We have come as friends to all the people of the native land of the Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, who in his gentle compassion for the victim resolved to give no quarter to any butcher. His sacrifices for our freedom told us that the true relation- ship between our people was not one between poor citizens, on the one hand, and good patricians, on the other, but one underwritten by our common humanity and our human capacity to touch one another's hearts across the oceans. We come to you as friends, bearing with us, to you and the nations you represent, warm greetings from the hearts of millions of our citizens. Even in the most lifeless of historical seasons, two hundred years would be too long a period for the force of change not to break free. Change has come to our country too, perhaps at last, but bringing with it joy, the promise of a better future and a protracted festival of hope across the globe.
Racism is a blight on the human conscience.
The idea that any people can be inferior to another, to the point where those who consider themselves superior define and treat the rest as sub-human, denies the humanity even of those who elevate themselves to the status of gods. It seems to us that, as the ordinary people of the world came to understand the real nature of the system of apartheid, they decided that they would not permit that their response to that question should be to hang their heads in shame. Our emancipation is their reward. We know that the freedom we enjoy is a richly-textured gift handcrafted by ordinary folk who would not allow that their own dignity as human beings should be insulted. In the acceptance of that gift is contained an undertaking by our people that we shall never again allow our country to play host to racism.