Speech by the City’s Executive Mayor, Alderman
Patricia de Lille, at the naming of the Walk of
Remembrance on 16 December 2013
Minister Ivan Meyer,
Assembled dignitaries,
Honoured guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good afternoon, goeiedag, molweni, as-salaam alaikum, shalom,
On Reconciliation Day, I can think of nothing more fitting than renaming
the Fan Walk, the Walk of Remembrance.
This new designation will commemorate all of those who died for the
cause of freedom and all those who sacrificed a portion of their lives in
the struggle for justice.
This commemoration is only fitting now after saying goodbye to Tata
Madiba, who left us over a week ago.
His spirit, and the spirit of all those men and women who joined him in
the cause to make the New South Africa, will be kept alive by the Walk.
For the City of Cape Town the spirit of reconciliation is one that animates
and drives our levels of service delivery every day.
While there are many partners who must work towards social change,
governments have a particular role to play.
It is through their efforts that public resources and efforts can be directed
to achieve positive changes in our society by helping those in need,
addressing past imbalances, and creating a stable, inclusive space.
The private sector and civil society have their missions.
Variously, they serve to foster individual opportunity, fuel aspiration,
provide safeguards against state power and create a network of resilient
independence, amongst other things.
Combined, they work towards creating an organic society that is
determined by individual freedom, not collective design.
Whether we expend resources through capital expenditure or operational
expenditure, whether we install facilities to last or whether we provide
services to help, whether we deliver on an immediate mandate or invest
in a long-term legacy of goodwill, we work to bring the people of Cape
Town together.
In working to provide a greater distribution of resources to address the
mistakes of the past, we strive to build a better Cape Town and achieve
the reconciliation that Madiba has tried to teach us.
But perhaps his greatest lesson is the wisdom of fortitude, the recognition
that the road to our ambition is long and difficult.
It requires one step after another.
While the journey towards reconciliation happens every day in Cape
Town, let us be reminded of it by the Walk of Remembrance.
Every time we take to this path, let us remember those who sacrificed so
much so that we could all be free.
And let the spirit of reconciliation, of being a united people, live and grow.
Thank you, baie dankie, enkosi.