PEACE IS THE WORD

DIRECT FROM THE KING’S MOUTH

THE Royal Family and I are delighted to host you today (December 27) to give thanks to the Lord and pray for our province.

This gathering is a reminder of how much we owe the major religious traditions represented here.

They are sources of a rich cultural heritage and have given rise to beautiful sacred objects and holy texts as we have seen today.

As your Monarch I acknowledge that all faiths in different areas and approaches have contributed positively to the rich heritage of this province.

I wish to acknowledge and give thanks for the role played by religious leaders in the spiritual life of our people.

During difficult times for our province and our country religious leaders were with us giving us hope of a better tomorrow.

Through your actions you constantly reminded us that we were not alone, that as it was the case with other generations of the oppressed people, God was on our side and that through Him all shall pass.

Through song and in prayer you encouraged us to always believe that our oppression will come to pass, that our loss during political violence will pass, that one day our leaders and our people will be free.

All praises are to God the Almighty that in 1994 our prayers and yours were answered when we had our first democratic elections.

However, as we all know our freedom costs us dearly.

Our country has been embroiled in conflict, tension and violent struggle for decades.

Many lost their lives. Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters perished. Due to the aforementioned, South Africans still harbour a lot of pain and anger.

It was against this background that in September I conveyed my wishes to the Anglican Bishop Rubin Phillip that the interfaith prayer forms part of the cleansing ceremony.

This prayer event is one of the important events in the history of our nation as it unites us as people from different backgrounds.

It is not only for amaZulu but for all groups in our province as the history of amaZulu will never be complete without the history of the British, the French, the Indians , the Afrikaners and others.

Today I speak from a full heart when I pray that my calling of the national cleansing may prove to be the first step towards an end of strife among political parties, communities and taxi associations in our province and our country. I appeal to all South Africans to pause.

To stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, To forgive and forget and to join in making a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill.

Through this process of cleansing I stretch out the hand of friendship to our former colonisers and oppressors, those we shed blood in Encome and iSandlwana and other battlefields in KwaZulu-Natal.

I stretch the hand of friendship to those who lost their lives during the 1949 Afro-Indian conflict in Mkhumbane, Durban.

As part of the cleansing ceremony and the new era of peace and understanding, representing King Dingane, King Cetshwayo and King Dinuzulu and on behalf of those who were attacked, exiled and who lost their land, I look at our former enemy with an open heart full of friendship.

To their sons who died on our soil, I say you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore, rest in peace. To the British monarch and the then Afrikaner generals who sent soldiers to fight us, I say your sons are now our sons.

They are lying in our bosoms and in peace.

To religious leaders and people of faith who are here and elsewhere in our country and the world, this is all I ask you on behalf of those who came before us.

On behalf of the living and those yet to be born.

On behalf of the widows and orphans – I ask you to commit and act to ensure unity and peace in our province.

Let us together work to reunite our people as one family.

Today let us as present give our people the hope of a better tomorrow.

Let us give our future generations a country that is united and developed, families with good values of ubuntu. Let us all declare the New Year as the year of unity and progress.

In conclusion as we pray today let us also remember all those who due to their current circumstances doubt the love of the Lord especially those who are in hospitals, war zones, mental institutions, rape survivors, unemployed and many others, those we know and those we don’t know. I thank you.

KING GOODWILL ZWELITHINI’S SPEECH