Reconciliation Day Message from the ACDP Office of the Deputy President

As we celebrate reconciliation day it is a time to look backwards as well as forwards.
In retrospect we can see how far we have come. In looking forward we see how much we still need to change.

True reconciliation goes beyond forgiveness; it requires dialog, understanding and walking in the others shoes. Many white people still do not understand the anguish, dehumanisation and abuse that was practised by the apartheid state. They do not understand the anger when they complain about affirmative action being the new apartheid. Unlike apartheid it does not separate families, it does not mean living in a ghetto, it does not mean desperately inferior education for your children, and it does not mean government sanctioned brutality. As the state tries to practise legalised reparation, can black people put aside their feelings about the past and understand how hurt white people feel when, despite their good will and their passion to help, they are constantly accused of racism. How hurt they feel when everything is about race. Can black people and white people understand the isolation of Indian and coloured people, who feel that first they were too black, and now they are too white. We all need to stop seeing skin differences as "the other ", "them ", "these people", "the blacks", "the whites ", "the indians ", "those coloureds ".

Looking back points the way forward. We don't have job reservation, separate benches and toilets, 3 administrations different laws for different races, sanctioned police brutality. What a change! What a miracle!

Let us go further together beyond legal changes to heart changes.

In Ephesians 2: 14-18 we read: “For he is our peace, the one who made both groups into one and who destroyed the middle wall of partition, the hostility, when he nullified in his flesh the law of commandments in decrees. He did this to create in himself one new man out of two, thus making peace, and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, so that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Jesus is our example we need to go beyond the flesh and see the soul beneath , for he is me

"It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make
it work -- work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on
our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it;
foster productivity, not stifle it." --Ronald Reagan