BuaNews (Tshwane)
Vivian Warby
27 April 2008
Cape Town — Although South Africa today has its difficulties, it was better than it was yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today, says Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool.
Premier Rasool was welcoming President Thabo Mbeki, Dr Pallo Jordan, Deputy Western Cape Mayor Grant Haskin and all the Cape Town community members, on Sunday at the Freedom Day celebrations at the Turfhall Stadium in Landsdowne.
He said Cape Town was happy to host the official celebrations because "we are a product of the freedom of 1994". He said while freedom was celebrated there were still problems. "There are problems where we live. "Not far from here [the stadium] there are children on tik and there are other drug problems, we also know criminals rape, rob and kill us. We know there are families with no houses. "These are some of the problems. But what we also know is that we have a government that wants to walk hand-in-hand with the communities to try hard to bring about changes."
He said the government is bringing more police to fight the crime and the communities are behind them. Because communities and police work together, he said there are big drug lords in prison. In Mitchell's Plain a few years ago there were 200 police. Today there are 600 taking on the drug lords. Regarding service delivery in the Western Cape, he said the province was performing fairly well and that gave people reason to hope "that the future will be better even if the present is not perfect".
Like President Mbeki, Mr Rasool also called on everyone to join hands to face the challenges facing the country. "Let's not throw away our freedom with coloured and black people fighting or white and black people accusing each other of all kinds of things. "The Western Cape is big and beautiful enough for all of us to live together. It is big enough to be a home for all ..." The Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Pallo Jordan, also addressed the crowds, saying that 14 years ago today unprecedented mass action took place where literally millions of South Africans stood as equal citizens to vote for a government of their choice.
"The people asserted their will on that day in 1994 that this country belongs to all the people that live in it and that no government can claim authority unless it is the will of the people.
"Today is an important day in the calendar of the country. It marks the unprecedented mass action where we moved from apartheid colonialism to freedom."
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