Comrade Chairperson, Comrades and friends,

I regard it as a tremendous honour to deliver the Third Annual Canon Collins Memorial Lecture. To speak in tribute to a person of the stature of Canon Collins and to do so in the footsteps of someone who is regarded as the leader of our nation - President Oliver Tambo - is a rare honour and I am sincerely astounded that the invitation has come to me. Both of them have made an inestimable contribution to the development of our country - and President Tambo continues too do so. I pray to Allah that I and our people become worthy of their sacrifices.

I have chosen as my theme for tonight's lecture "The Liberation Struggle in South Africa: The bases of our hopes". I have done so because certain developments taking place within and outside of South Africa need to be placed within the context of our ongoing struggle for liberation. We cannot have our friends in the international community fall prey to media cynicism about the will of our people to fight and our determination to be victorious. This cynicism of the media is a poor justification for their inability to respond creatively and courageously to restrictions on the press inside South Africa. It is, furthermore, a reflection of their inability to sustain the "South African Story" for their readers in an adequately sensational manner so as to ensure greater profits for their boards of directors.

Yes, I speak about a liberation struggle in South Africa and it is in this light that developments in South Africa must be viewed. When people understand that our struggle is not merely one of human rights irrespective of who implements it, or one of fair labour practices irrespective of who owns the factories; or of equality before the law irrespective of who legislates these laws, who administers them and who enforces them... but that it is one of the right of people to govern their own lives; that quite simply, criminals cannot arrogate to themselves the right to undo their crimes on their terms and in their sweet time - even in the name of reform. It is then that one understands that the people of South Africa are busy with nothing less than a struggle for liberation. The Apartheid regime's denial of the right of the people of South Africa to govern their own lives on the one hand and the assumption of the right to initiate change on the other is at the heart of the conflict in South Africa today. Repression and reform are two sides of the same bloody coin. There is a link between the world rejoicing at the commutation of the death sentences of the Sharpeville Six and the world's ignorance of the hundreds of others who are still on Death Row, between the applause at the release of Zeph Motopeng and Harry Gwala, on the one hand, and the deafening silence at the tragic spectacle of 18 year old Charles Bester facing six years in jail for refusing to join an army that is at war with its own people.

Attempts are being made to portray reform and not repression as the reality of South Africa today and they are doing so with the support and connivance of our terribly fickle friends - the mass media. The reform story is news and the repression one is old hat and, besides, “one can't be negative and gloomy all the time can one?” Alas, if only they could have latched on to the laughter and joy of our people as we stumble through the night on our path to freedom, to the wonderful tales of courage as we endure torture, to the tremendous way in which we have salvaged our humanness despite 336 years of attempts to tear at it...

The world may adjust to maladjustment but as for us who never get used to the knock at four a.m. in the morning, who never adjust to the loneliness of having to live in a city without your family because it is against the law for them to be in the cities, who never become accustomed to seeing children in detention, who - after twenty six years - have never accepted the fact that a sentence of life imprisonment for Nelson Mandela and others does really mean that. We shall not adjust to the insanity of Apartheid! Our worth and integrity as human beings are directly proportional to the level of our refusal to do so and to our willingness to resist. You know, friends, in Islamic folklore we have the story of an elderly woman who attempted to free one of the Prophets of Allah. This particular Prophet, Joseph, was being sold as a slave after he was found abandoned in a well. An elderly woman made a bid for him but she could only offer a small bale of wool. When questioned about the meanness of her offer, she responded by saying: "Let it not be said that Allah's servant was being sold as a slave and that this old lady did not attempt to purchase him to set him free". And so I tell you tonight: "Let it never be said that our people were imprisoned and we did not attempt to work for our liberation." Our first victory lies in our labour for freedom. This labour itself is a kind of freedom because it is a victory over their designs for us - a design that is intended to keep us comfortable and docile in our chains. This is the first reason why we are a part of that struggle to destroy the Apartheid system. We are, however, not engaged in some symbolic gesture or hari kiri against an invincible monster - a courageous gesture culminating in the brave death of the candle as it seeks to provide light to a world as divided and unjust as Apartheid society. No, we are also resisting because we are winning and because we are going to triump.

