state of the province address.(News)

This is an edited version of the State of the Province address by Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool on Friday.

NATIONAL anxieties are often heightened in our province, where the social fabric is more brittle and the politics more fractious. The unease in the Western Cape has been fuelled by:

l The sharp rise in inflation and interest rates;

l The consequent rise in the cost of food and transportation;

l The impact of drugs, gangs and crime;

l The debilitating consequences of climate change in the form of droughts, floods and fires;

l The electricity emergency;

l The fragility of racial, linguistic and cultural identities;

l The fluid and conflictual nature of politics here.

Is there a need to despair?

For anyone to despair is to ignore the memory of thousands of activists who rose under the banner of the United Democratic Front (UDF) 25 years ago to confront apartheid. Members of UDF affiliates faced imprisonment, torture, exile and death. But they never lost hope.

President Thabo Mbeki last week exhorted our nation: "This we must also understand, that what we have to be about is - Business Unusual!"

When the ANC assumed leadership in the province for the first time in 2004, we had to deliver while transforming the state. We had to look to the future while healing the past. We had to affirm diverse identities while uniting in a home for all. We had to grow the economy and share its benefits.

Today, four years later, we are ready to be measured against the manifesto the ANC stood for: A People's Contract to Create Work and Fight Poverty.

We launched the vision of a united, socially cohesive Western Cape striving towards making our province a home for all.

The confidence that comes from belonging, …