Language is one of the main seeds of a person’s ethnic identity.

By Marlan Padayachee and Rita Abraham

Language is one of the main seeds of a person’s ethnic identity

GOPIO CONFERENCE TOPIC: ‘THE IMPORTANCE OF MOTHER LANGUAGES IN THE INDIAN DIASPORA AND THE REVIVAL OF OUR ANCESTRAL LANGUAGES’ PRESENTED BY MS RITA ABRAHAM, SOUTH AFRICAN BUSINESSWOMAN, FINANCIAL ADVISOR, FOUNDER OF WOMEN’S GROUP FORTE SOUTH AFRICA, PHILANTHROPIST, INTERFAITH, HUMANITARIAN AND CHARITY WORKER

Mr President

Honourable Conference Chairperson

Distinguished Delegates, Guests, Stakeholders, Role-players

All Protocols Observed

Ladies and Gentlemen, I come from the land of Nelson Mandela where Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi taught us the language of love, peace, tolerance, respect, self-dignity and Satyagraha (nonviolent protest).

South Africa is much as a cultural melting pot as India, the ancient land of mother tongue and ancestral languages and dialects, except that the scale of economies is much smaller as compared to the great cultural bastion that sits majestically in the South Asian bloc of culturally-enriched nations like China.

It is therefore with a deep sense of pride and patriotism that I wish to greet you in the indigenous languages of our rainbow nation that so many of you in Indian and the Diaspora communities revere and admire because of our historical ties, our love for secularism and cultural diversity and our propensity for peace, freedom and human rights.

Let me begin in my own mother tongue languages:

· Vannakam

· Namaskarumu

· Namaste

Coming back to the country of diverse languages and dialects, let me share some traditional greetings with you.

In the language of our colonial rulers, I would say to this global gathering:

· ‘Hello, how are you?’ – in English.

· ‘Hello, hoe gaan dit, boetie or sissie?’ – in the language of our apartheid rulers – Afrikaans.

Imagine, how the Gandhian teaching of tolerance has taught us to respect the two languages that were the currency of oppression, exploitation and human suffering.

Along with English and Afrikaans, we have nine other indigenous African languages.

Alongside English, isiZulu is the currency of our social cohesion, economics and politics in my homeland of Kwazulu Natal.

So, I will continue to greet, by saying ‘Sawubona, unjani? – in isiZulu.

Again, it’s ‘Hello, how are you?’

· In Xhosa, I would say: ‘Molo, kunjani?’

· Lotjhani, Unjani? – in Ndebele.

· Dumela, O kae? – in Sepedi, and the same in Sotho or Tswana.

· Sawubona, kunjani? – in Swati

· Ndaa, vho vuwa hani? – in Venda

· Avuxeni, Ku njhani? – in Tsonga.

Ladies and Gentlemen, our march to freedom and human dignity began with much frenzy and fanfare on the 27^th of April 1994.

Our political leaders who were engaged in dialogue, despite the differences of languages, drew a great deal of wealth and knowledge from how Gandhi, along with Jawharlal Nehru and other distinguished Indian and African leaders had mapped out the road to self-rule from colonialism and later apartheid.

There was quite uproar, an air sceptism and cynicism when the constitutional writers and lawmakers of our fledgling, new democracy emerged with a resolution that the new South Africa shall be governed by 11 languages, including the colonial-apartheid currency of English and Afrikaans.

As some of the leading linguists and academics gathered here will attest that post-colonial India, like post-apartheid South Africa, had embarked on a major reformist agenda of realigning the local and national landscapes of our nations whose ancient history, ancestral footprints, cultural heritage, indigenous languages, were bombarded, if not bastardised, by the language of cultural imperialism.

As newly independent India began the process of creating Indian states at the start of self-rule in 1947, languages played a part in redefining the geo-political landscapes.

A bunch of some the present-day India’s states boundaries created were based on the boundaries of the main Indian languages as recognized by the Indian constitution.