Let us look, firstly, at the political and economic considerations and, then, the moral considerations which lead us to conclude this.

Broadly, comrade Chairperson, we belong to a tradition of winning. Our struggle has acquired enormous recognition throughout the world and the days when Sol Plaatjie came to London to plead the case for democracy in South Africa and hardly finding any listeners are past. This recognition has come from the tenacity of our people and from the various successes that we have scored along the way. Freedom for Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe and now Namibia did not fall out of the sky. They were the results of our people's struggles. Every single act of so-called compassion on the part of the Botha regime, every time they are forced back to the constitutional drawing board, every time an ordinary Londoner asks "Where do these oranges come from?" before he or she purchases it, has been a victory for our people and a loss to the regime.

More specifically, there are two major political reasons for our hopes in the dismantling of Apartheid and the creation of a non-racial and non-sexist South Africa: the economic cost of Apartheid and the organizational strength of resistance to it:

The war in Angola and the occupation of Namibia are simply too expensive to be continued and the protracted negotiations around the withdrawal of the Cubans are mere face saving devices. It costs the South African government more than a million rand a day to sustain that war and with its own economy in shambles it has no alternative to withdrawal. Internally, the price of administering Apartheid is becoming astronomical. We have more than a hundred and thirty cabinet ministers and something like seventeen educational departments. Numerous white high schools are standing empty and four hundred million rand is owed in rent by boycotting black communities. The institutions of Apartheid have drawn the weaker ones amongst our people and the price for their participation in it has been an enormous financial burden on the shoulders of the regime. The coups in the Transkei are attempts to get their books to balance. The various commissions of enquiry into financial irregularities in the homelands and the James Commission of Inquiry into various scandals that have rocked the Indian ‘Parliament’ - the House of Delegates - are not just innocent attempts to ensure clean administration; they are desperate measures to call their own supporters to financial order. What they do not understand is that their system and various reform schemes are so devoid of any morality that it can only attract those who have an interest in little other than the linings of their own pockets. Apartheid by itself is an expensive commodity and then it also seems as if the people of South Africa - who never wanted it in the first instance - are quite determined to make the costs rise even further. Their unrelenting calls for mandatory and comprehensive sanctions despite the suffering that they will incur from it, their refusal to pay rent and their calculated destruction of government buildings are all reflective of this.

More important than this, though, is the hope that emerges from our own organizations. Two weeks ago a meeting of all the affiliate organizations of the United Democratic Front was convened to reflect on rumours about the release of our leaders. It cost us two days to convene a secret meeting of ninety organizations in the Western Cape alone. Each were represented by two delegates. Present also were Cosatu and some other trade unions. I do not for a single moment want to romanticize our position or deny that we are bloodied under the State of Emergency. Repression in South Africa has taken an enormous toll on our organizations and we simply haven't recovered from blow after blow dealt out to us. Many of our structures have been smashed and we have not always succeeded in finding viable and creative alternatives. Organizational discipline has suffered enormously as layer after layer of leadership figures are detained. The bloody battles in Natal are particularly horrendous reflections of the viciousness of Inkatha on the one hand and of our organizational indiscipline on the other. None of this, however, warrants the kind of half-heartedness and cynicism that has emerged from some sectors of the community - a sector for whom the task of liberating our country is primarily a matter of discussion and debate. Some elements, whom, I believe, are - at a gut level - committed to liberation although their political strategies occasionally tend to suggest the opposite, even come across as gleeful as they see the set-backs that we are suffering. To them - this is the impression that many of them convey, in any case - this is a welcome vindication of their criticism of our 'populist politics'.

