Promoting reconciliation: The Inclusive City Campaign 

Note to editors: This is an extract from the speech delivered by Executive Mayor Patricia de Lille on Human Rights Day 2015 at the launch of the Mayor's Inclusive City

21 MARCH 2015

Aldermen,

Councillors,

Honoured guests,

Members of the press,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning, goeiedag, molweni, as-salaam alaikum, shalom.

This is an important day in our calendar.

It is the commemoration of those brave men and women who defied the apartheid system by refusing to abide by the pass system.

Taking a stand by destroying the dompas, they were gunned down at Sharpeville by an oppressive regime that had no tolerance for human rights.

It marks the celebration of accepting a culture of human rights in our country, an acceptance that charts its way from Sharpeville to the adoption of the final Constitution by a democratic Parliament in 1996.

It also charts the tremendous work that we still have to do to make respect for human rights a reality for everyone.

That is because it is one thing to formally adopt a respect for human rights. It is another thing entirely to live that respect.

I think that this tension, between our aspirations and our lived experience, is a central theme of modern life in the New South Africa.

And a great deal of that has to do with our past.

We come from a place of bitter division and oppression, where the idea of human rights was foreign to most people, let alone the State.

But we must also not forget that the idea of humans having inherent rights is a modern one.

It has only been a few decades since the world realised that a person has rights by virtue of their personhood.

In South Africa, our acceptance of rights is even more recent.

We had to wait until the final Constitution was passed in 1996 to accept that human rights were the ultimate source of law in South Africa.

And again, while we may formally have consensus around this point for the most part, the formal acceptance does not always translate into a lived reality globally.

The space between these disparities, between the real and the imagined, is the space in which we fail to live a culture respecting human rights.

It is in that space where acts of racism, homophobia, sexism, and other discriminations occur.

People who have formal rights fail to see the rights of others and do not understand their role in activating a culture of respect in society.

An infringement of someone's innate right because of prejudice is a violation of their human rights.

The perpetrator of the violation does not see the individual or their rights: they see a racial or gender stereotype; a stereotype that is innately inferior and can be treated in a malicious way.

The scale of this lack of respect for rights seems immense, spanning as it does our nation and the globe.

In the face of such a challenge, we may well ask what we can do as individuals to address it.

For me, the key is in united action under firm leadership.

The key is in people coming together after the call of their leaders to create a positive change.

It is that thought that has motivated the reason we are here today.

We face many challenges to a culture of rights, and as a City government we try and face them head-on to say that we will not tolerate racists, sexists, or homophobes.

But it is the issue of racism that has proved to be a particular barrier to accepting an inclusive, rights-based culture for everyone.

Given that South African history has been structured along racial separation for centuries, it is to be expected that that history lives with us today.

History does not disappear into some forgotten place to be recalled at will.

It lives and breathes in the here and now.

It shows itself in how we relate to each other, understand each other, and interpret the world.

It makes itself known in our life circumstances.

It is our shared and separate memories coming together to create shared and separate knowledge.

Over centuries, the shared experience of history set races against each other.

And over decades, the apartheid system institutionalised this racial tension.

That shared history is what we all carry with us in some way. And depending on where we come from, combined with other contributing social and individual factors, has determined our separate memories and historical experiences.

The legacy of apartheid on all of us cannot be eradicated in two decades.

From Durban to Johannesburg, from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, from Kimberley to Pretoria, and everywhere in between, our historical experience of race lives with us all in South Africa.

That is why incidents of racism occur throughout the country.

We are not alone in confronting racism in South Africa.

Other countries around the world are grappling with the legacy of institutional racism.

The United States of America has had to confront the racial currents in its history, with recent race-based riots and protests.

The United Kingdom is trying to understand how to manage tensions within a multi-cultural society.

And an element of race-based mobilisation among the far right appears to be gaining traction in some quarters of Europe.

On our own continent, racial tensions have shown themselves, be it in Uganda where people of Indian descent are expelled or other areas where there is an adverse reaction to people who are perceived to be foreign or different.

These racial currents, and the tensions and incidents of racism that they sometimes inspire in some people, are global and national phenomena.

