Rhodes University 2010 Graduation Ceremonies Address

Abstract

From introduction: Most of you who are graduating were born in the late 1980s, a period of great turbulence and social conflict. This was, however, also a time of great optimism for it was clear that apartheid tyranny could no longer continue and had to give way to a new social order. We must take immense pride in the imagination, creativity, ingenuity and courage that we displayed as a people to rid ourselves of tyranny and to fashion our democracy. You are a generation that has been, thankfully, largely spared the horrors, brutality and injustices of apartheid. You are the first generation with the opportunity of living in a society founded on a democratic Constitution that proclaims the commitment to human dignity, the achievement of equality, and the advancement of non-sexism and non-racialism and the human rights and freedoms that are contained in our Bill of Rights.