Nelson Mandela's speech in Durban, Natal

25 February 1990

Friends, comrades, and the people of Natal, I greet you all. I do so in the name of peace, the peace that is so desperately and urgently needed in this region.

In Natal, apartheid is a deadly cancer in our midst, setting house against house, and eating away at the precious ties that bound us together. This strife among ourselves wastes our energy and destroys our unity. My message to those of you involved in this battle of brother against brother is this: take your guns, your knives, and your pangas, and throw them into the sea. Close down the death factories. End this war now! [...]

In 1906, at the time when Bambatha led sections of Africans in a war to destroy the Poll Tax, our brothers who originated from India, led by Mahatma Gandhi, fought against the oppression of the British Government. In 1913, we see Indian workers striking in the sugar-cane plantations and in the coal mines. These actions show the oppressed of South Africa waging a struggle to end exploitation and oppression, mounting an important challenge to the repressive British rule. [...]

We have already waited for our freedom for far too long. We can wait no longer. Join forces, Indians, Coloureds, Africans and freedom-loving Whites, to give apartheid its final blow. In the process, let us develop active democracy. Democratic structures which serve the people must be established in every school, township, village, factory and farm.

Since my release, I have become more convinced than ever that the real makers of history are the ordinary men and women of our country; their participation in every decision about the future is the only guarantee of true democracy and freedom. [...]