It gives me great pleasure to be present today at this Cultural Function in the area of Inkosi Nzuza, Chairperson of the Ongoye Traditional Authority, to whom I extend my warmest fraternal greetings. I extend my fraternal greetings to other Amakhosi, from this Regional Authority area, and from outside who have all graced this occasion. Also members of the Royal House who are also with us on this occasion and I equally thank them for gracing this occasion. I am honoured to say a few words in my capacity as the Traditional Prime Minister of the Zulu Nation and Chairperson of the House of Traditional Leaders. I would also like to thank the Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism for extending this gracious invitation and for having the foresight to organise such an event.

As you will recall, my duties as a public servant often meant that I have not always been able to spend as much time amongst my people here as I would have liked. That is why it gives me such joy and added pleasure to be here with you today.

This cultural event is a timely reminder to us, as Zulus, that our culture is at the very centre of our existence. The colour and drama in such glorious array at this function bears out this truth today. As a people, we are famed everywhere for our vibrant and spectacular dancing, some of which we will enjoy today.

One regrets that there is a growing tendency across the globe to often sacrifice culture in the name of progress and modernity. I believe, and I am sure you will agree with me, that this is a mistake. It is right to embrace the benefits of progress and modernity and it is possible to do so without surrendering our ancient and tested cultural ties.

As the Traditional Prime Minister of the Zulu Nation, I carry the weighty responsibility of ensuring that our people retain the best of our traditions whilst benefiting from the fruits of democracy. I must express the fear today that our Zulu culture is in peril.

It is not imperilled because of democracy in principle, which I devoted my entire life to attaining. It is in peril because of how democracy is often practised, with scant regard for consensus seeking and a community upwards approach, both of which lie at the heart of our African way of life.

My advice to you today is: Draw upon our shared cultural values to guide yourselves along democracy's path and ensure that you derive the most from it.

None of this, of course, is new. The aim of the movement I lead, Inkatha, has always been to reconcile our cultural and national aspirations with the basic principles of democracy. In the year of the 30th anniversary of Inkatha, our task is more relevant today than ever. We may have attained democracy, but our culture and way of life are slipping away.

Whilst our nation was forged in the heat and blood of the battlefields, our warrior dances today have taken on a somewhat more ceremonial form. This, however, does not mean that we must not possess the same warrior spirit which prevailed in King Shaka's time. I mean courage not to skirt the issues of the day. I do not mean militancy for which the Zulu people are famous.

This warrior spirit is now transformed into a spirit of commitment and courage. Although the battlefield has changed, present day life requires the same strength of character which was once called for in war. We must be proud of this characteristic of our Zuluness.

We were warriors in war in the past and we remain warriors today in the great battles of our time. These are for development and against unemployment, crime, corruption, poverty and HIV/AIDS. We have learnt on the battlefield that unless we are united in a spirit of sacrifice and cohesiveness, the enemy cannot be defeated. The same lesson applies to the enemies now confronting our nation. These are poverty, unemployment, HIV/AIDS and underdevelopment.

We can defeat these enemies if we knit our heads, hearts and souls together, in a collegial effort to declare war on these enemies and do what it takes to defeat them. The spirit of King Shaka still runs through our veins and quickens our blood as we face and conquer today's challenges.

When King Shaka laid the foundations of the Zulu nation in 1818, he did so in the belief that if our nation was to survive and flourish, it would need to be sustained by the principles of unity and strength. I believe this truth still resonates as powerfully today.

Yet I am of the view that all our constituent traditions should be respected and cherished if we are to move forward as one nation. The celebration of our diverse cultures, such as this one today, will strengthen our nation, not weaken it. A truly democratic South Africa can only be achieved by reconciling our need for unity and our quest for diversity.

An even greater challenge than this one faces our nation today. Without doubt, it is the single biggest challenge of our time. I am speaking of the HIV/Aids pandemic. In my role as a leader, I am obliged to speak about it on every public platform, and I do.

We live in an hour, in which young people die untimely deaths in true Old Testament numbers. The annual death toll due to HIV/AIDS in this province alone eclipses the numbers lost in the tsunami that recently struck South East Asia. The Tsunami left an appalling trail of devastation in its wake, conveyed in moving images around the world. HIV/AIDS has somehow inserted itself into our lives more surreptitiously. Yet its effects are all around us.