But, the Indian constitution uses the term ‘mother tongue’ instead of language or dialect.

We have legislated it as ‘languages’ as opposed to ‘mother tongue’.

By definition and description, ‘mother tongue’ is the language first learned by a child; and a language from which another has evolved.

Like India, independent South Africa placed a high premium of languages and dialects as a key driver of constitutional reform and political changes.

We, too, as much as we celebrate of our sea of colour, cuisine and cultural diversity, have come to recognise and respect ‘language’ as one of the main seeds of a person’s ethnic identity.

The Indian Constitution recognizes 18 official Indian languages.

Though the process of creating states based on languages began in 1953, I understand that up to the present day, there are still demands for new states for different language speakers in India.

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages that is spread over nine provinces, and each or more that is unique to a particular geo-political region of our small, but yet vast country that stands as the gateway to a multi-lingual Africa.

Why, may you wonder or ponder that a community that has played such a powerful role in South Africa’s freedom struggle do not have any of the one Indian languages recognized in our national language framework?

I can assure you that the Indian languages that define the South African Indian, such as Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Gujerati and Urdu are fully recognized in the South African Constitution alongside religious freedom and practice in our secular society.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I hail from a province where the common currency is isiZulu, the dominant language of the majority Zulu-speaking people whose forebears were led by the legendary King Shaka.

In terms of the dynamics of this particular language that is home to millions of Zulu-speaking Africans, it is therefore imperative and important for my fellow Indian compatriots that make up the majority Indian concentration in KwaZulu-Natal to learn to speak the language of a region where the majority of South Africa’s 1, 3 million Indians reside in the City of Durban.

Like in India, provinces in South Africa are defined on regions whose boundaries are based on languages, for example isiZulu for KwaZulu, or Sotho, Xhosa or Ndebele for Gauteng, the country’s economic and infrastructural hub, and in the Indian context, Kerala for Malyalam speakers; Tamil Nadu for Tamil speakers; Karnataka for Kanadda speakers; Andra Pradesh for Telugu speakers; Maharashtra for Marathi speakers; Orissa for Oriya speakers; West Bengal for Bengali speakers; Gujarat for Gujarati speakers; Punjab for Punjabi speakers; Assam for Assami speakers, etc.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have shared this component of our culturally enriching nation, in comparison with India, and the context of ‘THE IMPORTANCE OF MOTHER LANGUAGES IN THE INDIAN DIASPORA AND THE REVIVAL OF OUR ANCESTRAL LANGUAGES’ to bring home the point that as members of the Indian Diaspora, South African Indians can no longer survive by living and working in a void or an ethno- cultural bubble of their own.

The very nature of South Africa’s constitutional and cultural reform calls on Indian South Africans to assimilate to the national psyche of an evolving, emerging, nonracial, non-discriminatory and democratic society.

We have to blend our language spectrum in order to share of legacy of language with our fellow citizens and compatriots.

If at all, we have succeeded in making a Zulu-speaking citizen, Patrick Ngcobo to sing and play carnatic music in the Indian vernacular language, then we have made a small beginning to towards sharing the richness of our language with African people.

However, Indian South Africans are a unique and colourful community which has the capacity, in line with the Indian Government’s progressive, nation-building and cultural exchange policies and programmes, to share our legacy of language with the rest of South Africa’s diverse population tapestry.

We need the global platform of GOPIO and to an extent the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas programme that honours the day Gandhiji returned to India from South Africa to ensure that a free India will transcend the barriers of language and culture so that all Indians will speak in one language, the language of progress, peace and prosperity.

So, what a better time in history it has been to share the Indian language and legacy with the rest of our nation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, 2010 marked the 150^th year of the arrival of the Indian indentured labourers in South Africa.

This milestone was celebrated and commemorated throughout the country in a colourful pageantry of song, dance, culture and cuisine in which everyone spoke the language of cultural diversity, nation-building, peace and prosperity.

