A few moments later we all lifted our eyes in awe as a spectacular array of South African jets, helocopters and troop carriers roared in perfect formation over the Union Buildings. It was not only a display of pinpoint precision and military force, but a demonstration of the military's loyalty to democracy, to a new government that had been freely and fairly elcted. Only moments before, the highest generals of th South African defence force and police, their chests bedecked with ribbons and medals from days gone by, saluted me and pledged their loyalty. I was not unmindful of th e fact that not so many years before they would not have saluted bu arrested me. Finally a chevron of Impala jets left a smoke trail of the black, red, green, blue and gold of the new South African flag. the day was symbolised for me by the playing of our two national anthems, and the vision of whites singing and blacks singing Die Sem the old anthem of the Republic.Although that day neither group knew the lyrics of tnthem they once despised, they would soon know the words by heart. On the day of the inauguration, I was overwhlmed with a sens of history. In the first years after teh bitter Anglo-Boer was and before my own birth, the white-skinned peoples of South Africa patched up their diferences and erected a system of racial domination the dark-skinned peoples of their own land. The structure they created formed the basis of one of the harshest, most inhuman, societies the world has ever known. Now, in the last decade as a man, that system had been overturned forever and replaced by one that recognised the rights and freedoms of all peoples, regardless of the colour of their skin. that day had come about through the unimaginable sacrifices of thousands of my people, people whose suffering and courage can vever be counted or repaid. I felt that day. as I have on so many other days, that I was simply the sum of all those Sfrican patriots who had gone before me. That long and noble line ended and now began again with me. I was pained that I was not able to thank them and that they were not able to se what their sacrifices had wrought.