The harsh reality is that the HIV/AIDS crisis has created many more victims than the tsunami our society has sustained long lasting suffering and social costs. However, it has not solicited the same reaction in the world and from the international community.

We live in a time when parents bury the children they raised. At present HIV/AIDS has claimed over a million lives, most in rural areas, like this one. I doubt if there is one person here today whose life has not been directly, or indirectly, affected by HIV/AIDS. But many of us are too ashamed to speak about it.

It is therefore right to salute our former President, Nelson Mandela, who followed me, by speaking out when he told the country and the world two weeks ago that he had lost his son to HIV/AIDS. As sad as it is, Madiba's story is not unusual. It is one that is played out in families and communities daily across our nation.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic affects every person. The untimely death of Madiba's son reminds us that the HIV/AIDS pandemic affects every person, irrespective of colour, creed and class. Not only must we go back to our cultural roots to defeat this disease, I believe our nation desperately needs a moral reawakening.

I have long been inspired by the story of Uganda and even more so after my recent visit. This Great Lakes nation is an undisputed success story in fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Uganda has much fewer resources to bring forth than South Africa. Yet the Ugandan people, under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni, have succeeded in reducing the rate of the pandemic from 30 percent to 5 percent by returning to traditional values.

Last year I had the privilege of attending the Southern African Christian Leadership Conference in Pretoria which was addressed by Mrs Janet Museveni, wife of President Museveni. She told us that the Ugandan people have fought the pandemic by returning to the teachings of the Church and the mores of the African people. She recalled how her husband told a conference in Italy that if all the Ugandan people have to save them is a piece of rubber, then they are doomed from the start. Mrs Museveni was, of course, referring to condoms. Prophylactics are an important part of our fight against HIV/AIDS, but they are not enough alone. Our nation needs a moral awakening to complement the ABC programme, if we are to survive. If there are any of you who do not know, ABC stands for abstinence, be faithful and condoms.

I know from a lifetime conviction and experience that such an awakening begins in the family and in a community upwards approach. The AmaKhosi gathered here today have a vital role to play in the promotion of tradition and culture in their communities to fighting HIV/AIDS. I exhort AmaKhosi to use their positions to tear down the walls of silence and stigma in their community.

In fact, the role of AmaKhosi is important across the spectrum of all our cultural activities. They are the backbone of what maintains and preserves our Zuluness. I am very concerned about the efforts which have been made in the past ten years to undermine traditional leadership. These efforts have been renewed and they are not abating.

The latest of these efforts could be the final blow to traditional leadership and indeed to the very notion of our Zulu nation. The provincial government has tabled a Bill, the KwaZulu Natal Traditional Leadership and Governance Bill, 2004, which will have the practical effect of disintegrating our nation.

The Bill does not recognise the role of the traditional leaders exercising the governance of our community. In so doing, it undermines the very centre of our traditions which places traditional leaders as the centre through which a community governs itself. Traditional leadership is what enables a community to have its own government for a variety of things which affect the community. If the centre of government falls, the community will need to rely only on external factors, such as municipalities.

More importantly, this Bill's conception and design completely ignores the very notion of a Zulu nation, a Zulu Monarchy, and a Zulu Kingdom. There is nothing about these important elements. It brings the King under the control of the Premier. In a variety of aspects, the King will be subservient to the Premier. Even in respect of the selection of a new King, the Premier exercises almost a paramount role. The Premier exercises the same role in respect of the appointment of new traditional leaders. There is no doubt that, even though we now have a black government, their practice evokes the old apartheid style and notions.

It seems that like a big white colonial administrator, the Premier according to this Bill becomes the paramount chief of traditional leaders and holds them accountable to him for a variety of functions. It is almost as if they were a pawn, or element, in the chain of indirect governance or indirect administration. The Zulu nation must be very concerned about this Bill because it intends to collapse our nation into the broader unity of South Africa.

When in 1993 we accepted to enter into a united South Africa, we made it very clear that we would do so on the basis of the Zulu nation being respected and protected. We did not consider that there was only one nation in South Africa.

We recognise South African nationhood and that there is a South African nation. However, we have indicated, over and again, that we as Zulus believe that South Africa must be a nation of nations and that Zulus must recognise the features, characteristics and privileges of nationhood. Our Monarchy and our Kingdom are the expression of our nationhood. By denying their existence and their legal recognition, the Government continues to ignore the very essence of Zulu nationhood.