It is true that in the period 1983-85 very many of our people had a naive over-estimation of where our struggle was and that the tremendous courage of our youth was not always matched by a cold and objective strategic appreciation of the strength of the Apartheid regime. But this never became the official position of the mass democratic movement in South Africa. We cannot and do not disown the wave of resistance to apartheid in the mid-eighties but need to understand that that period must be located within a broader period of time that goes back a long way. We cannot isolate specific strategies and sites of struggle and assess them apart from each other. We are not and have never been committed to so-called populist politics. That was our particular response in a given set of political circumstances. We have always shown, and continue to show a willingness to change tactics in order to advance the struggle of our people. At different times, the weakest link in the enemies defences might occur at different points and we must at all times show the strategic ability to change gears to exploit this. We have often been dismissed as unprincipled for this by those who seem to be in love with struggle as a lover but who do want to enter into it with matrimonial ties. We would suggest that they also fall in love with victory. We do not only have a battle to wage. We also have a battle to win.

An editorial in one of the struggle magazines make the valuable point that "it is also important to understand that history develops unevenly and in an often contradictory way. In mass struggle, for instance, it is not possible to maintain the same level of intensity for years at a time. Our main task is to ensure that we do not just mark time at the same time in the same place. Each wave of mass struggle must carry us forward. In each period of relative slowing down we must ensure that the gains are not lost, that the lessons of the previous waves are learned." Yes, we have been bloodied but that has not prevented us from staging the largest national stay away ever in South Africa's history. The three days stay away in protest against Labour Relations Amendment Bill and the State of Emergency in May of this year was an unprecedented success. Political conditions militated against such a stayaway: It occurred in a period of protracted repression, restrictions placed on Cosatu and regulations preventing organizations from calling for such a stayaway. In addition, the state threatened harsh action against participants. Despite all of this Cosatu made it happen.

The South African government made the recent country wide municipal elections a major test of wills and they lost that round dismally. Let us look at what they put into it and what they got out of it and you will understand why we insist that our people are beyond co-option for their own oppression.

-They announced that 60-70% of the black people registered as voters and - given our people's aversion to even this act of collaboration - this certainly seemed like a remarkable feat for the government. Closer examination, however revealed that rent receipts, housing accommodation waiting lists, pass registration, electricity receipts and even death certificates were used to register people. Large numbers of people were registered more than once and this was adequately proven when the Transvaal Indian Congress challenged some of the special votes in the Supreme Court. Dead people were found to have voted. Yes, they have extended the franchise to the dead because the living seem so disinterested. You had as many votes as you had properties. Oh! what a wonderful step on the road to democracy - way beyond the wildest dreams off the democrats in South Africa have been clamoring for one-person one vote. The government has upstaged all of us. They gave us one-person ten votes!

-Prior voting enabled anyone to vote over a period of ten days. The government claims that this was done to prevent intimidation. We say that it was done to deny the community its right to act as a moral censor of immorality. Many an individual get up to a lot of mischief in the dark of the night but a sense of shame and decency prevent us from getting up to it in public. Prior voting enabled them to do their sinful thing in private.

-The salaries of the newly elected councillors were increased by 35% - the largest salary increase everr in the public sector.

-Calling for a boycott of the municipal elections became a crime punishable with R20,000 and/or ten years imprisonment.

-Al Qalam, the newspaper of progressive Muslims in South Africa, was siezed and so was Crisis News, the journal of the Western Province Council of Churches. Both had openly called for a boycott of the polls.

-The State spent R4,7 million on a publicity campaign to ensure participation in the elections and Minister Heunis remarked that at least eighty percent of the people knew about the elections. They used squirrels in their campaign to drum up support and the people responded by saying we're not nuts to be taken in by squirrels.

