Albert Luthuli: Freedom is the Apex

Extract from Inkosi Albert Luthuli’s Speech to the SA Congress of Democrats (COD)

One might ask, “Is this vision of a democratic society in South Africa a realizable vision? Or is it merely a mirage?” I say, it is a realizable vision. For it is in the nature of man, to yearn and struggle for freedom. The germ of freedom is in every individual, in anyone who is a human being. In fact, the history of mankind is the history of man struggling and striving for freedom. Indeed, the very apex of human achievement is FREEDOM and not slavery. Every human being struggles to reach that apex.

It is sometimes suggested that people are “incited” to struggle for freedom. One wonders what that means. I admit that circumstances from time to time make it necessary to remind people of what lies at the apex. Naturally if I find a man in the mud, it is my duty to uplift him and remind him “You are not of the mud”. If there be human beings who, for some reason or other, have forgotten their rights and wallow in the mud, it is the duty of all who see, to say to them “Don`t wallow in mud. Try to reach up to the apex.” And the apex of human achievement and striving, as I have said, is FREEDOM.

…The yearning for freedom is not peculiar to South Africa. The whole of Africa is emerging into freedom. We live in the midst of what has rightly been described as “Emergent Africa”. Why should it be thought that Africans in this part of southern Africa are different from Africans in Ghana? Africans in Ghana have received full democracy. In Nigeria they are about to receive full democracy. How can it be suggested that the Africans in the Union of South Africa will not yearn, like their brothers in the North, for freedom. The very fact that Africa is emerging to freedom should be a sign to all of us that our vision of democracy is coming and will be realized.

The African isn’t the only one who has struggled for full participation in a South African democracy. Our people have been much impressed by the struggle of the Afrikaner in this country. He too struggled – in fact, in affairs less justified than ours, for he did enjoy a certain amount of freedom while we enjoy none. But he felt he did not enjoy it fully. It should be unnecessary to remind Afrikaner South Africans, that nothing could stop their struggle until they got a full share in democracy for themselves. Should they not realize that this same truth applies now to the struggling Africans, who cannot be denied the privileges of democracy for ever?

– Inkosi Albert Luthuli: Freedom is the Apex (1960)

Castro Khwela
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