When ‘Coolie Number One’ 30-year-old Christian-Indian Davuram from Madras stepped off the SS Truro and set foot on the shores of Durban, a new language was born of the shores of Durban.

And when the second indentured labourer on the ship’s manifest, 18-year-old Naguram, probably his wife, and their two children, four-year-old Kubay, and one-year-old Elizabeth, the seedlings of a whole new cultural identity was to spread across the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Hidden in the treasure troves of the trunks they carried into a brave new beginning, the semi-slaves cherished the books of religious studies and teachings, the Holy Bible, the Sanskrit template, the Bhagavad Gita, the Kurrukal, and ancient literature, folklores, scripts and musical scores.

By the time the last Indian touched our soil, more than 200 000 Indians had arrived in Durban, all carrying with them the cultural and literary wealth of India.

Therefore, with much pride, on Tuesday, 16^th November, 2010, Indian communities all over South Africa celebrated and commemorated these founding pioneers, who together with the other batch of Indians on board the ships, have today been judged by history for the enormous contribution to building and sustaining one of the most dynamic Diaspora communities outside India.

To the indigenous local people or the colonialists, this stoical band of sugar cane cutters spoke a strange, foreign language as they toiled from dawn to dusk under the African sun.

Through the ancient language of Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu, these Indian sub-groups survived the most horrendous human drama in living history to maintain and sustain these ancient languages and dialects; galvanise the community against naked racism and exploitation, erect monuments of worships to the Gods of language, peace, love, build schools to teach in the vernacular, sing in the vernacular and play from vernacular musical notes.

Even Christian-Indians prayed, praised, worshipped and sang in the vernacular, rendering religious songs and hymns in Tamil and Telugu.

In the broader picture of one community’s struggle to hold on to its language. not even the language restriction of apartheid for Indians to learn and speak the language of Afrikaans did not deter Indian South Africans from excelling in the mother tongue language.

English was, and still is, a currency of the economy to earn a living and get a better education.

But running almost parallel to the foreign languages and dialects of Africa, Indian South Africans continued to maintain the cultural link with Mother India or Thai Nadu, as we say in Tamil or Telugu, and we continue to seek religious and cultural succour from what many of Indian South Africans may still refer to India as the ‘motherland’.

Despite successive attempts to take Indian languages off the curriculum of the South African education system, the promoters and purveyors of the Indian languages and dialects have become the diehard custodians of an ancient language that defined the arrival and survival of Indians in South Africa – thanks largely to the skilful communication of the language the indentured labourers used to articulate their fears, hopes and expectations during one of the darkest periods in modern civilisation when indenture replaced slavery.

As part of the Indian Diaspora, we need to look to India and the 20-million Diaspora communities to maintain the language of our indentured and trading forebears.

India gave us more than a new nation outside the ‘motherland’.

Collectively and culturally, we have benefited from somen of the Indian languages that have a long literary history, such as Sanskrit, literature that is more than 5 000 years old, and my own mother tongue, Tamil that is 3 000 years old.

Therefore, Mr Chairperson, ‘THE IMPORTANCE OF MOTHER LANGUAGES IN THE INDIAN DIASPORA AND THE REVIVAL OF OUR ANCESTRAL LANGUAGES’ has to provide us with a new road map to navigate how generations of Indians to follow will learn to embrace the ancient languages and dialects that have come to define our progress, peace and prosperity in the post-modern economy and civilization.

We therefore have a moral or socio-religious responsibility and civic duty to hand down the legacy of this language that was first heard on the shores of the Bay of Durban on 16^th November 1860 to future generations of Indian South Africans.

After all, India is extremely rich in languages.

India is blessed by an uncountable number of languages and dialects that are spoken in towns, villages and cities across the sub-continent.

There are no less than 30 different languages along with 2 000 dialects that shapes and define India’s uniqueness as a cultural melting pot.

