1. HON. Members, every 18^th of July we celebrate the birth of an extraordinary human being, a man who dedicated 67 years of his life to the service of humanity – as a human rights lawyer, prisoner of stout conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa. Madiba remains one of our greatest heroes, revered internationally and acknowledged by the UN General Assembly for his contribution to the culture of peace and freedom.
2. As Madiba spent 67 years of his life fighting injustices and advancing the rights of humanity, the message behind the celebration of this Day is simple; that we sacrifice 67 minutes of our time on this day by either supporting a chosen charity or doing local community service. The absence of set rules to celebrate the day is all more reason to get together or individually to make your contribution to impact on someone else’s life positively, as this icon has done on ours.
3. The Minority Front celebrated this day by taking ‘Action against Poverty’, a theme of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Our party members hosted the Msunduzi community at PAFTA Hall to a discourse on Madiba’s legacy and the role each of us has to play to build South Africa, and ended by serving lunch to all.
4. The evening was spent with some of our HON. Members at a book launch in Ethekwini by Mala Lutchmanan, who painstakingly translated Madiba’s life story from ‘prisoner to president’ in the Tamil language and I stated that, one of Madiba’s favourite language quotes was “If you speak to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head; if you speak to a man in his language it goes to his heart”. The Madiba magic, as we know it, was all about the language of the heart.
5. We have all interacted with Madiba at some stage of our history, therefore we must ensure that his legacy keeps us inspired to reconcile our people, so that, together we develop a capable state and live up to the preamble of our Constitution, ‘united in our diversity’ words Madiba lived for.
6. Thank you.

Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi

Minority Front Leader (KZN Legislature)