Solidarity saved us then. Values will save us now: Jay Naidoo

Key topics:Global solidarity helped end apartheid in South Africa.Moral leadership and values are key to today's crises.Freedom Park honours those who stood for justice and action..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Jay Naidoo.Today at Freedom Park, overlooking the ancient ridges of the Magaliesberg, I witnessed a moment that reminded me why South Africa is free. It is because of the power of global solidarity. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia unveiled the names of Malcolm Fraser Bob Hawke and Bruce Haig three Australians who stood with us when the world was divided between those who defended apartheid and those who confronted it with moral clarity.For many, the event was ceremonial a diplomatic gesture between states.For me, it was profoundly personal. As I said to Prime Minister Albanese this was when solidarity crossed borders and defied governments.In the mid 1980s, the apartheid regime launched deadly cross border raids on ANC camps in Lusaka and Maseru. Civil society across the world was outraged. It was in this tense climate that the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group arrived in South Africa. The delegation was led by former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser and former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.At first COSATU refused to meet them. The blood of our comrades was still fresh. We saw no point in dialogue that ignored the violence ripping through the region.But Obasanjo did something very few statesmen would do. He came to meet us directly. He entered the modest offices we occupied in the National Union of Mineworkers building and sat with us as comrades in struggle. Bob Hawke sent the same message of solidarity and conviction. They told us three things that shifted everything.One Nigeria and Australia and most of the Commonwealth nations supported fully and without condition our demand for one person one vote.Two They understood that apartheid was not a political disagreement but a crime against humanity.Three The Eminent Persons Group operated independently of Margaret Thatcher who opposed sanctions and openly supported the apartheid government.These conversations changed our view. They made it clear that the EPG was not a tool of geopolitical power but a moral intervention. Only after these frank engagements did COSATU agree to meet the EPG. That meeting helped shift global opinion further against the apartheid regime and contributed to the growing tide of isolation that suffocated its legitimacy.It was a moment that taught me something I have carried for the rest of my life.Oppression thrives when people look away.Oppression crumbles when people stand up..When the regime tried to silence us and failed.Two years later in 1987 I experienced again how solidarity can change the course of history. I was scheduled to address the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on state repression. As I stood at the airport ready to depart, the apartheid security forces stopped me and confiscated my passport. It was meant to silence not just my voice but the millions of workers and communities whose struggles I carried.But Australia refused to look away. Bob Hawke himself a former trade union leader mobilised outrage across the labour movements of Australia and around the world. He rallied civil society faith communities and governments who were undecided but watching closely. He used his global stature to expose apartheid brutality to the world.Solidarity did not free South Africa through sentiment.Solidarity freed us through action..Fraser Hawke and Haig three people one principle.Malcolm Fraser was a conservative statesman.Bob Hawke was a Labour giant.Bruce Haig was a diplomat.Different political traditions.One unshakable principle.Apartheid was a violation of humanity.Their interventions were never symbolic. They were consequential.Fraser fought inside the Commonwealth to push for sanctions when many Western leaders still hesitated.Hawke mobilised workers and institutions across the world to enforce boycotts that hit the apartheid regime hard.Haig risked his diplomatic career by supporting activists meeting Steve Biko and assisting Donald Woods in his escape.Their names now etched on the Freedom Park Wall of Solidarity are not there because they helped South Africa. They are there because they stood for what is right especially when it carried a political cost..The real miracle of the transition.Many describe our transition to democracy as a miracle. But the real miracle was not the negotiations or even the election. The real miracle was the spirit of our people.After decades of humiliation violence and loss our leaders chose reconciliation over revenge. Mandela extended a hand even to those who had once imprisoned him because he understood a simple truth bitterness poisons the future.Standing at Freedom Park listening to the Australian prime minister speak about Mandela greatness I was reminded that forgiveness is not the absence of justice. It is the presence of humanity.And that humanity was sustained by the solidarity we received from across the world. From union halls in Sydney and Melbourne. From student groups in Europe. From churches throughout Africa. Our struggle was local but our freedom was global..A conversation with a young diplomat.After the ceremony I spoke with a young Australian diplomat. She told me she had never experienced activism like what we lived through in the 1980s. She said activism today feels different more cautious more technical.I told her activism is not a job. It is a calling. It is the fire in the belly that asks not what are you willing to die for but what are you willing to live for.Young people today are tired of political games and diplomatic language about markets blocs and headwinds. They want courage and moral clarity. They saw these qualities in Mandela Fraser Hawke and Haig. They rarely see them in leadership today.That conversation reminded me of something essentialOur generation must pass the flame not the ashes..The world is burning because values have collapsed.Today the world is in deep crisis.Geopolitical rivalry grows.Democratic trust is collapsing.Inequality has reached grotesque levels.Oligarchic power shapes policy in too many capitals.Millions of young people feel unheard and unrepresented.This is not a crisis of economics alone. It is a crisis of values.That is why I have called on the G20 to adopt a Values Charter a moral compass for a world that has lost its way. A Values Charter must reaffirm five principlesLife before profitInequality as a global emergencyIndigenous knowledge at the centre of governanceWomen especially grandmothers as anchors of peaceReal power for youth not symbolic participation These are not abstract ideals. They come from our own history. Our liberation was built on moral clarity. And that moral clarity is what the world lacks today..Freedom Park is a mirror and a warning.Freedom Park is not a museum. It is a question that echoes across generations.What do you stand for nowFraser Hawke and Haig stood when it mattered.Mandela stood when it mattered.Ordinary Australians workers students and clergy stood when it mattered.Solidarity saved us then.Values can save us now. The ceremony at Freedom Park was not nostalgia. It was a call to action. The names on that wall challenge each of us to askWho will stand todayWho will speak with courage todayWho will live with moral clarity today The world is asking for leadership rooted in conscience. Perhaps the answer begins as it did before by remembering who we are and what we fought for.