Like South Africa and many nations in the world, commercialism, industrialization and a bustling influence of multinationals in the local economy has made English into the most common language, after Hindi, from Sikkam to the Silicone Valley.

Quite fascinatingly, Hindi is spoken by more than 337 million people in India. The second most spoken Indian language is Bengali, being spoken by 70 million people.

In his evaluation and assessment of the Tamil Language and Murukan Worship in South Africa, Professor S Subramaniyan, wrote: “The life and breath of every individual are his mother language. This may be identified with signs or words which help to communicate. Language attains its real strength, power and divinity by its relationship with the Supreme One through prayer and the philosophy of worldly life.

This relationship between the individual and God guides one to attain power and strength for material and spiritual purposes, for which language helps. It also becomes an effective tool to all people in their various walks of life.”

I trust through my story-telling and narration that I wish to conclude that the topic of ‘THE IMPORTANCE OF MOTHER LANGUAGES IN THE INDIAN DIASPORA AND THE REVIVAL OF OUR ANCESTRAL LANGUAGES’ is as relevant and appropriate for the Indian Diaspora, alongside India and South Africa, to embark on a cultural journey across the world to promote and perpetuate the ancient languages, mother tongue and dialects that have come to define our collective cultural richness.

I thank you for this privilege of addressing you and may I leave these inspiring words with you: “As I age with, my maturing and wisdom has inspired me to read Buddhist teachings, the compassionate chapters of the Holy Qu’ran, the parables of the Bible and beautiful verses of the Bhagavad Gita.”

Language is one of the main seeds of a person’s ethnic identity.

Thank you

Nandrie

Dhanyavadalu

Dhanyavaad

Shukriyaa

Ngiyabonga

Ends

Speech researched, conceptualised and written for Rita Abraham, managing-director of South Africa Insurance, founder of Forte, South Africa’s women empowerment lobbying group, and leading motivational speaker, member of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), by Marlan Padayachee and GreenGold Africa Communications, greengold@mtnloaded.co.za, marlan.padayachee@gmail.com, + 00 27 31 266 4293; 266 2134; facsimile: 00 27 31 266 8592; PO Box 346 Pavilion 3611 South Africa.

Tribute to an old-school teacher Samuel Reuben

Tributes for Samuel Reuben

By Marlan Padayachee, on behalf of remedial teacher Venilla 'Pinky' Padayachee

Hundreds of mourners heard glowing tributes about former Durban principal Samuel Lawrence Reuben, of Malvern, who died after a long illness, aged 78, last week.

Messages were received from several people here and abroad.

Playwright and author Ron ie Govender recounted Reuben’s community activities in Cato Manor in the 1950s, saying the veteran teacher had served education, soccer and community arts and culture with distinction before the Group Areas Act uprooted communities and relocated them to Chatsworth.

After his retirement, Reuben relocated from his Havenside home to Malvern in the Queensburgh area.

Paying tribute at the funeral service at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Umbilo at the weekend, Dr David Charles sketched Reuben’s life’s work, saying as a religious personality and humanitarian, Reuben rose to the pinnacle of the Christian movement and he was credited for raising funds for worthy causes.

Family friend Marlan Padayachee described the former Parsee Rustomjee Primary School principal as one of the “last old-school headmasters” who combined the programmes of the classroom and the community in his efforts to promote education, mentorship, scholarship and good moral values.

“His humaneness that we today call Ubuntu; his generosity, kindness and his wonderful sense of humour endeared him to pupils, peers, parents and teachers,” he said.

He said Reuben’s actions and deeds had symbolised the stoicism, strength and morality of the pioneering 1860 Indian indentured labourers who had left behind a legacy of building schools for the community to ensure that Indians were an educated people.

Ends

A Colourful Community

A colorful community
By Marlan Padayachee

In January 2009, local Indians began building bridges at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Global Indian Diaspora) Convention in Chennai, India, an occasion that provides an opportunity to examine the perennial identity crisis facing the Indian community in South Africa who will celebrate 150 years in South Africa in 2010.

