The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

10 Nov 1999 - HM The Queen's speech at the state banquet in South Africa

President Mbeki, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am grateful to you and your predecessor for inviting me to pay a visit to South Africa in this, the year in which your country hosts the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. I am particularly fortunate since Prince Philip and I were welcomed here only four and a half years ago, a visit which is still fresh and vivid in our memories. No-one can forget the great surge of joy and optimism which followed the change to democratic rule in South Africa. It was a special pleasure on that occasion to be received by Nelson Mandela who as our host seemed to personify that happiness which was so evident wherever Prince Philip and I went.

Since that visit so much has improved in South Africa. So much has been accomplished: in the economy, in the lives of disadvantaged people and, above all, in the progress in this country towards a truly multiracial society.

Much of this has been due to the vision and statesmanship shown in making difficult short-term sacrifices in the interest of longer-term goals. By vision and statesmanship I do not mean only in the decisions taken by you, Mr President and by the leaders of the communities and political parties. I refer also to the attitudes of ordinary people throughout South Africa who, in their own ways, have so clearly exercised these qualities: vision in their ability to live together neither forgetting the past nor becoming prisoners of it; and statesmanship in their willingness to look to a common future despite the pain of a divided past.

The vibrancy and optimism which Prince Philip and I met in 1995 are still here. They are now accompanied by a confidence in the new South Africa's ability to meet the challenges which lie ahead. South Africa is set fair to become a symbol of how African countries can combine democratic accountability, economic success and improved living standards.

I know, Mr President, that your ambition is exactly that. Those values lie at the heart of your concept of an African Renaissance. And as I am seeing on my present visits to your country and to Ghana and Mozambique, positive change is taking root elsewhere in this continent. Multi-party democracy an sound economic policies are accepted in more and more countries in Africa. You, Mr President, are at the head of those who argue that good government is, in its principles, a universal value.

This African renaissance has emerged from discussions and debate amongst Africans, as the days when other nations might settle Africa's affairs are long gone. There is no clearer reminder of this than the hundredth anniversary this year of the start of the Anglo-Boer South African War. It is fitting that we should remember that tragic chapter in the history of both our countries. We should remember with sadness the loss of life and suffering, not only of British or Boer soldiers, but of all those caught up in the war - black and white, men, women and children. No-one who reads of the distressing conditions in the detention camps which held both white and black detainees, could fail to be moved even today, one hundred years later. It is surely right that we commemorate the centenary of this war in a spirit of reconciliation.

It is important not to forget even painful events in our shared history. But it is better still to find encouragement in the close ties which bind our two countries together. These ties find their expression in so many ways. Some are obvious and well known: our strong commercial and investment links, the number of our people who feel at home in Johannesburg and London, Cape Town and Glasgow, Durban and Brighton; and our sporting relationship, Mr President, although I have to say that this has recently given you more cause for celebration than us.

But I take heart too from the new links that are being forged between us and particularly among our young people. For all their differences, South Africa and the United Kingdom share many characteristics. Both are home to people from many different cultures, with all the diversity and energy which that brings. In both our countries there is now a generation whose views were not formed by the great conflicts which shaped the lives of my generation. In my country, young people are growing up who remember neither the Second World War nor the Cold War that followed it. In South Africa, there are young people who were too young to be involved in the worst years of struggle. They see the world differently. That does not mean that they have nothing to learn from their elders, particularly about the value of democratic freedom. But we, too, have something to learn from them: their optimism, their energy, their openness to new ideas, and their sense of fun.

Nowhere are these qualities more apparent than in South Africa.

Mr President, Prince Philip and I have already received the warmest of welcomes on our arrival in South Africa. We look forward over the next few days to seeing more of your country and its peoples. It is a great pleasure for us both to be back here again.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I now ask you to rise and drink a toast to the President and people of the Republic of South Africa.