I move:
That Seanad Éireann welcomes the emergence of the Zimbabwean Republic, congratulates all the people of Zimbabwe in their successful democratic resolution of their internal differences and pledges full support and co-operation with the new State.
On Friday of this week, two days hence, we will see the formal establishment of the liberty of a new nation. Its emergence, of course, started a long time ago and I am very proud that this House of the Oireachtas should be debating a motion to welcome that emergence, and should be expressing its welcome. It is appropriate for us because, though now consolidated we are ourselves a relatively new nation with an experience of oppression in our history and—though the term is unfashionable I use it quite deliberately—we have an experience of imperialism. We know what it feels like for the people of Zimbabwe because we have many experiences similar to theirs, short of the obscene experience of the differentiating among people on the basis of colour. That we did not have but very many of their other experiences we share and that gives us a great sense of empathy with them. It certainly gives me an enormous sense of admiration for what they have done.
There are two aspects to the experience of Africa that Ireland has. Many people have gone and are going open-heartedly with love and to be of help. Some Irish have gone to participate in a process of exploitation and in a process of racism. I want on this occasion to reiterate my abhorrence, that of my party and, I trust, of the whole Seanad at the practice of racism. I want to express also my abhorrence of the actions of the illegal regime of Premier Ian Smith, and the actions of those countries and great companies which sustained him through that illegal regime.
We have to say in our joy on this occasion that the struggle against racism and oppression in Southern Africa is not over; with this amazing victory it has entered a new phase.
While history is not made by individuals, the people of Zimbabwe in their political leadership in the Patriotic Front are lucky to possess such a strikingly able and admirable individual as Robert Mugabe. I want to express a sense of admiration at the things they have achieved. It required an extraordinary strategic skill to have seen with such clarity the road to their present degree of liberation. It needed an amazing tactical skill at the Lancaster House Conference in London to see that the time had come for what looked to me then, I confess, as compromise, but which turned out to be brilliant tactical skill and the seizing of an opportune moment. We must admire, too, their wonderful organisational skill, not just the skill which sustained a long guerrilla campaign and the organisation of their movement in conditions of brutalisation and murder, but the organisational skill necessary to keep their leadership physically alive in the face of that murder.
My greatest sense of admiration is reserved for the amazing magnanimity, nobility of character and the absence of bitterness that has been shown in the moment of victory. What a good thing for Zimbabwe and all of the persons there, regardless of colour, what a good thing for Africa, for the whole world, that the people of Zimbabwe did not learn the attitude and the manners of their oppressors. They have shown us what magnanimity and nobility can be. Over recent months up to and since the elections we must express our admiration for the extraordinary political maturity of the people.
The dangers remain immense for this new country. There is the obvious danger of people trying to return to a white supremacist Ian Smith type of status quo. They are not out of the wood, far from it. They have made an extraordinarily brilliant start to building a society where there is not oppression, either by colour or by the power of wealth or privilege.
For me it is a matter of great pride to be able to salute them across thousands of miles, to wish them well, to say what a great sense of admiration they have already engendered in us, and how intensely we wish through the decades to see them building a society in Zimbabwe that embodies the equality of all human beings and the abolition of the shameful divisions introduced from outside Africa. by people who in terms of kith and kin are close to us. We are ashamed of that past oppression. We applaud their brilliant start and wish them well.