Words of wisdom. Emily’s 1913 Speech

On the 16th of December 1913, the National Women's Monument was unveiled in Bloemfontein, South Africa, to honour the women and children who died during the Anglo-Boer War.  

Emily Hobhouse was invited to deliver the main speech, but she fell ill on her way from Cape Town.

Her impactful, forward-thinking speech about women's rights, the abuse of power, forgiveness and equal rights was read out in Afrikaans and English on her behalf.  

The tall sandstone obelisk reaching heavenward at the foot of the koppie would keep their memory alive in the minds of those present and their descendants.

It was suffocatingly hot, as could be expected on a midsummer day in this unforgiving landscape, but no one in the crowd shed any of their Sunday clothes.

The three central figures of the large bronze statue were from a scene Emily witnessed during the Anglo-Boer War at Springfontein. Tibbie Steyn, wife of the former Free State president MT Steyn, came forward to unveil the monument. After a brief message from her, the cloth that covered the group of figures fell away.

A rustle of recognition ran through the crowd because the expressions, clothing and body language of the statue group  ̶ especially the moving figure of a mother with her dead child  ̶ was in some way familiar to all, whether from their personal experience of the camps or from photos that had been etched into the Afrikaner nation’s visual memory.

When a flock of doves was released, the birds, as if they were orienting themselves, circled once high above the monument and then set course for home through the blue sky.

Emily called the day “Vrouwendag”, or Women's Day.  After all, it was also a woman who was asked to deliver the main address. She asked:  “Did you ever ask yourselves why I came to your aid in those dark days of strife?”

 “Hence, it was no personal link that brought me hither. Neither did political sympathy of any kind prompt my journey.” 

 “I came – quite simply – in obedience to the solidarity of our womanhood.”

Emily’s strong feminist stance challenged the crowd in many ways. 

Her exposure to the fate of women in war brought the realisation of many things in particular:

That women had little control over their own lives, and that they were often the victims of decisions and actions of men who had no intention of relinquishing their position of power  ̶, but also, that women had the will and the strength to change their circumstances themselves.

Emily delivered a punchy message at a time when patriarchy was dominant around the globe. In structure, her address echoed the famous Athenian general Pericles. But unlike him, she did not honour men – warriors - but voteless women. 

“They- the women- have shown the world that never again can it be said that a woman deserves no rights as a Citizen because she takes no part in war. This statue stands as a denial of that assertion.”

“True it is of your dead that which Pericles said of his countrymen: – ‘The grandest of all sepulchres they have, not that in which mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men; their story lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men’s lives.’

“Your visible monument will serve to this great end – becoming an inspiration to all South Africans and to the women in particular. Generation after generation it will stand here pressing home in silent eloquence these great thoughts: – In your hands and those of your children lie the power and freedom won; you must not merely maintain but increase the sacred gift.

“Be merciful towards the weak, the down-trodden, the stranger. Do not open your gates to those worst foes of freedom – tyranny and selfishness. Are not these the with-holding from others in your control, the very liberties and rights which you have valued and won for yourselves? So will the monument speak to you.

“Many nations have foundered on this rock. We in England are ourselves still but dunces in the great world-school, our leaders still struggling with the unlearned lesson, that liberty is the equal right and heritage of every child of man, without distinction of race, colour or sex. A community that lacks the courage to found its citizenship on this broad base, becomes ‘a city divided against itself, which cannot stand’.

“Lay hold of and cherish this ideal of liberty then – should your statesmen be hostile or coldly neutral, should your rich men be corrupt, should your press which ought to instruct and defend the liberties of all sections of the people, only betray – never mind – they do not constitute the nation. ‘The nation,’ said John Bright, ‘is in the cottage.’

“The old, old watchword Liberty, Fraternity, Equality cries from the tomb; what these women, so simple that they did not know that they were heroines, valued and died for all other human beings desire with equal fervour. Should not the justice and liberties you love so well, extend to all within your borders? The old Greeks taught that not until power was given to men could it be known what was in them.

“This testing time now has come to you.

“For ponder a moment.

“We too, the great civilised nations of the world, are still but barbarians in our degree, so long as we continue to spend vast sums in killing or planning to kill each other for greed of land and gold. 

“Does not justice bid us remember to-day how many thousands of the dark race perished also in Concentration Camps in a quarrel that was not theirs? Did they not thus redeem the past? Was it not an instance of that community of interest, which binding all in one, roots out racial animosity?

“My Friends: Throughout the world the Women’ s Day approaches; her era dawns. Proudly I unveil this Monument to the brave South African Women, who sharing the danger that beset their land and dying for it, affirmed for all times and for all peoples the power of Woman to sacrifice life and more than life for the common weal.”

At this time, Emily was recuperating in Cape Town. But she made sure thousands of copies of the speech, both in Afrikaans and English, were distributed amongst the crowds. Guests visiting the Story of Emily can obtain a free copy of the speech.