Nelson Mandela
1994 Inaugural Speech
Nelson Mandela was trained as a lawyer, and joined the African National
Congress in 1944 to aid in its struggle against apartheid. During over 25 years
in prison he became the world's most famous political prisoner. After a long
campaign of resistance within South Africa and political and economic pressure
from without, President F. W. de Klerk ended the government ban on the ANC and
freed Mandela in 1990, whereupon he assumed leadership of the organization. He
worked tirelessly over the next few years to negotiate an end to apartheid and
minority rule, gaining widespread respect and support in the process. National
elections were held in April 1994, and on May 10th of that year Nelson Mandela
was inaugurated as the first Black president of South Africa.
"
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.
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.
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.
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 honor 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!
Thank you."
Nelson Mandela
May 10, 1994
The following quote is often attributed to Nelson Mandela and his 1994
inaugural speech, but it is, in fact, an excerpt from Marianne Williamson's book
A Return to Love: Reflections On The Principles of A Course In Miracles,
page 165:
Our
deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented and famous?"
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us.
It's in everyone, and as we let our own light shine,
we consciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
