" THE ROAD TO THE FUTURE "

			       Remarks

				  by

			Vice President Al Gore

			    Market Theatre

		      Johannesburg, South Africa

			     May 9, 1994

		   (ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FROM ADVANCE)

     For those of us who watched from abroad, the images were
riveting. Young men carrying feathers on their backs to polling
places. An elderly women transported to the voting booth in a
wheelbarrow. Long neat lines of new voters snaking out of polling
stations through streets and into soccer fields. Black and white
voters sharing soft drinks as they waited in the hot sun.

     The world braced for violence. But South Africans waited
patiently. You had waited a long time. You had waited a lifetime.

And with your patience you confounded the skeptics. In an age that has
seen the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet
Union, we now see something every bit as epochal.

     The last pillars of apartheid are crumbling. Three centuries of
white domination are coming to a close.

     What a great moment to be gathered here in South Africa!

     Tipper and I, and the First Lady, are honored to be here to usher
in a wholly new relationship between my country and yours, one of
partnership.

     And isn't it appropriate to talk about this partnership in The
Market Theater? For here, during the long, dark period of apartheid
its founders refused to accept any form of apartheid. They even
refused to ask permission to have mixed race plays or audiences --
just to ask, after all, gave legitimacy to the system. They ignored
the hate mail. They ignored the bomb threats. They replied to the hate
mongers with their courage, and with the dramas they produced pointed
the way to the future.

     It is a future that in one sense is a tribute to a single man:
the man who in 1964 spoke these words from the dock of a South African
courtroom.

     "During my lifetime, I have fought against white domination, and
I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of
a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in
harmony and with equal opportunities."

     Over and over, Nelson Mandela repeated this belief. He spoke in
community centers and playing fields. He spoke to millions while the
tv lights were on. And he spoke one by one to voters he met each day
on village streets.

     His generous spirit, his appeal to reconciliation and forgiveness
has made possible the transition to democracy in South Africa.

     But of course, such moments in human history are not the result
of one human being. President F.W. De Klerk - in an act of enormous
courage and impressive patriotism -- reached across decades of hatred
and fear to free the man he needed. And millions of South Africans, of
all races, by eschewing violence, by hewing to the belief that South
Africans are one people, have made possible a dream that looked
utopian a scant few years ago.

     Each of you here today can be proud of the role you played in
dismantling apartheid. You led the way in one of the great moral
struggles of this century. Now the hard work of nurturing democracy
and strengthening free market reform begins. Do not underestimate the
role each of you must play if the fruits of security and prosperity
are to be enjoyed by all South Africans.

     Today your leadership is more essential than ever. South Africa
faces a challenge more daunting than dismantling apartheid: the
challenge of building a nonracial democracy and a culture of
tolerance.

America wants to help.

     For the United States, this magnificent transformation has
special significance. After all, for decades, Americans agonized over
the horrors of of our own apartheid.

     In 1964, as the courts sentenced Nelson Mandela, Americans were
battling segregation. Freedom riders were boarding buses, heading to
southern states to register black voters.

     It tore our country apart. Churches were bombed. In Mississippi
that summer, three civil rights workers -two white, one black -- were
kidnapped and murdered.

     A young African-American civil rights worker in the South, John
Lewis, became a leader in that movement. And at one point he remembers
a march in front of the United Nations during that period by the
anti-apartheid movement. The marchers were chanting "One person, one
vote."

     "That was our slogan," he recalls. "We were fighting for the same
cause."

     He was not the only American whose life work was forged in the
crucible of the civil rights movement. A young man from Arkansas was
influenced as well.

     "My own interest in politics," he recalls now, "was inflamed by
my opposition to racial segregation in my own state, my own community,
our own neighborhoods, our schools, and the terrible consequences that
flowed from it."

     He, along with millions of other Americans, took the fight for
equality and justice to the streets, to the courts, and to our
Congress.

     In the 1960s and 1970s, landmark legislation was passed, long
overdue in our country. Voters rights, civil rights, and housing
rights were enshrined into law, cementing the guarantees originally
provided in our Constitution.

     And today, John Lewis is a member of the leadership in our
Congress. That young Arkansan, Bill Clinton, is President of the
United States.

     Given our own struggle, how could we not want to join with you?
Given the importance of racial harmony in our on country, how could we
turn our backs on the greatest struggle for racial harmony the world
has ever seen?

     Our work in South Africa is part of the Clinton Administration's
larger strategy of enlarging the world's community of market
democracies. South Africa's successful transformation will give hope
to all who love freedom. The monumental statesmanship demonstrated by
President F.W. de Klerk and President-elect Mandela provides a shining
example to help restore peace in nations like Mozambique, Bosnia,
Haiti, and Angola.

     The work will not be easy. I think of a sign put up beside a
schoolhouse near Port Elizabeth, during the election: "The road to the
future is always under construction."

     The election was a major milestone on that road. But there are
clearly many more miles of road to be built.

     Yes, in the heart of this great city of Johannesburg, one sees
the tremendous potential of the South African economy: gleaming
skyscrapers, major stock exchange, banking institutions that are keyed
into the world's financial centers, shops that dazzle the eye, and
people moving with purpose to manage and maintain a first world
economy.

     But just outside this city are communities that lack running
water or sanitation. Families live in shacks made of corrugated metal
and scraps of wood. Clinics are few and hospitals miles away. Jobs are
scarce. Education has become more a source of controversy than
upliftment.

     White South African children expect to live sixteen years longer
than black South African children.

