The future being created
2007-05-17
“THE future is not a place where we are going to, we create it,” said professor Brian O’Connell, Rector and vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape.
O’Connell was speaking on Friday evening during the first Rev Abe Maart Memorial Lecture and launch at the Frank Pietersen Music Centre in Sanddrift Street, Paarl.
Rev Maart was pastor at the Bethel Congregational Church. Pragmatist and intellectual, Abe Maart died last year after a short illness.
The memorial lecture was organised by Koinonia Community Centre in partnership with the Abe and Myrtle Maart Foundation, and wants to challenge, inspire and motivate the community.
Newly elected rector of the University of Stellenbosch, Russel Botman, also attended as well as former Drakenstein Mayor Charmaine Manuel, Head of the Western Cape Electoral Commission Courtney Sampson and other dignitaries.
O’Connell, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, was passionate in his speech and referred to the hopelessness that was becoming endemic in society.
He said that the youth should be made much more attentive to their role as the future of the country and that this was not a place where we are going to, but that “we create it”.
“If they knów, and if we lét them, live a life of carelessness, lack of respect of everything we hold dear, lawlessness and irresponsibility, then that will be precisely what their future will be.”
“Abe Maart gave us an object of hope where he stood in relation towards this situation and moved from hope to action through education,” he said.
“In his calm way he inspired all of us by his actions to live out this hope in our communities. He made us proud,” O’Connell concluded to tumultuous applause.
“Your human dignity is thát something that no-one can ever take away from you,” said Russel Botman, rector of Stellenbosch University.
“Abe Maart had the ability to see God and the human dignity in everyone he encountered and treated them accordingly. He said that the challenge was not that we only have the right leaders in Parliament, but to have civic strength as well.
“Do what Abe Maart did and never live without dignity,” Botman said. This is what he did and it reflects in the Institute’s slogan “... Surely I have a delightful inheritance...” taken from Psalm 16:6.
Head of Western Cape Electoral Commission, Courtney Sampson, referred to the banality of the corruption of evil and implored that we should not let evil become ordinary.
“It is this hope that will drive us to create our future,” he said.
The Abe Maart Oral History Institute, initiated by Koinonia with support from the National Heritage Council, will ensure that the rich and diverse history of the Drakenstein Valley is not lost for future generations and that the youth gain an appreciation and understanding of its roots.
Contact them at 021-872-2141/2 and 082-925-5212 or e-mail siyakhana@ absamail.co.za.
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