1. HON. Members, traditional and indigenous knowledge are precious resources that should be preserved as a culture’s identity or for popular tourism; however it should be used to meet present day challenges too. The remembrance of traditional knowledge has helped societies or cultures to survive for centuries under the harshest circumstances, such as, regime changes.
2. To sum up HON. Shabalala’s motion, I quote Lord Macaulay in his address to the British Parliament on 2 February, 1835, “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”
   This was the repeated action of the colonial mind-set and masters in every colonised country and SA was not spared. First vanquish the true identity of people by removing indigenous culture and traditions.
3. HON. Speaker, the Minority Front, recommends ethnographic studies to help people record their way of life, as part of their heritage, to gain recognition of their cultural needs and rights, to provide an understanding of institutional changes required.
4. We need ethnographic studies to be given to university students HON. Members, so that beliefs, values, rituals, customs and behaviours will reveal age-old wisdom for socio-economic, religious, political and environmental development.
5. The MF supports this ANC motion with this recommendation because we need to trademark and patent what belongs to us, so that, the colonisers stop repackaging our culture and selling it back to us.
6. Thank you.

Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi

Minority Front Leader (KZN Legislature)