the funny thing about reconciliation is that it is a big word with many
practical means. With the focus on racial peeace all of the focus is taken
out what i can do to what i need to know.hey peoples are peoples and the
everyone has some sort of significant ties with their surroundings and if
carbon testing is the most satisfying way of determining wether regional
development and equal economic santuary are the real means of pursuing the
meaning of life then let be so, but many area such as medicine, regional
health, environment, fauna and flora perservation are and can easily be
capitalised on to aid this reconciliation so let people fight people
>From: Trudy & Rod Bray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: RecOzNet2 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [recoznet2] Numbers are fewer, but the value of racial peace is
>just as high
>Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 13:20:19 +1000
>
>The Sydney Morning Herald
>Numbers are fewer, but the value of racial peace is just as high
>
>Date: 14/07/2000
>
>Since arriving in Australia last week I have frequently been asked my
>thoughts about local indigenous issues and the process of
>reconciliation. Unfortunately I do not have a comprehensive knowledge of
>the local situation but I do have first-hand experience of the
>nightmare that is the result of racial division, and I believe that
>South Africa may yet prove to be a model of reconciliation for others to
>follow.
>
>Nelson Mandela was the catalyst for reconciliation in South Africa.
>Without him I believe reconciliation there would have been a long
>time coming - if it could have been achieved at all.
>
>Mandela was a leader.
>
>Leadership means the capacity to lead people into new ground beyond
>consensus. If you relied on general American attitudes you would
>have waited a long time to emancipate the slaves. But Lincoln came
>along, like Gandhi and Mandela.
>
>Too many leaders in Western democracies wait for consensus.
>
>South Africa amazed the whole world by devising and establishing its own
>homegrown peace process, and it continues to confound some
>of the prophets of doom who thought the crises and problems generated by
>the apartheid era were insoluble and insuperable.
>
>Consider the immensity of such problems: a health system and education
>system designed to cater to just one-ninth of the population, the
>privileged whites, was now expected by many to expand ninefold in simple
>fairness to all the population. A fiscal impossibility.
>
>And among the main legacies of the past are today's frightening
>statistics in unemployment, violent crime, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and
>the huge under-availability of water and electricity.
>
>Yet the new democratic government simply rolled up its sleeves to tackle
>what it could, and some impressive advances are already being
>recorded on several fronts. Personally it is a treat to be able to
>practise journalism in and about the new South Africa, after all those
>years when the apartheid government had made it illegal for me to write
>anything, or be quoted in any publication.
>
>I see the irony of the fact that I spent 12 years urging international
>economic sanctions against South Africa, and that I am now urging
>massive international "reinvestment" in South Africa.
>
>But since those heady days of 1990 there has been a total contrast in
>the restrictions and repressions of the past. It has been a privilege to
>experience and celebrate South Africa's liberation from the apartheid
>era, and it is proving even more exciting now to witness and to help
>promote South Africa's development on all major fronts.
>
>In urging reinvestment in South Africa today, and large-scale assistance
>with development, training and education, many of us believe we
>are not only benefiting the new democratic South Africa, but offering
>new and exciting opportunities to people abroad to be part of our
>current surge to development.
>
>The Fred Hollows Foundation is playing a critical part in this process
>through its efforts to provide a high-impact blindness prevention
>program in my home region of the Eastern Cape. As with all of their
>programs, it is based on the philosophy of providing the training and
>skills for people to help themselves - and the unshakable belief that
>people everywhere deserve access to the same level of health care
>that many of us take for granted.
>
>I do not think that South Africa would have a moral claim on its friends
>in Australia or elsewhere for any kind of assistance if it weren't
>for the fact that most of the people of South Africa are really trying
>hard to help themselves, not least the blacks who are making full use
>of their freedom.
>
>The figures speak for themselves. By 1996 already 22 per cent of the
>richest South Africans were black, and by last month this year was
>estimated at 25 per cent. So rather than social reform leading to
>economic instability, the new South Africa is starting to make real
>progress.
>
>However, reconciliation is not just about numbers and it is certainly
>not about wealth. Rather it has everything to do with equality and
>opportunity.
>
>So in the case of Australia, I would say that the fact that indigenous
>Australians represent only 2 per cent of the population does not
>mean that the need for reconciliation is any less important here than in
>South Africa where the blacks make up 85 per cent of the
>population.
>
>Donald Woods was the editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper in Eastern
>Cape for 12 years until his arrest in October 1977 for
>writing editorials accusing the apartheid government of responsibility
>for the torture and death of the black leader Steve Biko.
>Now based in London, he is in Australia as a guest of The Fred Hollows
>Foundation.
>
>This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying
>or mirroring is prohibited.
>
>--
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