     There is work to be done.

     But it is work that can be done in partnership with the
international community. South Africa's isolation is ended. Indeed
there are probably few inaugurations in the world that have attracted
so many international leaders as has this one. South Africa is being
welcomed back into the international community and I am proud to be a
part of it.

     We start on this partnership, moreover, from a strong similarity
in outlook. South Africa's new President is a man of vision and a man
of keen judgement. He envisions for his country a future in which all
South Africans, whatever their color, religion or culture, will share.

     Moreover, President-elect Mandela's vision is matched by his
clear perception of reality. He has committed himself and his
government to an economic policy and program that eschews failed
ideologies. It sees the strong potential of a vibrant private sector
and the energies and talents of people that blossom in a free society.

     We know the strength of such policies and programs in my
country. There is no substitute for addressing the problems of poverty
and economic inequality with economic growth and economic freedom.

     We share, too, a commitment to something dear to my heart:
protecting the environment. The ANC's Reconstruction and Development
Program sets out ambitious objectives for environmental protection,
but none too small for what's at stake. South Africa's beautiful lakes
and streams could die under the pressure of unfettered pollution. The
health and productivity of your workers will suffer if the air is
contaminated. The glory of your game parks, and all the tourism
potential they carry, will be lost if wildlife is not protected and

the safety of the reserves not guaranteed.

     So we begin this new partnership with a shared sense of history,
a common struggle for equal rights, and the same values and
aspirations for our societies.

     We intend that this partnership bring new strength to South
Africa. President Clinton has outlined a major United States program.

We want to join South Africans in helping rebuilding the economy and
creating jobs.

     In accelerating the construction of housing.

     In hastening the time when all residences and communities will
have electric power.

     In providing high quality educati_ citizens

     In expanding the opportunities for the previously disadvantaged
to become suecessful entrepreneurs and to share in the dynamic growth
of the economy.

     President Clinton has demonstrated his commitment to the new
South Africa by doubling the level of our aid program for the next
three years; by creating guarantees for private capital to flow into
housing, electrification, and small business development; and by
providing insurance and financial incentives for American businesses
to join with South Africans in joint ventures that enhanee both
equality of opportunity and job creation. He has approved lower tariff
barriers for South African goods. And he has asked the other major
international donors to increase their investment.

     We look forward to South Africa taking up a full role within the
United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, and the other
international bodies in which it can play an important role.

     We are confident South Africa will be as strong a champion of
human rights around the world as it has become at home. We know that
South Africa will be a partner for peace, and in the fight against all
forms of genocide, "ethnic cleansing," or any other form of racial or
religious injustice.

     South Africa, by its magnificent, negotiated revolution; by its
generosity of spirit and accommodation; by its policies of inclusion
and reconciliation; and by an election free of violence has sent a
powerful message to the world.

     It is a message that differences, no matter how sharp and deeply
ingrained, can be set aside for the sake of the nation and the future
of its children.

     It is a message that desperately needs to be heard.

     It needs to be heard in Bosnia, where gunners shell sledding
children because of their religion. It needs to be heard in Rwanda,
where families from one tribe huddle in their homes dreading a knock
on the door from soldiers of the other.

     It needs to be heard in Azerbaijan and Haiti.

     And so we say to South Africa: you must succeed.

     You must succeed not only for yourself but for people on every
continent. For if South Africa is both free and prosperous ... If
South Africa shows the world how people of all colors can live in
harmony and mutual respect ...then South Africa becomes a beacon to
the world.

     And if we in America can help, we will bask in the sunshine of
your example and in the knowledge that millions of Americans and South
Africans have joined together to help make that dream real.

     I remember watching Nelson Mandela walk out of Pollsmoor Prison
four years ago. It was a Sunday morning in my country. Everyone in the
house was asleep except my ten year old son. We watched together as he
walked out, a free man.

     My son will live through much of the next century. He will see
many significant events. But he will see few as important as that one.

For it led to moments like the one this week, when the widow of Albert
Luthuli, ninety years old, was helped to the Moodley Old People's Home
in the city of Stanger. She scanned the ballot, the first allowed her
in her lifetime.

     Finding Nelson Mandela's name, her eyes sparkled. "Here he is,"
she cried, and marked her ballot.

     That ballot, added to millions of others will allow the man who
only a few years ago was Prisoner 466/64 to be sworn in as your
President.

     It will allow us to call President a man who has faced the most
daunting challenges; the worst forms of oppression; and who rose above
them to become a symbol of hope, the father of his reborn country and
the healer of its wounds .

     It is a time for celebration.

     And then you will begin the hard work of building a nation. Build
it in the schoolhouses of Soweto. Build it in the quiet offices in
which you will write your Constitution. Build it in the chambers of
your legislature and in the streets of your neighborhoods.

     I think of the words of Mbongeni Ngema (m-bon-ghini in-ghima),
the creator of Woza Albert:

     

     Sometimes in this life

     There is a need to celebrate who we are

     And what we stand for

     What we believe as we take our strides

     Every day.

     Today we must say

     Our lives will never be the same

     We must change the times

     There is reason to celebrate

     Let's change the course of history

     Let everybody get together

     Reach out to somebody next to you.

     Together we shall win

     All as one

     Our lives will never be the same.

     Our lives will never be the same, whether those just voting for
the first time in a Johannesburg suburb, or those around the world who
have yet to touch a ballot.

     Thank you all for the honor of inviting me and my family to
witness this change. God bless the new South Africa and all its
people.