One morning the people of the Cape Flats awoke to find their roofs, yards and school grounds littered with thousands of pamphlets. "You can make it happen on 26 October" the pamphlets told them; "Make sure that you vote on that day" the pamphlet told them. And on the pamphlet they had a little TV screen with a man in it who was saying all these things. And do you know what? Of the thousands of black, coloured, Indian and white candidates that did stand for elections they could not find a single face attractive enough to put in that TV screen but that of yours truly. Now, I am aware that I am good-looking, but did not for a single moment think that I’m that good-looking. Yes, they were actually saying that we are the people that our community respects; that we are the people that the community regards as its authentic spokespeople. It was an unwelcome and somewhat indirect recognition of our credibility in the eyes of the community, but a recognition it nonetheless was.

How far did all of this get them if this is how far they went to ensure that the whole exercise gets pulled off in a neat manner?

In some townships not a single candidate could be found among hundreds of thousands of residents. Out of 52 townships in the Eastern Cape there were elections in only 25. In Motherwell and Cradock there were no candidates. At Kwa Nobuhle there were only eight candidates for sixteen wards. For the remaining 24 councils in the Eastern Cape there were either no candidates or only one candidate came forward.  The picture was hardly rosier in other parts of the country. And so they had their elections and their crisis of legitimacy remains as unresolved as ever. Official statistics have been packaged very carefully to give the impression of a high poll. When these statistics of theirs had been mystified then what emerges is clearly inconsistent with government claims.

A casual look at Natal and the Witwatersrand areas clearly reflects the hollowness of their victory. According to the Bureau for Information the total number of eligible voters in the Witwatersrand area totals 2,38 million. They claim that 154,092 votes were cast in this region. Basic arithmetic points to something like 6,5% which is quite different from the over 20.5% which they have claimed. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the actual population in the area is far beyond the official figures and that property owners had as many votes as they had properties. 154,092 votes, therefore, does not really mean that so many people actually voted. Of the 108 possible seats in African townships in Natal, elections were held in only 40 wards. These wards attracted only 7 592 votes.

This is a brief indication of where our people are at when it comes to them and their schemes.

Let me now reflect with you on where we are with our schemes and our work. What has been our gains and to what extent are these permanent?

The impact of the national democratic struggle is being felt all the time and in ways which strengthen the resolve, unity and organizational ability of our people like nothing has ever done before. Numerous ostensibly neutral organizations have been own over to the struggle in recent years. Bearing in mind that in a society where the line between justice and injustice is so stark, neutrality is not a virtue but a crime, this 'coming home' of organizations such as the Cape Teachers Professional Association and the imminent arrival of the National Institute for Criminal Rehabilitation is very significant. Every single church grouping - with the exception of the Afrikaner Churches - is under the leadership of people who have to varying degrees identified with the liberation struggle. They may be a bit confused and somewhat arrogant at times but let that not cloud the authenticity of their commitment.

Muslim apologists for the regime have been clobbered theologically and successive blows have silenced them completely. Just prior to my embarking on this trip I spent two days in the Cape Town Supreme Court giving evidence in mitigation of some young soldiers of the armed wing of the African National Congress. Four of them argued that their commitment to Islam clearly meant a commitment to the struggle for justice in general and, more specifically, to the ANC and Umkhonto We Sizwe. They argued that they were moved by deeply felt Islamic convictions and that as committed Muslims that was the only path open to them. I submitted that - from a theological perspective - it was indeed credible for Muslims to arrive at such a conclusion because the Quran did not only allow victims of oppression to take up arms in defence of their dignity but also encourages them to do. Something interesting occurred to me as I stood in the witness box: If I were to venture into the unthinkable and distort our theology here today to supply post-hoc theological justification for any action committed in the name of the struggle then the state would not be able to find a single Muslim theologian in South Africa to contradict my submissions. Such is the extent to which the theologians of accommodation had been silenced.

