This is an edited extract from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s address at the University of the Western Cape this week.
“I first came to South Africa in 1994 for the inauguration of Nelson Mandela, someone who is of course a great leader and a hero to many, including myself. I sat at the inauguration and watched as jets from the South African Defence Force streaked across the sky, their contrails tinted with all the colours of the new national flag. For decades, those jets had been a powerful symbol of the system of apartheid. But on that day, they dipped their wings in salute to their new commander in chief.
For those of us who witnessed the ceremony, it was a searing moment. Being present at the birth of this new democracy was an experience that not only I, but the world, will never forget. We are now 18 years removed from that iconic moment.
Today, your country is different from the one I visited in 1994, and so too are the challenges you must confront and the opportunities that are there for the seizing.
And if SA is to achieve the full measure of your own ambition, you, too, must face and solve your own challenges in health and education, economic inequality, unemployment, race relations, gender-based violence, the issues that you live with and must address.
These are areas that we, too, face, and we stand ready to work with you, but only the people of SA can make the decisions about how you will solve these problems and overcome these challenges.
Only South Africans can fight corruption. Only South Africans can prevent the use of state security institutions for political gain. Only South Africans can defend your democratic institutions, preventing the erosion of a free press and demanding strong opposition parties and an independent judiciary.
Only South Africans can truly preserve and extend the legacy of the Mandela generation.
And these are tasks not just for governments. These are tasks for every citizen – political leaders, teachers, civil servants, entrepreneurs, community activists.
And there is a special responsibility for the young people of SA to define the very nature of your citizenship and your country’s approach to your fellow citizens and the world; decide whether SA moves forward and not backward, and seeks to erase old dividing lines in global politics.
You will decide whether SA seeks to set aside old suspicions and instincts and embrace new partnerships tailored to 21st century challenges.
Nearly 50 years ago, Robert F Kennedy – a United States senator, attorney general, and champion of civil rights – came to Cape Town and gave a heartfelt speech about SA’s place in the world.
He painted a vivid picture of the future he envisioned, one where every nation respects universal human rights, promotes social justice, accelerates economic progress, liberates all people to pursue their talents.
SA, he said, could play an “outstanding role” in creating that world. And he called in particular on the young people of that time, saying, “This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity.”
One of my personal heroines, and a former predecessor as first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt once said that human rights really started in the small places close to home.
It’s easy to talk about the big, sweeping issues, to pledge ourselves to the abstractions of human rights.
It’s harder – much harder – to reach deep inside of our hearts and minds to truly see the other, whether that other is of a different race, ethnicity, religion, tribe, national origin, and recognise the common humanity.
I have been in and around politics for a long time.
It’s easy to lose sight of the common humanity of those who oppose you. You get to feeling that your way is the right way, that your agenda is the only one that will save the people. And all of the sudden, you begin to dehumanise the opposition and the other.
The greatest lesson I learned about this came from Nelson Mandela. I, along with other dignitaries from all over the world were invited to a great lunch under a huge tent at the president’s house.
There were kings and prime ministers and presidents, and just a glittering assembly.
When President Mandela stood to welcome us to that lunch he said, “I know you are all very important people, and I invite you all to our new country. I thank you for coming. But the three most important people to me, here in this vast assembly, are three men who were my jailers on Robben Island.”
I sat up so straight. I turned to the person next to me to say, “What did he say?”
Then Mandela asked those three middle-aged white men to stand up. He called them by name. He said, “In the midst of the terrible conditions in which I was held for so many years, each of those men saw me as a human being. They treated me with dignity and respect. They talked to me; they listened.
“And when I walked out of prison, I knew I had a choice to make. I could carry the bitterness and the hatred of what had been done to me in my heart forever, and I would still be in prison.
“Or I could begin to reconcile the feelings inside myself with my fellow human beings.”
That is the true legacy of President Mandela, calling all of us to complete the work he started, to overcome the obstacles, the injustices, the mistreatments that everyone – every one of us – will encounter at some point in our lives. That is truly what SA is called to do, to continue the struggle, but the struggle for human dignity, the struggle for respect, the struggle to lift people up and give children a chance – every boy and girl – to fulfil his or her God-given potential in this beautiful land that has been so blessed. It’s a burden being an American or a South African, because people expect you to really live up to those standards.
People hold us to a higher set of standards, don’t they?
And we owe it to all who came before, all who sacrificed and suffered, to do our very best to keep working every single day to meet those standards. But we mostly owe it to our future.
Many things have changed since Robert Kennedy came to Cape Town and Nelson Mandela left Robben Island.
But some have not.
The world we want to build together still demands the qualities of youth and a predominance of courage over timidity. So in that spirit, let us work together so that the values that shaped both our nations may also shape a world that is more peaceful, more prosperous, and more just.
Cape Argus