The Indian community will celebrate a plethora of projects marking their 150-year co-existence in Africa, a far cry from the country they refer to as the motherland or Thai Nadu.

While older generations are emotional and sentimental about traditional and historical ties with Mother India, the younger generations seek jobs and lifestyles in Western democracies, leaving behind the baggage of the past.

On the flipside, the hybrid of labourers and traders has the capacity to fuse this milestone into a continental psyche that will herald the first kick-off of the 2010 Soccer World Cup and throw Africa into a euphoric explosion of football frenzy. Their culture contributes to our cosmopolitan society.

A community with a history and heritage can offer much more to a country with the complexities and challenges of economic empowerment, nation-building, poverty, crime and corruption.

During the reign of the British Raj, agriculturally skilled Indians were shipped to South Africa and other colonial outposts to turn sugar cane plantations into new economies for the imperial industrialists, hence the term “green gold”. Peasants, faced with grinding poverty, were lured via the colonial expansion to work on the railways, mines, agriculture and domestic services.

After the SS Truro dropped anchor in Durban Bay on November 16, 1860 with the first batch, shiploads of semi-skilled slaves, professionals and merchants were ferried in droves. The economic migration ended 50 years later. The pioneers gave birth to a new generation, the largest outside India.

While the stoical semi-slaves transformed the green fields into gold for sugar barons, traders and craftsmen gave Indians an economic and capitalist face on this edge of the Indian Ocean rim.

It took a visionary, MK Gandhi, to change the complexion of how the business and the underclass Indians would map out their survival strategy and destiny in the face of discrimination that was also meted out to indigenous people.

In an Indian diaspora of 20 million, the local community stands out for a variety of reasons, with political resistance and an enterprising spirit ranking high.

The “uniqueness” comes from the work culture that they inherited from their forebears, always resilient in the face of adversity. Credibility came by siding with the oppressed masses. With this al-liance, they got rid of the colonial-apartheid leg irons.

Staving off repatriation, they sacrificed so much for so many people to enjoy freedom, social justice and human rights, making them a cut above the rest in the global village.

On the other side of the coin, the grass is no longer greener for working-class Indians, now in a similar position to poorer black workers.

Although Indians today are a formidable presence, enjoying social cohesion and economic advantage, and continue to influence business and politics, the legacy of the 1860 descendants has been left behind by change.

Or did the winds of an epoch-making transformation push Indians onto the margins of the economically empowered black mainstream, in sharp contrast to the role they played in the resistance to apartheid?

With 800 000 Indians in KwaZulu-Natal, 2010 still provides an excellent exhibition to showcase their 150 years.

Politically, the Indian swing vote is important to the national ballot, being split between the African National Congress and its dissident Congress of the People formation, and a variety of opposition parties.

Conservative by nature, Indians blow hot and cold. Always apolitical, they are cautious and put “place bets” on the political roulette wheel. They need to assimilate themselves into the nation’s heartbeat.

Yet of 1, 3 million Asians, two percent of South Africa’s population of 47 million, Indians are in the majority.

When they arrived from colonial India, they were termed Indian South Africans. At the Global People of Indian Origin gathering, they were called South Africans of Indian origin. They have evolved via political resistance to Indian-African or African-Indian.

Notwithstanding the sentimental journey, emotional bloodlines and poignant history, culminating in the triumphal spirit of humanity, the identity crisis is a post-apartheid challenge. This is further complicated by a strong identification with Bollywood, heart-throbbing ethnic music, spicy cuisines, sweetmeats and saris, demonstrating that the umbilical cord with Mother India is still intact.

That’s why a contingent of Indians had been busy lobbying at the Chennai Convention, hoping to sharpen their profiles, forge business opportunities and explore their ancestry. Significantly, Chennai is the port where mainly Tamil and Telugu-speaking labourers from the Madras presidency sailed for the “bay by the water”, and began to push into Africa.

