![]() ![]() Everything that makes man's lives worthwhile – family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a place to rest one's head – all this depends on the decisions of government all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people, and I mean all of its people. ![]() Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard – to share in the decisions of government which shape men's lives. The first element of this individual liberty is the freedom of speech the right to express and communicate ideas, to set oneself apart from the dumb beasts of field and forest the right to recall governments to their duties and obligations above all, the right to affirm one's membership and allegiance to the body politic – to society – to the men with whom we share our land, our heritage and our children's future. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any western society. We stand here in the name of freedom.Īt the heart of that western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man, the child of God, is the touchstone of value, and all society, all groups, and states, exist for that person's benefit. This is a Day of Affirmation – a celebration of liberty. I was happy to have had the opportunity to meet and speak with him earlier this evening, and I presented him with a copy of Profiles in Courage, which was a book written by President John Kennedy and was signed to him by President Kennedy's widow, Mrs. I am very sorry that he can not be with us here this evening. Ian Robertson, who first extended this invitation on behalf of NUSAS, I wish to thank him for his kindness to me in inviting me. I know the National Student Association in the United States feels a particularly close relationship with this organization. Your work, at home and in international student affairs, has brought great credit to yourselves and your country. For a decade, NUSAS has stood and worked for the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – principles which embody the collective hopes of men of good will around the globe. Today I am glad to meet with the National Union of South African Students. I am making an effort to meet and exchange views with people of all walks of life, and all segments of South African opinion – including those who represent the views of the government. ![]() I am already greatly enjoying my visit here. I refer, of course, to the United States of America.īut I am glad to come here, and my wife and I and all of our party are glad to come here to South Africa, and we are glad to come here to Capetown. I come here this evening because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology a land which was once the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. Vice Chancellor, Professor Robertson, Mr.
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