Celebrating our Freedom Day honours-list heroes
Remarks of Shanthie Naidoo Tweedie Recreation Centre, Lenasia Extension 3, 28th April 2014 Comrades of the African National Congress Eminent Persons here present, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for the opportunity to say a few words on this occasion. I thank the ANC Lenasia Branch for organising this celebration. We are here to honour Reggie Vandeyar, Shirish Nanabhai, Abdulhay Jassat, and my brother Indres Naidoo, who is unable to be with us. The Naidoo and Pillay families are very proud of Indres. We have always been proud of him. We are happy that Indres's contribution to the freedom struggle has been recognised with the order of Mendi in Silver, bestowed on him by our President, President Jacob Zuma, yesterday. We remember that my mother, Manonmoney Naidoo, whose maiden name was Pillay, and who was known to one and all as "Ama" Naidoo, was posthumously awarded the order of Luthuli in Silver by then-President Thabo Mbeki in 2006. The Naidoos and the Pillays are equally happy that our comrades Reggie, Shirish, and Abdulhay "Charlie" Jassat, all of whom are close and dear friends of ours, have been recognised by the state for their contribution to the victorious struggle against apartheid. We accept these awards with gratitude and without hesitation, because they represent a serious and honest desire by the South African State and by the South African people to keep the knowledge of what happened, alive. For our part, as the Naidoo-Pillay family, and as descendants of the late C K "Thambi" Naidoo, we would like you to know that we are hard at work on a project to record and publish everything about the struggle history of our family. By the way, the history of all Indian and all other Black families under apartheid was a history of struggle. We must not complain that nothing is being done about recording our history. The awards that we are celebrating today are a clear sign of willingness to embrace, honour and preserve the history of the struggle. At the same time, the quality and the extent of such a grand history project will be in direct proportion to the effort that ordinary people, participants in the struggle, put into it. We would urge you to make an effort to record the history of the past century and more. My sister Ramnie and my brothers Murthie and Prema, and other family members, are here with us. We all thank you. We would like to mention here the award of Luthuli in Silver that was yesterday bestowed upon our late beloved friend, Wolfie Kodesh. South Africa is a much better place than it was under apartheid. The struggle was not for nothing. We can all be proud of ourselves, and of our country. Our children and our grandchildren will benefit from the sacrifices that these comrades made. I thank you all. -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