Today, a legacy lives in the hearts and minds of a people whose forebears toiled from dawn to dusk under the African sun.

Marlan Padayachee is an independent journalist and socio-political commentator in South Africa.

Leave race issue out of it

Durban Welcomes World's Statisticians

VOTE OF THANKS BY HIS WORSHIP, COUNCILLOR OBED MLABA, MAYOR OF THE ETHEKWINI MUNICIPALITY, SOUTH AFRICA, AT OPENING CEREMONY OF THE 57th SESSION OF THE ISI CONFERENCE AT THE DURBAN ICC ON 16 AUGUST 2009.

Thank You, Programme Director.

Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I wish to recognise the leadership of the International Statistics Institute and the South African local organising committee.

Before I proceed any further with my vote of thanks, I would like to take this opportunity to pay homage to one of the finest mathematicians South Africa ever produced, Professor Thamsanqa Wilkinson Kambule, who recently passed away at the age of 88.

Despite the horrendous impact apartheid had on black people, the likes of the elder statesman of education, who mentored and inspired anti-apartheid luminaries such as the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Reverend Frank Chikane and a generation of disadvantaged leaders and activists, had succeeded in reaching the pinnacle of academic excellence.

The reality that ISI-2009 has arrived today is a testimony to the worldwide resolve to rid the world of this horrific brand of racial discrimination and prejudice.

But let me also extend a vote of thanks to Statistician-General, Mr Pali Lehohla and the rest of his team at Statistics South Africa for choosing Durban as the preferred venue to host this gathering of scientists.

I am told that since its formation 124-year ago, this association is meeting for the very first time in sub-Saharan Africa.

As the Mayor of the eThekwini Metropole, I have pleasure in performing this civic duty and taking this opportunity of extending a warm and cordial welcome to all our distinguished delegates to this, the 57th world session of the International Statistics Institute.


I am pleased that Durban will go down as the dateline and destination for the significant gathering of global players in the statistical field and those developments relevant to shaping the world-wide statistical agenda will be discussed in this great hall.

It is most heartening that the world continues to look to Africa and that the ISI has headlined this conference “Siyabonga Africa”.

I join the people of Durban in saying: “Siyabonga ISI-2009”.

As a growing convention city on the edge of the Indian Ocean Rim, Durban has clinched a string of “first in Africa” bids of world conventions, congresses, concerts and sports championships in the past dozen years.

Let me assure you that, as someone who has implicit faith in Africa’s ability to deliver world-class events, this continent is imbued with humanity and home-grown hospitality to ensure that you enjoy an unforgettable African experience.

Also, the ISI-2009 Conference could not have come at a better time for our province of KwaZulu Natal.
Delegates are visiting at a time when Durban has less than 300 days to welcome hundreds of thousands of local and foreign football fans to the 2010 FIFA World Cup to be held under the pan-African banner of “Ke Nako – Celebrating Africa’s Humanity!”

I hope that the soccer fans among the statisticians will join us again next year.

As a progressive city government committed to its 2020 Vision of ensuring that Durban enjoys the reputation of being Africa’s most caring and liveable city, I am proud that the City continues to host important conferences which bring together delegates from around the world.

Programme Director, Durban is known as South Africa’s playground and our delegates will get to witness this for themselves.

We will be throwing an exciting beach party for all of you on Tuesday.

I am confident that when all is said and done during the many sessions of your scientific discussions, including an extraordinary session on women in statistics, delegates will enjoy our sights and sounds while relaxing and experiencing an exotic taste of our cuisine, culture and hospitality.

I invite you to take a peep at the Moses Mabhida World Cup Soccer Stadium to get a sense of our unprecedented development since becoming a democratic state.

Our list of sightseeing and tourism icons, coupled with restaurants and pubs and major shopping malls are endless.

