Thabo Mbeki fabricated and boldly delivered and impressive speech that urged all South

Africans to learn about their past and embrace their diverse nation. He fostered a sense of unity
by acknowledging every clan in South Africa. He achieved this through several compound-
complex sentences, giving his speech a rhythm and retaining the audience's attention.

The speaker repeatedly asserted with strong conviction, "I am an African", which stirred up
feelings of patriotism in the audience, creating a common ground for unity. This simple and
concise sentence made a powerful impact. The audience is able to relate with the speaker on a
personal level, as they share a common identity. This unifying effect motivates the audience to
work together and fosters a sense of belonging.

In his speech, Thabo Mbeki depicted the nation as a mother saying ‘he owes his being’ to her.
He further describes her being filled with ‘hills and valleys, mountains and the glades, the rivers,
the Deserts, the trees, the flowers, the Seas and the ever-changing seasons’ that define her
face. This helped the audience relate to him as one of them and feel secure in his role as the
President of South Africa. Personifying South Africa as a mother also establishes a kinship
between all South Africans thereby fortifying their unity.

In his speech, Thabo Mbeki indirectly refers to the difficulties he faced while working towards
South Africa's freedom. He says that his ‘body had frozen in their frosts’ and ‘melted in the heat
of the midday sun’. This shows the physical and emotional challenges he encountered during
his struggle. However, he also expresses how his nation gave him solace by saying that his
body had ‘thawed in the warmth of their sunshine’. This implies how he protected South Africa
and how the nation, in turn, supported him. This gives the audience assurance that they are not
alone in fighting for and improving their nation.

He metaphorically says, ‘we act out the foolish deeds of the theatre of our day’, in ‘Drakensberg,
the soil-coloured waters of the Lekoa, iGqili noThukela, and the sands of the Kgalagadi’, the
‘panels of the set’.This clearly shows how much he regretted his past involvement in violence
and fights, which he bluntly termed as ‘foolish’. His words had a profound impact on the
audience, leaving them with a sense of connection and relatability, as they too may have made
these mistakes in the past that they deeply regret.

Thabo Mbeki reinforms the audience of how they are not the only citizens of South Africa by
asking if ‘he should concede equal citizenship of their country to the leopard and the lion, the
elephant and the springbok, the hyena, the black mamba and the pestilential mosquito’.By
saying this he states that, though they might not be as powerful as the leopard and the lion, as
Majestic as the elephant in the springbok, as happy as the hyena, and as sly as the Black
Mamba and the pestilential mosquito, they have all been allowed to concede equal citizenship
to them. This helps the audience feel fortunate to be born in such a vibrant nation.

The speaker broke the ‘audible silence’ - an oxymoron, used to depict the known, and
purposeful silence throughout - and used a strong emotion of pathos to reminisce about their
ancestors. ‘They who fell victim to the most merciless genocide our native land has ever seen,
they who were the first to lose their lives in the struggle to defend our freedom and
independence and they who, as a people, perished in the result’. The speaker uses the
common past to build a relationship with the audience which he further fortified using emotive
language.

The speaker touched on almost every clan in South Africa to make each person feel important
and a part of the struggle that they have come through. He says that his veins course the blood
of the ‘Malay slaves’ which are a reminder imposed on his consciousness of what should not be
done. He says he is the grandchild of the warrior men and women that ‘Hintsa’ and
‘Sekhukhune’ led, the patriots that ‘Cetshwayo’ and ‘Mphephu’ took to battle, the soldiers
‘Moshoeshoe’ and ‘Ngungunyane’ taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom. He says he
is formed from the victories that they earned from ‘Isandhlwana’ to ‘Khartoum’, as ‘Ethiopians’
and as the ‘Ashanti of Ghana’, as the ‘Berbers of the desert’. He says he is the grandchild who
lays fresh flowers on the Boer graves at St Helena and the ‘Bahamas’. He says he is a child of
‘Nongqause’, he who made it possible to trade in the world. He says he came from those who
were transported from ‘India’ and ‘China’ and learned to be at home and be foreign. Thabo
Mbeki highlighted the diversity of South Africa and their goal to establish unity in diversity. By
sharing what he learned from each clan, the audience is left with a sense of pride and belonging
to their own people while being enlightened by the virtues of other clans.