[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 13 (Monday, March 30, 1998)]
[Pages 509-512]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Address to the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town

March 26, 1998

    Thank you very much, Premier Molefe, for that fine introduction. Mr. 
President, Deputy President Mbeki, Madam Speaker, Mr. Chairman of the 
National Council of Provinces, Members of Parliament, ladies and 
gentlemen, I am deeply honored to be the first American President every 
to visit South Africa and even more honored to stand before this 
Parliament to address a South Africa truly free and democratic at last.
    Joining my wife and me on this tour of Africa, and especially here, 
are many Members of our Congress and distinguished members of my Cabinet 
and administration, men and women who supported the struggle for a free 
South Africa, leaders of the American business community, now awakening 
to the promise and potential of South Africa, people of all different 
background and beliefs.
    Among them, however, are members of the Congressional Black Caucus 
and African-American members of my government. It is especially 
important for them to be here because it was not so long ago in the long 
span of human history that their ancestors were uprooted from this 
continent and sold into slavery in the United States. But now they 
return to Africa as leaders of the United States. Today they sit 
alongside the leaders of the new South Africa, united in the powerful 
poetry of justice
    As I look out at all of you, I see our common promise. Two centuries 
ago the courage and imagination that created the United States and the 
principles that are enshrined in our Constitution inspired men and women 
without a voice across the world to believe

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that one day they too could have a government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people.
    Now, the courage and imagination that created the new South Africa 
and the principles that guide your Constitution inspire all of us to be 
animated by the belief that one day humanity all the world over can at 
last be released from the bonds of hatred and bigotry.
    It is tempting for Americans of all backgrounds, I think, perhaps to 
see too many similarities in the stories of our two countries, because 
sometimes similarities which appear to be profound are in fact 
superficial. And they can obscure the unique and complex struggle that 
South Africa has made to shed the chains of its past for a brighter 
tomorrow.
    Nonetheless, in important ways, our paths do converge by a vision of 
real multiracial democracy bound together by healing and hope, renewal 
and redemption. Therefore I came here to say simply this: Let us work 
with each other; let us learn from each other to turn the hope we now 
share into a history that all of us can be proud of.
    Mr. President, for millions upon millions of Americans, South 
Africa's story is embodied by your heroic sacrifice and your 
breathtaking walk ``out of the darkness and into the glorious light.'' 
But you are always the first to say that the real heroes of South 
Africa's transformation are its people, who first walked away from the 
past and now move with determination, patience, and courage toward a new 
day and a new millennium.
    We rejoice at what you have already accomplished. We seek to be your 
partners and your true friends in the work that lies ahead--overcoming 
the lingering legacy of apartheid, seizing the promise of your rich land 
and your gifted people.
    From our own 220-year experience with democracy we know that real 
progress requires, in the memorable phrase of Max Weber, ``the long and 
slow-boring of hard boards.'' We know that democracy is always a work 
still in the making, a march toward what our own Founders called a more 
perfect Union.
    You have every reason to be hopeful. South Africa was reborn, after 
all, just 4 years ago. In the short time since, you've worked hard to 
deepen your democracy, to spread prosperity, to educate all your people, 
and to strengthen the hand of justice. The promise before you is 
immense: a people unshackled, free to give full expression to their 
energy, intellect, and creativity; a nation embraced by the world, whose 
success is important to all our futures.
    America has a profound and pragmatic stake in your success; an 
economic stake because we, like you, need strong partners to build 
prosperity; a strategic stake because of 21st century threats to our 
common security, from terrorism, from international crime and drug 
trafficking, from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, from 
the spread of deadly disease and the degradation of our common 
environment. These perils do not stop at any nation's borders. And we 
have a moral stake, because in overcoming your past you offer a powerful 
example to people who are torn by their own divisions in all parts of 
this Earth. Simply put, America wants a strong South Africa; America 
needs a strong South Africa. And we are determined to work with you as 
you build a strong South Africa.
    In the first 4 years of your freedom, it has been our privilege to 
support your transition with aid and assistance. Now, as the new South 
Africa emerges, we seek a genuine partnership based on mutual respect 
and mutual reward. Like all partners, we cannot agree on everything. 
Sometimes our interests and our views diverge, but that is true even in 
family partnerships. [Laughter]
    Nonetheless, I am convinced, we agree on most things and on the 
important things because we share the same basic values: a commitment to 
democracy and to peace, a commitment to open markets, a commitment to 
give all our people the tools they need to succeed in the modern world, 
a commitment to make elemental human rights the birth right of every 
single child.
    Over the past 4 years, we put the building blocks of our partnership 
in place, starting with the binational commission, headed by Deputy 
President Mbeki and our Vice President Al Gore. This remarkable effort 
has given high-level energy to critical projects,