From the fascinating eco-friendly tourist zone of the Ushaka Marine World to the thunderous beats of Zulu culture, heritage and legacy in the Valley of the Thousand Hills, delegates will certainly receive value for money at these recommended tourist high spots.

Finally, I extend my best wishes to all the participants as you prepare to spend the next seven days discussing and debating issues ranging from the challenge of building a supply of statisticians for the future to tackling how many official statistical agencies are faced with the accelerating challenges to build and maintain the range of statisticians that are required to meet the ever increasing challenges of modern statistical offices.

Durban, South Africa and Africa will benefit from your intellectual and technical inputs, intervention and sharing of your diverse knowledge economy.

With these few words of good wishes and goodwill, I place on record the city’s gratitude and thanks to one and all that have made this conference an African reality today.

I Thank You.

Durban Mayor Salutes Imagine Durban Team

Message from Political Leadership
By City of Durban Mayor
His Worship Councillor
Obed Mlaba

At the outset, I wish to acknowledge the work of the Imagine Durban team during its 2007-2009 term in raising the profile on the eThekwini Municipality’s commitment to current global issues such safer and sustainable cities, climate change, energy saving, conservation, environment and greenhouse gas emissions.

Spearheaded by the city’s Corporate Policy Unit, the roll-out of the Demonstration Project reached many communities and created enormous awareness on environmental issues in the urban and rural areas of the Greater Durban Region in the past two years.

Through our partnership with the Canadian International Development Agency, the eThekwini Municipality led a successful community-driven initiative on integrated, long-term planning for Durban. I am pleased that this project, implemented in conjunction with Sustainable Cities, a Non- Governmental Organisation from Vancouver, Canada, and the PLUS Network of 35 cities in 14 countries, provided Durban with an international platform of sharing experiences in sustainability planning and sustainable community development.
An added boost to the project was Durban’s hosting of a conference on Sustainable Cities in 2008. After South Africa hosted the first World Summit on Sustainability at the turn of the new century, Durban became one of the first global cities to have signed protocols on Sustainability and Climate Change.
As a progressive city, the political leadership and the municipal administration are guided by the city’s 2020 vision that reads: "By 2020, eThekwini Municipality will enjoy the reputation of being Africa’s most caring and liveable city, where all citizens live in harmony. This Vision will be achieved by growing its economy and meeting people’s needs so that all citizens enjoy a high quality of life with equal opportunities, in a city that they are truly proud of.”

As a city that cares for its citizens and the environment and that is why as a city government we remain committed to transforming Durban into a truly sustainable city by striving to achieve the following key focal areas and themes:

· Creating a safer city;
· Ensuring a more environmentally sustainable city;
· Promoting an accessible city;
· Creating a city where all enjoy sustainable livelihoods;
· Fostering a more caring and empowering city;
· Celebrating the city’s cultural diversity, history and heritage;
Through Durban’s Long Term Planning for City Sustainability, I am confident that the publication, The Power of Imagination, published by the Corporate Policy Unit, will chronicle the short history of the Imagine Durban project and bring to the public domain the 50 Lessons from Durban, South Africa.

May the “Imagine” concept continue to highlight Durban’s commitment to change ahead of the United Nations’ Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Hopefully, Africa’s contribution, concerns and perspectives to the governmental negotiations will lead to the formation of a continental network on environmental and Climate Change issues.

Message researched and written by Marlan Padayachee, Amanda Cele,Sally Nene, Sibusiso Ngema, all of GreenGold Africa Communications, on behalf of the Mayor’s Office, City of Durban, eThekwini Municipality, for the Durban’s Long-Term Planning for City Sustainability, Power of Imagination publication by the Corporate Policy Unit, 7 August 2009 / www.greengoldcom.com/ greengold@mtnloaded.co.za 083 796 1762/ 083 797 1762/ 031 266 0178, 266 5599 (telefax)