Zuma appeal to South African clergy: CEN 10.23.09 p 8. November 4, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Politics.trackback
South African president Jacob Zuma has urged religious leaders in the Western Cape to work with the government to combat racial and ethnic strife.
Speaking to approximately 500 religious leaders at a meeting held at Bishopscourt, the home of the Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba on Oct 17, President Zuma “called on religious leaders to work together in dealing with the perception that the Western Cape is racially divided,” said the president’s spokesman Zizi Kodwa.
The president’s meeting with religious leaders comes amidst shifting political fortunes for South Africa’s religious groups, with the president turning to conservative and traditional religious leaders to bolster his regime, freezing out liberal denominations and church organizations from the country’s corridors of power.
South Africa was a religious and interfaith state the president told me the meeting. But many of its citizens had forgotten the Biblical principle of “love thy neighbour,” leading to a breakdown of community and social order.
Religious leaders had an important part to play in building society, and should continue to speak out on social and moral issues, the president said. The problems of crime, deteriorating public services and morals, and poverty were top of the list for the religious leaders present.
On Oct 16, Archbishop Makgoba said the agenda for the day’s meeting would center round “what it means to be human in the context of protests and strikes over the delivery of services to our people; and how the religious community can maintain a critical engagement with the President.”
President Zuma’s meeting with the religious leaders comes amidst a shift in the political fortunes of South Africa’s churches. The South African Council of Churches (SACC), a long time political ally of the African National Congress (ANC) party has fallen out of favor with President Zuma and the ruling faction of the ANC, after it was seen to have backed former President Thabo Mbeki in the party’s leadership struggle.
The conservative National Interfaith Leadership Council (NILC) has stepped into the gap, offering its support to the president. Among the council’s twenty leaders are four ANC MP’s and including ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga and former Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool.
In September the Rev. Nthabiseng Khunou, an ANC MP and member of the NILC secretariat, told the South Africa’s Mail & Guardian the NILC would “play a role” in revisiting legislation legalising abortion and gay marriage.
“I know most churches want them abolished, so the reason for NILC is to give a voice to people who don’t have it,” Mr. Khunou said.
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