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from energy to education, from business development to science and 
technology, cutting through redtape, turning good words into concrete 
deeds. We are deeply indebted to you, Mr. Mbeki, for your outstanding 
leadership, and we thank you for it.
    The BNC brings to life what I believe you call ``Masihlangane,'' the 
act of building together. As we look toward the future, we will seek to 
build together new partnerships in trade and investment through 
incentives such as OPEC's new Africa Opportunity Fund, already 
supporting two projects here in South Africa in transportation and 
telecommunications.
    We will seek to expand joint efforts to combat the grave threat of 
domestic and international crime through our new FBI and Customs and 
Immigration offices here in South Africa. We will seek to strengthen our 
cooperation around the world, for already South Africa's leadership in 
extending the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and creating an Africa 
nuclear-free zone have made all our children's futures more secure.
    I also hope we can build together to meet the persistent problems 
and fulfill the remarkable promise of the African continent. Yes, Africa 
remains the world's greatest development challenge, still plagued in 
places by poverty, malnutrition, disease, illiteracy, and unemployment. 
Yes, terrible conflicts continue to tear at the heart of the continent, 
as I saw yesterday in Rwanda. But from Cape Town to Kampala, from Dar Es 
Salaam to Dakar, democracy is gaining strength; business is growing; 
peace is making progress. We are seeing what Deputy President Mbeki has 
called an African Renaissance.
    In coming to Africa, my motive in part was to help the American 
people see the new Africa with new eyes and to focus our own efforts on 
new policies suited to the new reality. It used to be when American 
policy makers thought of Africa at all, they would ask, what can we do 
for Africa, or whatever can we do about Africa? Those were the wrong 
questions. The right question today is, what can we do with Africa?
    Throughout this trip I've been talking about ideas we want to 
develop with our African partners to benefit all our people: ideas to 
improve our children's education through training and technology; to 
ensure that none of our children are hungry or without good health care; 
to build impartial, credible, and effective justice systems; to 
strengthen the foundations of civil society and deepen democracy; to 
build strong economics from the top down and from the grassroots up; to 
prevent conflict from erupting and to stop it quickly if it does.
    Each of these efforts has a distinct mission, but all share a common 
approach--to help the African people help themselves to become better 
equipped, not only to dream their own dreams but at long last, to make 
those dreams come true. Yesterday in Entebbe we took an important step 
forward. There, with leaders from eastern and central Africa, we pledged 
to work together to build a future in which the doors of opportunity are 
open to all and countries move from the margins to the mainstream of the 
global economy to strengthen democracy and respect for human rights in 
all nations, to banish genocide from the region and this continent so 
that every African child can grow up in safety and peace.
    As Africa grows strong, America grows stronger through prosperous 
consumers on this continent and new African products brought to our 
markets, through new partners to fight and find solutions to common 
problems from the spread of AIDS and malaria to the greenhouse grass 
that are changing our climate, and most of all, through the incalculable 
benefit of new ideas, new energy, new passion from the minds and hearts 
of the people charting their own future on this continent. Yes, Africa 
still needs the world, but more that ever it is equally true that the 
world needs Africa.
    Members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, at the dawn of the 21st 
century we have a remarkable opportunity to leave behind this century's 
darkest moments while fulfilling its most brilliant possibilities, not 
just in South Africa, nor just in America, but in all the world. I come 
to this conviction well aware of the obstacles that lie in the path. 
From Bosnia to the Middle East, from Northern Ireland to the Great Lakes 
region of Africa, we have seen the terrible price people pay when they 
insist on fighting and killing and keeping down their neighbors. For all 
the

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wonders of the modern world, we are still bedeviled by notions that our 
racial, ethnic, tribal, and religious differences are somehow more 
important that our common humanity; that we can only lift ourselves up 
if we have someone to look down on. But then I look around this hall. 
There is every conceivable difference--on the surface--among the 
Americans and the South Africans in this great Hall of Freedom. 
Different races, different religions, different native tongues, but 
underneath, the same hopes, the same dreams, the same values. We all 
cherish family and faith, work and community, freedom and 
responsibility. We all want our children to grow up in a world where 
their talents are matched by their opportunities. And we all have come 
to believe that our countries will be stronger and our futures will be 
brighter as we let go of our hatreds and our fears and as we realize 
that what we have in common really does matter far more than our 
differences.
    The preamble to your Constitution says, ``South Africa belongs to 
all who live in it, united in our diversity.'' In the context of your 
own history and the experience of the world in this century, those 
simple words are a bold clarion call to the future, an affirmation of 
humanity at its best, an assurance that those who build can triumph over 
those who tear down, that, truly, the peacemakers are blessed, and they 
shall inherit the Earth.
    Thank you, and God bless the new South Africa.

Note: The President spoke at 4:45 p.m. in the Chamber of the House of 
Assembly. In his remarks, he referred to Premier Popo Molefe of the 
North West Province; Deputy President Thabo Mbeki; Frene Ginwala, 
Speaker of the House; and Premier Patrick Lekota, Free State Province, 
and Chair, National Council of Provinces.