Programme director,
I take this opportunity, on behalf of the President of the Republic of South Africa to welcome you in our country. We hope that you have so far enjoyed our hospitality and our serene and tranquil ambiance since your arrival over the weekend.
We note with keen interest and profound appreciation the work that IFAPA has been doing in promoting the entrenchment of democracy and good governance throughout the world, and particularly on the African continent.
We know that your organisation has sent lots of election monitors to various parts of the continent during elections, and that you have contributed in ensuring that those elections are free and fair. The work of monitoring elections in foreign lands involves leaving your countries and comfortable homes to venture into esoteric terrains which are at times hostile and not receptive to external missions.
It indeed takes a lot of sacrifice and devotion to do that. May I take this opportunity to congratulate and salute you for the thankless job well done!
We hope that you will not tire, but that you will consolidate the gains and your level of organisation to ensure that even after elections you have the capacity to remain seized with the process of the construction of new governments.
We encourage you to work harder to ensure that you are able to deploy your resources, post-elections, to support the new administrations emerging out of free and fair elections. We say this because we have seen most democracies collapsing immediately after conducting successful, free and fair election campaigns.
Programme Director,
You probably have by now been informed that the secular South Africa, like the rest of the continent and the world enjoys the plurality of religions. The seven major religions are likewise, the African traditional religion, Christianity, Moslem, Hindu, Baha’i, Buddhism, and Judaism. We pride ourselves as a country that these religious practices coexist in South Africa, and in fact, they cooperate towards the common good of all South Africans.
We applaud the good work done by the National Interfaith Council in South Africa (NICSA) in bringing together most of these diverse faiths and their denominations into one umbrella body. The task ahead is immense, and yet achievable in the long haul.
I commit the South African government, as Minister responsible for Traditional Affairs, to cooperate with you to ensure that the task of bringing all the faiths together in our drive to ushering about national unity and social cohesion is realised.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the last century, South Africa witnessed some of the gruesome and grotesque crimes in the name of religion that we may cite.
The first involved the time when African traditional religion and Christianity came together and the latter was seen as invading into the sacred space of the former, whilst the latter perceived the resident African religion as primitive and worthy of having its adherents converted and civilised.
A young woman by the name of Manche Masemola, 15 at the time, was ultimately murdered through forced consumption of herbs and traditional medicines in gaMarishane in the Transvaal, now Limpopo province of South Africa, in 1928 for having converted to Christianity under the Anglican Church.
She was believed to have been bewitched and possessed by evil spirits when she proclaimed her Christian beliefs. St Manche Masemola is today celebrated as the matyr for the Christian faith and there are Dioceses of the Anglican Church named after her throughout the Church of England. We are proud that the majority of the residents of her village of gaMarishane in Limpopo are today living peacefully as Christians and non-Christians alike.
A second episode unfolded a few kilometres away in Sekhukhuneland when siblings and children of Sekhukhune fought so bitterly for religious space after one of the siblings, Dinkwanyane Sekhukhune converted to Christianity under Reverend Merensky of the Dutch Luthern Church. Dinkwanyane and his congregation had to forcefully relocate from Sekhukhune after persecution to a place called Botshabelo to establish his mission and a new kingship further east of the country.
The introduction of Christianity sought brother against brother and ultimately set the nation into a civil strife as apartheid came to be the order of the day.
The intolerance amongst religious beliefs is therefore nothing new in our country as the subsequent colonial and apartheid regimes also sought to entrench themselves through imposition of Christianity as a state religion and forcing all the citizens to take Christian names despite most not having heard of Christianity before. Christian names of Simon, Peter, James and John were imposed on anyone registering birth, registering for employment or accessing state services. Many abhorred that to their graves as they could not accept the new names imposed on them.
Christianity in South Africa was perpetually used to justify apartheid and the subjugation of all indigenous population and others of various continental descents who had come to South African shores either as forced labour or as merchants.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It was through interfaith struggles and organisations under the leadership of the broader liberation movement that saw the defeat of apartheid and the ushering in of a democratic order. Most of the leaders of various faiths were in the forefront during the establishment of the new democratic South African state and they continue, through their various formations to engage with government as social partners and interested non-partisan participants.
I want to take this opportunity to reassure all of you that this government continues to value the contributions and continued support of the various religious leaders, be it traditional healers, churches, the mosques, synagogues and other organised faith bodies. We implore on all of you to remain seized with the task of building the nation through ensuring social cohesion through the teaching of good behaviour and righteousness.
The national coherence and unity of our people can be achieved through ensuring that children are well nurtured, they remain in school and are not involved in crime. Similarly, government continues to require religious counsel. We are pleased that you, our religious leaders continue to be engaged in the social discourse in our common quest to build better lives beyond the regular elections.
Programme Director,
It is against this background that the President, Honourable JG Zuma established the Department of Traditional Affairs (DTA) in 2009 with a mandate to coordinate issues of traditional leadership, rights of all religious, linguistic and cultural communities to exist and thrive without hindrance.
It is the responsibility of the DTA, working with other government bodies and institutions, to ensure that all the people are free to exercise their right to worship and to freely observe their cultural beliefs and customs. The Department is currently reconstituting itself to respond to this mandate and will soon be establishing capacity to interact with the role-players in this arena.
I will, as Minister, also be embarking on visits to various centres of religious practices, churches, mosques and all, to interact with religious leaders, to learn from you and to urge you to encourage your congregations in the constructive direction.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We have recently and over a sustained period witnessed the carnage that is ripping apart some of our countries on the continent in the name of religion. The West African country of Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia in East Africa, and other parts of the continent have witnessed this religious mayhem apparently in pursuit of religious purity.
Boorish and murderous elements have engaged in callous and heinous criminal activities in the name of the Supreme Being, Modimo or Shikwembu.
This Supreme Being is generally referred to in many names and tongues, as some will say God, others say the the Gods (Badimo), Allah, Jahweh, Jehovah, Karishna and many other names some will use to refer to the same Supreme Being, depending on their languages and religions.
Similar malevolence was perpetuated in Europe, leading to the recent Kosovo-Sarajevo war, continuing Chechnyan conflict in Russia and the incessant rivalries in Asia and the Middle East where lives have been disrupted because of sectarian religious fights and jostling for dominance.
The bottom line remains that there is no need for people to tear each other apart based on religion or belief systems. We hope that this gathering will convey the message of tolerance, and ultimately acceptance of each other’s religions and beliefs in the world.
We pray that it will remind all of us that all the earlier mentioned seven major religions on the continent and the world are premised on the common desire to serve as catalysts for civic engagement that promotes peace and prosperity for all humankind.
We are encouraged that IFAPA commits itself to identifying post-elections issues that continue to dog society against progress and that you have rightfully identified issues of governance, corruption, financial management and provision of services to the populations.
Religious leaders must continue to, without fear or favour, identify the deteriorating infrastructure and open collapse of services as a cause for the general discontent amongst the ordinary people which leads to frustration and resultant mass revolts.
Engage your governments and serve as catalysts for change towards a peaceful and better future. We owe this to ourselves if this is indeed to be the African century.
As you do these, be assured of our continued moral and support from the South African Government in your quest to make this a better continent and a better world.
I thank you!