As such, we should not be surprised that they sometimes occur in Cape Town. As a diverse, multi-cultural city, why would we be excluded from global and national experiences?

Whatever the cause, it is our duty as a City government to tackle racism head-on.

But doing so is difficult.

It is exceptionally difficult to talk about race in South Africa.

Sometimes, people do not want to talk about these issues for fear of being misunderstood or condemned by those who might disagree with you.

Some also do not wish to address racism because it is so difficult- they avoid talking about issues that are so serious.

As hard as it is, it is the responsibility of leaders to demonstrate courage and initiate these difficult conversations.

It is the responsibility of leaders to reach out to the vast majority of people who are not racist and make their voices heard.

We have to ensure that we lead the people of our city to reject racism, to make everyone feel included in this city, and to activate a positive culture of rights in our society.

That is why I have initiated this race dialogue under the banner of the Inclusive City campaign.

We have to try and address racism where it occurs and act to stop it in the future as much as we can.

Campaigns such as these sometimes have a tendency to try and fix everything.

Becoming too broad in scope, they set themselves impossible mandates that cannot realistically be met.

And it is not the responsibility of government alone to address these issues.

Civil society, business and academia should also lead their own campaigns to fight racism and promote reconciliation.

For our part, as a government, we have decided to focus our campaign.

One cannot easily direct yourself to underlying racial currents or historical experiences.

That is the role of policy interventions to address the material conditions of many people who have been caught in structural poverty because of this history.

From the City of Cape Town's perspective, those policy interventions include the broadest cross-subsidisation of the poor in the country, providing free and subsidised services to those who need them, and implementing the most expansive Expanded Public Works Programme of any metro to create job opportunities.

Among our tools for social change with constrained resources, those interventions remain our best.

They are the mechanisms with which we promote redress for past injustices and reconciliation.

And so, if the campaign cannot address structural issues, it must focus its attention elsewhere.

It must try and initiate a constructive dialogue that encourages a sense of engagement and a sense of respect.

For us, the most effective use of our efforts is to try and address and prevent incidents of racism where they occur.

That means trying to prevent incidents where people cannot get a restaurant booking because of their race.

Or where the colour of their skin suddenly becomes an issue in a property deal.

Or where they may be followed around a shop because of the way they look.

Or where they might be exposed to abuse on campus because of their race.

Where these racist incidents occur, they occur because of the actions of individuals.

The City leadership therefore wants to lead a campaign with industry bodies to address those individuals within the property, hospitality, university, media, and retail sectors who cannot get past their prejudice.

We want those engagements to be accompanied by an interaction with all residents who want to take a stand against racism.

Accompanying these industry and public engagements will be a sharing of information about individual rights, how to activate those rights for yourself, and how to activate the rights of others- all with the objective of creating respect and responsibility among all of our residents.

We want people to know that: they cannot be discriminated against; that their dignity must be protected and respected; and that they can associate with whomever they want to.

This will culminate in a panel discussion of the campaign's key findings that will inform a commitment to fight racism and encourage a rights-based culture.

These lessons and values will be carried forward in how the City communicates and conducts itself as well as becoming a legacy for all councillors and all participants to take forward into the future.

In conclusion, while the idea of human rights is a modern one- and extremely new in South Africa, it need not remain in the realm of ideas alone.

In order to give it meaning and substance in society, we must do all that we can to reject that which goes against those human rights and instead encourage a culture that gives life to those rights.

This is a global and South African problem.

And it is a problem we as a country have been grappling with for some time.

It is my hope that with this campaign, Cape Town can take further steps towards addressing our past and encouraging reconciliation.

Indeed, it is my hope that we can lead residents to truly build a future that knows and understands our past but does not have to be trapped by it.

It is for a future where the individual feels empowered to be able to appreciate their past without being determined by it.

And it is for a future where the hopes and dreams we formally recognised under former president Nelson Mandela, Tata Madiba, for a united and reconciled country, can come to pass.

I hope that other metro and local governments do the same.

Thank you, baie dankie, enkosi.

Issued by the City of Cape Town, March 21 2015

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