|
All our coins have been
graded by the NGC.
The most trusted and renowned grading company in the
world.
Inaugural address speech by Nelson Mandela May 10th 1994
Your Majesties, Your Highnesses, Distinguished
Guests, Comrades and friends:
Today, all of us do, by our presence here, and by our
celebrations in other parts of our country and the
world, confer glory and hope to newborn liberty.
Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster
that lasted too long, must be born a society of which
all humanity will be proud.
Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce
an actual South African reality that will reinforce
humanity's belief in justice, strengthen its confidence
in the nobility of the human soul and sustain all our
hopes for a glorious life for all.
All this we owe both to ourselves and to the peoples of
the world who are so well represented here today.
To my compatriots, I have no hesitation in saying that
each one of us is as intimately attached to the soil of
this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees
of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld.
Each time one of us touches the soil of this land, we
feel a sense of personal renewal. The national mood
changes as the seasons change.
We are moved by a sense of joy and exhilaration when the
grass turns green and the flowers bloom.
Top
of page
That spiritual and physical oneness we all share with
this common homeland explains the depth of the pain we
all carried in our hearts as we saw our country tear
itself apart in a terrible conflict, and as we saw it
spurned, outlawed and isolated by the peoples of the
world, precisely because it has become the universal
base of the pernicious ideology and practice of racism
and racial oppression.
We, the people of South Africa, feel fulfilled that
humanity has taken us back into its bosom, that we, who
were outlaws not so long ago, have today been given the
rare privilege to be host to the nations of the world on
our own soil.
We thank all our distinguished international guests for
having come to take possession with the people of our
country of what is, after all, a common victory for
justice, for peace, for human dignity.
We trust that you will continue to stand by us as we
tackle the challenges of building peace, prosperity,
non-sexism, non-racialism and democracy.
Top
of page
We deeply appreciate the role that the masses of our
people and their political mass democratic, religious,
women, youth, business, traditional and other leaders
have played to bring about this conclusion. Not least
among them is my Second Deputy President, the Honorable
F.W. de Klerk.
We would also like to pay tribute to our security
forces, in all their ranks, for the distinguished role
they have played in securing our first democratic
elections and the transition to democracy, from
blood-thirsty forces which still refuse to see the
light.
The time for the healing of the wounds has come.
The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come.
The time to build is upon us.
We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation.
We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the
continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering,
gender and other discrimination.
We succeeded to take our last steps to freedom in
conditions of relative peace. We commit ourselves to the
construction of a complete, just and lasting peace.
We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the
breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a
covenant that we shall build the society in which all
South Africans, both black and white, will be able to
walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of
their inalienable right to human dignity--a rainbow
nation at peace with itself and the world.
Top
of page
As a token of its commitment to the renewal of our
country, the new Interim Government of National Unity
will, as a matter of urgency, address the issue of
amnesty for various categories of our people who are
currently serving terms of imprisonment.
We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in
this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in
many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could
be free.
Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their
reward.
We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and
privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have
bestowed on us, as the first President of a united,
democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa, to
lead our country out of the valley of darkness.
We understand it still that there is no easy road to
freedom.
We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve
success.
We must therefore act together as a united people, for
national reconciliation, for nation building, for the
birth of a new world.
Let there be justice for all.
Let there be peace for all.
Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the
soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.
Never, never and never again shall it be that this
beautiful land will again experience the oppression of
one by another and suffer the indignity of being the
skunk of the world.
Let freedom reign.
The sun shall never set on so glorious a human
achievement!
God bless Africa!!!!!!
Top
of page |