Community based organizations existing in opposition to state structures have proliferated on an unprecedented scale and have developed an infra-structural strength hitherto unknown. If this is the meaning of a revolutionary climate - as the Minister of Law and Orderr would have it - then he is certainly correct in claiming that it has not abated and that - from his perspective - the State of Emergency cannot bee lifted. Similar is the case of professional organizations. The rise of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers, the National Medical and Dental Association, the Organization for Alternative Social Services in South Africa, the Congress of South African Writers and a host of others is reflective of how our people have built on the resistance of the mid-eighties and of how the basis for the ongoing struggle is being laid. Of course none of this is as dramatic or as sensational as the uprisings that have hit your television screens but they are every bit as significant as any other form that our struggle may have taken before.

Equally significant - although a far greater cause for celebration - is the strength of the movement to resist conscription. They have banned the End Conscription Campaign but that has not deterred close to two hundred young whites from announcing their refusal to join the South African Defence Force. Ivan Toms, Charles Bester and David Bruce are among the new heroes of our people. They are willingly paying the price for freedom and the fact that their numbers are escalating to the point where the Minister of Defence now refuses to disclose how many reject his call or just ignore it because, as he says, 'the revolutionaries are going to abuse that information', is a tremendous source of inspiration to us. You know friends, I, too, become tired at times and I, too, sometimes ask "when are we going to emerge from this nightmare?" Then you have the emergence of people like Ivan, David and Charles and they breathe life into me.

Look at them. Ivan, a 34 year old doctor committed to Christianity. In fact, he is a third year theology student at the University of South Africa. He says that his hands have been destined for healing and that, therefore, he may not participate in the crimes of the South African Defence Force. Ivan chose to go to jail for 21 months rather than serve for even three weeks in that army. David Bruce, a 26 year old Jewish student whose parents were refugees from the Nazi holocaust. In a quiet and undramatic way David stands up and says that he does not wish to flee from racism in the manner that his mother did. Without in any way passing judgment on those who did in fact decide to flee it in order to pursue the battle elsewhere, he prefers to spend six of the best years of his life in the prisons of Apartheid. And then we have Charles Bester, an 18 year old young Christian. This youngster has just left school and is a deeply committed Christian who is nevertheless not in principle opposed to taking up arms to defend his country. Charles is, however, arguing that the SADF is a part of a system that is destroying our country and to defend it he must oppose the South African Defence Force and join. For this 18 year old Charles is now on trial and facing six years in jail. In any civilized society these people would have been models of excellent character. In South Africa, they are imprisoned with murderers and rapists.

This brings me to the second part of my reflections on where the people of South Africa are. I have told you where we are. Let me reflect with you on where they are.

In the same manner that we rejoice in the unity of our people and in the growth of democratic structures in our own communities we rejoice in the doubt and confusion that the ruling class have been plunged into as a result of our struggles. We make no apologies for this because whatever weakens them tactically is going to lessen their chances of perpetuating minority rule. They are more fearful then ever before and more dehumanized than ever before. We do not rejoice in this. We do not rejoice in this because they have been dehumanized whilst oppressing us and we are still reeling under their jackboots. We do not rejoice in this because when a single element of human kind becomes dehumanized then the whole of human kind becomes poorer.

This fear of theirs is giving rise to the emergence of the non-uniformed right wing vigilantes. Until a few months ago Barend Strydom, the young white Afrikaner who went on a shooting spree in the streets of Pretoria was a member of the uniformed right wing vigilantes - the South African Police - and he, together with his fellows in the police and the armed forces, are in regular touch with our people. They are in the townships; they are in the factories they are on the ground and they have seen the reality of South Africa. They have met the comrades and activists in combat and they have seen that repression is not succeeding. The ordinary person and soldier know more than anyone else that reform is a non-starter and that repression has failed. They have chosen to get out of their uniforms and fight the battle on their own terrain to complement the battle of those in uniform. This is the context of the bombing of Khotso House, the NUSAS office, the office of the Catholic Bishops Conference office and the kidnapping and killing of activists.

