God created all men and women in His image.

I know what it signifies when race and colour are used to determine who is human and who, sub-human. I have seen the destruction of all sense of self-esteem, the consequent striving to be what one is not, simply to acquire some of the benefits which those who had improved themselves as masters had ensured that they enjoy. I have experience of the situation in which race and colour is used to enrich some and impoverish the rest.

I have seen the corruption of minds and souls [in] the pursuit of an ignoble effort to perpetrate a veritable crime against humanity. I have seen concrete expression of the denial of the dignity of a human being emanating from the conscious, systemic and systematic oppressive and repressive activities of other human beings. There the victims parade with no mask to hide the brutish reality – the beggars, the prostitutes, the street children, those who seek solace in substance abuse, those who have to steal to assuage hunger, those who have to lose their sanity because to be sane is to invite pain. Perhaps the worst among these, who are my people, are those who have learnt to kill for a wage. To these the extent of death is directly proportional to their personal welfare…

All this I know and know to be true because I am an African!

Because of that, I am also able to state this fundamental truth that I am born of a people who are heroes and heroines. I am born of a people who would not tolerate oppression. I am of a nation that would not allow that fear of death, torture, imprisonment, exile or persecution should result in the perpetuation of injustice. The great masses who are our mother and father will not permit that the behaviour of the few results in the description of our country and people as barbaric. Patient because history is on their side, these masses do not despair because today the weather is bad. Nor do they turn triumphalist when, tomorrow, the sun shines.

Whatever the circumstances they have lived through and because of that experience, they are determined to define for themselves who they are and who they should be… As an African, this is an achievement of which I am proud, proud without reservation and proud without any feeling of conceit…
But it seems to have happened that we looked at ourselves and said the time had come that we make a super-human effort to be other than human, to respond to the call to create for ourselves a glorious future, to remind ourselves of the Latin saying: Gloria est consequenda – Glory must be sought after!
Today it feels good to be an African…

I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa. The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear. The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share. The blight on our happiness that derives from this and from our drift to the periphery of the ordering of human affairs leaves us in a persistent shadow of despair. This is a savage road to which nobody should be condemned. This thing that we have done today, in this small corner of a great continent that has contributed so decisively to the evolution of humanity says that Africa reaffirms that she is continuing her rise from the ashes…
Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace!

However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper!

Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say – nothing can stop us now! “

Posted in South African/International Politics Tagged: great african speeches, great speeches, greatest african speech, I am an african, nelson mandela, south africa, south african president, thabo mbeki, unity