Thula Bopela says a dialogue will bring us face-to-face with our polarisation.

CAN SOUTH AFRICANS HOLD A MORALITY DIALOGUE?

President Zuma has called upon South Africans to hold a public moral dialogue. The church leaders have taken up this call and said the President is right to call upon the nation to hold such a dialogue.

I believe that the church leaders, in accepting the President's call so enthusiastically, stems from a hope or a belief that it will give them an opportunity to preach Christian values to the nation. They are preachers by profession, and an opportunity to preach to the nation is very welcome.

Others have interpreted this call as an opportunity for them to launch a personal attack on the President about what they consider to be his amoral/immoral behaviour. Yet a discussion on morality cannot be reduced to the behaviour of a single person, even if that person is Jacob Zuma, the whipping boy of the South African press. It is about whether South Africans as a nation can hold such a dialogue on all aspects of human behaviour and reach consensus.

I welcome the President's call personally because, I believe it is time South Africans understood the full extent of how morally polarised they are. The whole world is polarised morally, and irreconcilably so. South Africans are just a small sample of the world population. I will proceed to lay out the issues that keep this nation polarised, and explain why I believe no consensus can be reached on these issues.

History

Four hundred years ago South Africa was colonised by Europeans. It was carried out with great violence and plunder. At the end of it, the indigenous people had lost their land, the livestock, political freedom, culture and identity. Laws were made that made them slaves in the land of their birth.

Land ownership was privatised and the Europeans had the rights to it. It is in our Constitution, the sanctity of private property. Let me ask then what would happen if the Africans wanted to know if it was morally correct for the whites to acquire land the way they did? There would be no consensus. Africans continue to be squatters and shack-dwellers in the land of their ancestors. The ANC is required to pay billions upon billions of rands if they want to re-distribute land. Moral? Yes! The whites will say.

Up until the whites came nobody in Africa believed that land should be sold. Land was freely available to everybody, so that every person had the means to make a living if they were willing to work. That changed with the coming of the white people, and it has become the law of our land. Will a discussion on morality change this? I guess not.

I have heard many whites say they love Mandela, and when you ask them why they love him, they say they love him because he is a good man. Of course Mandela is a good man, but there are many other good black men. Why Mandela specifically? They love Mandela because he did not seek revenge against them for what they did to his people. He did not even require them to apologise for what they had done to his people, and to him as an individual. Now, white people love that, forgiveness without the irritation of having to say ‘I am sorry!' He did not even require restoration; they were left to keep the spoils of their historical plunder.

A related matter to the issue of land is whether the mineral wealth of this country should belong to a few families and individuals or not. It was a simmering debate and Julius Malema triggered it. There was an uproar! President Zuma was asked why he does not shut Julius up, and his reply was that Julius, in a democratic South Africa has a right to air his opinions. He directed them to engage Julius and not require the ANC to silence him. Yet, Julius is raising a moral question. He is saying it is wrong for the mineral riches of a nation to be owned by a few, while the rest languish in poverty. Will a moral debate lead to consensus on this one? My guess is as good as yours.

Racism

Racism has been expunged from our statute books and the ANC government is talking about a non-racial society, among other things. Yet, South Africans read about a growing number of racial incidents, like the incident at the University of the Orange Free State, to state just one. Professor Jansen and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu went public saying these young men had to be forgiven. Again, no apology had been forthcoming from the offenders. No! They must be forgiven! Reconciliation will never occur unless we forgive these young men, our black leaders said. You can be sure that these young men were taught this behaviour by their parents, and there are many parents among the Afrikaners who still teach their children that it is right to treat Africans that way. A moral dialogue will not change this.

Racism is very much a part of South African society. Now, my question is whether a debate on racism would bring about a moral consensus? Many white people oppose racism, and there are many white people who believe it is right. The latter teach it to their children and perpetuate it in our society. Removing it from our statute books did not, and will never remove it from the hearts and minds of those who peddle it. Even our sport, rugby and cricket, is the private property of a racial group. Sport! Who wants to open a debate on why our rugby and cricket national teams are predominantly white? Why does the ‘old flag' fly at rugby matches without fail?

Christianity versus Islam

The Christians believe they possess a moral code that is superior to every other in the world. Yet the Christians, and specifically the Anglican Church, are split right down the centre on the issue of homosexuality. The issue is still being debated among them and nobody can predict whether there ever will be consensus, moral consensus on this issue. The Catholics are in the same quandary. The Pope has recently had to meet the bishops from Ireland, to try and sanitize the putrid reputation the Church has accumulated in that country because of priests who sodomise altar-boys. The American Catholic Church does not smell differently, for the same reason. Will their moral dialogue put an end to the burning sexual desire that consumes their priests for boys who serve at the altar?

Islam

Islam arrived on our shores from Arabia many centuries ago. In South Africa it has become the fastest growing religion among our citizens. In Africa Islam has declared war on sections of society that are non-Muslim. In Nigeria many lives have been lost in conflicts that are motivated by religious hostility. There are similar conflicts in Sudan. Are we going to experience the same in the coming years here in our country? Can a moral dialogue mitigate the bloody conflicts we see between the adherents of Islam and Christianity. In Iraq, it is not even between Christians and Islam; it is between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. That is what I call serious societal and religious polarisation.

African culture/religion versus Christian culture/religion

Africans are divided over whether the indigenous culture is the right one to follow or the Western/Christian culture and religion. Who will say which culture or religion should have pre-eminence? The opinions on both sides are fixed. Who will say which one is the one to lead us to a moral society?

South Africa is in the grip of a violent moral crisis. Crime is rampant; murder, robbery, rape and corruption are harrowing the country. Children and babies are raped and murdered. Young and old women are raped and murdered. We have male and female prostitution; we have male and female homosexuality. We are extremely polarised politically. Even our lawyers hold different moral views. A recent court case illustrated how morally polarised we are. A woman advocate and her lover (also an advocate) were found guilty of enticing little girls to use them to produce pornography. Her lawyer argued that she should not be jailed for these horrific crimes, because the lawyer claimed, she had seen and accepted the error of her ways. He said it would be wrong for the Court to send her to prison. We are talking about an advocate here, by the way, an advocate of the High Court of South Africa.

Let the moral debate begin, but unless I am sick in my head, my prediction is that South Africans from the various cultural/religious and economic poles will come face-to-face with the degree of their moral polarisation.

Thula Bopela chairs the Council of the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA), and the opinions he expresses here are entirely his own.

Article tools

PRINT ARTICLE

SEND TO FRIEND

COMMENTS

  responses to this article

View disclaimer

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Name:
Surname:
Email:
Subject:
Comment:

if (theForm['attribute_1327'].value == '' || theForm['attribute_1327'].value == '0') { ccs.ugc.capture473055.addValidationError(473055,'Comment:',1327, 'is mandatory') };

View disclaimer

Services

	Subscribe to newsletters
	Feeds
	Become a Facebook fan
	Follow Moneyweb on twitter