It is important for us to remember that these people are a part of the mainstream of the ruling class and far from the right wing lunatic fringe that they are portrayed by the government and by the mass media. As far as we are concerned there is no difference between the killings that Barend Strydom engaged in when he was in uniform a few months ago - and that his other uniformed colleagues may still be engaged in - and the ones that he engaged in after he got out of that uniform. This - if I may add - also apply to the judicial murders taking place day after day in the Central Prison in Pretoria. All of this saddens us immensely because our country is being dragged into a long drawn out and bloody war that is going to ravage that stunningly beautiful land of us. None of us will emerge unscathed from it. Not that young person who dances around the body of an assassinated informer or community councillor, nor the likes of Barend Strydom or PW himself.

These are, however, Botha's chickens coming home to roost. The non-uniformed rightwing have been given birth to by them, have been reared by them and are being sustained by them. We refuse to buy the hypocrisy of Mr Botha now wanting to pontificate as the moderate, neutral and benevolent arbitrator between an extremist white right wing and an extremist black nationalist element. Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan may willingly buy this kind of hogwash - but we who live and suffer under Apartheid know that the reality is different.

We must not for a single moment underestimate the determination of the ruling class to survive and to resort to further violence - uniformed and non-uniformed - to do so and - contradictory as it may seem - we may also not overestimate the ability of a people to remain pariahs in the eyes of the international community. Hitler may have epitomized the weirdest dreams of the German people but ultimately they woke up and asked "God, was that really us?" Comrade chairperson, I believe that all of us are going to wake up from this nightmare and they are going to ask "Was that really us?" There is something elusive that binds us all together - in Islam we refer to this as the Spirit of Allah blown into us at the time of creation - and ultimately they, too, must succumb to this.

Cedric Mayson concludes that wonderful book of his - 'A Certain Sound' with the following words:

"Have you ever chopped down a tree? If you have you will know that it is a slow and constant process of driving the axe head into the heart of the wood, with chips flying everywhere, and no sign of success at all. The trunk stands straight and tall above you apparently as secure as it has been for years, and all your effort appears to be to no avail. There is not the slightest sign that you are succeeding. All you can do is to go on chopping. There can be no question of the tree gradually sliding over sideways, and when it gets half way, deciding to leave it there while you go away for lunch and come back later and carry on. It stands there vertical and apparently immovable despite all that you can do.  And then: the tree falls, and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop it. Its time has come. It is finished and it crashes to the ground. And all round it there is space for new life to grow."

Meanwhile we rejoice in the popularity of our struggle. We know that it is popular because the rawness of the oppression there, the blatantness of the injustices and the starkness of injustice hallowed by the law have made every single civilized person a sympathizer of our struggle. We also know that far too many people eulogize our struggle as a part of their own butterfly dance of escapism and digression from problems of racism in their own societies and we don't easily forgive that because an injury to one is an injury to all. An injury to the Carribeans living in London or to the Turks in Germany is no less than an injury to the blacks of South Africa and you need to address this in a serious and sincere manner.

We rejoice in the moral high ground of our struggle without succumbing to the idea that the moral correctness of our struggle is the only basis of our hopes.

We rejoice because our struggle is transforming us now as people and as a nation. We are not going to be victorious some day or free some day. We are becoming free every day. The meaning that our struggle has supplied our existences with, the sense of joy of working on something together, the pain and trauma of believing in something and the willingness to lay down one's life for it, all of this have transformed us as people.

We rejoice for the new South Africa is being formed now in the non-racial and democratic character of our struggle.

In a cold, analytical and realistic manner we believe that we are going to make it happen. In a warm, exciting and joyous manner we believe that we are making it happen.

We are making that non-racial South Africa happen!
We are making that non-sexist South Africa happen!
We are making that nuclear free South Africa happen!
We are making that democratic South Africa happen!
We are making that undivided South Africa happen!
We are making that South Africa happen wherein the people shall govern!
And, above all, friends, we are making it happen in our lifetime!

May Allah bless you all.