From today's denial of our Zulu nationhood, tomorrow will follow the denial of our Zuluness. In a few years, it is likely that features of our Zuluness will be denied and they will try to foist upon us a uniform sense of Africanism. We find all this unacceptable. It overturns the guarantees, which were given to us in 1993 and 1994, when we became part of the final constitutional settlement which led us from apartheid to democracy.

Since then we have waited for our liberation. We accepted that our first democratic election of April 4, 1999, would be the door through which a process would begin for our liberation. We never sought to be separated from the rest of South Africa. We embraced the unity of South Africa. However, we sought to have our own Kingdom within the broader parameters of the unity of South Africa. Instead of April 1994 beginning a process of the liberation of our nation, it turned out that it began a process of even greater enslavement. Everything which embodies and represents our nation has been progressively destroyed, especially in respect of traditional leadership.

Our nation has reached a crucial time where it really needs to decide whether it wants to take a stand now, with the same spirit we possessed in the past, or whether if we are ready to let it go and for it to be lost forever to future generations. We need to ask ourselves whether our grandchildren and their children's children will identify themselves as Zulus in the greater unity of South Africa. Or whether we agree that they will just look at themselves as South Africans, without any memory or awareness of the values, characteristics and features which made all of us Zulus today and proud inheritors of the legacy of our fathers and ancestors.

I say that it is our responsibility to preserve our Zuluness. I say that we have the responsibility to rise again; to make our voice ring out across the hills and valleys of KwaZulu; to let the rest of South Africa know that we are Zulus, and we will not let our Zuluness be destroyed. We entered the constitutional settlement in 1994 on the basis of the assurance that our nation would be respected. It is clear that that assurance has been broken. It was broken since the beginning, when the formal and solemn Agreement for international mediation was dishonoured. Since then, there has been one breach of promise after the other. Now if this Bill becomes law it will place our own King under the control of the Premier.

All this remains unacceptable. We must now ensure that the voice of the Zulu nation is heard. From the hills and valleys of KwaZulu, we need to make the voice of the Zulu nation rise again to protect our nationhood. We must make the statement 'KwaZulu is forever'. We preserved KwaZulu after its defeat by the British colonial power and during the dark ages of apartheid and racism. We will continue to preserve KwaZulu as an important component of a united South Africa.

We must keep the protection of our nation very clear in our mind as we celebrate our culture. Without a nation, there is no culture to speak of.

It is true that a nation which loses its culture has lost its soul. But a culture which loses its nation is nothing but a ghost echoing in the dark, the resonance of a distant, lost and misunderstood past. Let us therefore celebrate our culture today as part of our broader claim to never allow our nation to die. We want our political representatives to have the courage to clearly state that they are Zulus; they represent Zulu interests, and they are part of the Zulu nation.

We still wait for the Premier of this Province to assert, affirm, recognise and protect his Zuluness. Our Zuluness is at the centre core of our culture. Celebrating our culture today is one and the same as celebrating our Zuluness. I call upon all those who represent the Zulu people to act as part of the Zulu nation and openly declare themselves as being the representatives of the Zulu nation.

As we celebrate our culture today, it is clear that challenges we face as a nation are great and momentous. I would like to briefly mention one more. Later this year, South Africa will hold its third Local Government Elections. I exhort everyone here today to prepare in earnest for these elections. I am concerned at the high levels of voter apathy, particularly for local government. Low voter turnout may produce ruling formations which might not adequately express the will of the majority.

Let us not forget how long it took us to bring about a democratic order that allows majorities to express their will. Let us not throw away any opportunity to express that will today.

The forthcoming elections will decide how you will be governed by the tier of government closest to you. This is the time for people to consider carefully which party has the proven track record of vigorously defending our nation and its heritage. Which party is the true custodian of our culture and traditions? Which party promotes these values from community upwards? My plea to you today is not to be complacent. Go out and vote! And vote responsibly! Once again, I would like to heartily congratulate the Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism and AmaKhosi for organising this festival and for extending their kind invitation to me. I believe that if we stay true to our culture and best traditions, there is no hardship that we cannot bear and overcome in 2005.