Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Weekly Newsletter to the Nation
My dear friends and fellow South Africans,
The question of religion and politics is not quite the same as the question of church and state, which I touched on in my online letter last week. Failure to make this distinction, as I will argue this week, results in profound confusion.
The problem of church and state has to do with institutions and practices. The separation of church and state, a founding constitutional principle in South Africa, requires that neither must trespass the boundaries that define their legitimate sphere of influence. Thorny problems arise in two particular areas. The first lot crops up when the state attempts to steer between avoiding an establishment of official religion and permitting its free exercise. Prayer in public schools is a particularly contentious example. A second range of challenges arises when religious belief and practice conflict with secular law.
By contrast, the problem of religion and politics defines another set of issues. Whereas church and state deals with the relationship of institutions that are independent of each other, the problem of religion and politics has to do with two spheres of activities in the life of the same individuals. Citizens who belong to religious organisations are also members of the secular society and it is this dual association that gives rise to complications. I’m acutely aware of this paradox. I am a committed Christian and an elected politician who has sworn to uphold our liberal democratic constitution.
By default, religious beliefs have moral and social implications.
Equally by default, it is expected of people of faith to express these through their activities as citizens in the political order. The fact that ethical convictions are rooted in religious faith does not disqualify them from the political realm. However, they do not have secular validity merely because they are thought by their exponents to be authorised by organised religion. They must be argued for in appropriate social and political terms in harmony with national values promoted by political means.
This will become increasingly relevant in the future if politicians evoke the name of God/religion to support a particular position (watch out for this next month when there is special sitting of the National Assembly to consider the Choice of Termination Pregnancy Amendment Bill). South Africa, the social indicators clearly reveal, is a very religious society compared to secular Europe where established religion is declining fast. The charismatic and Pentecostal churches, in particular, are enjoying phenomenal growth here.
Moreover our liberal constitution seems to be ahead of public opinion or, if you like, the prevailing mood of our society. We saw this last year, for example, when the Civil Union Bill was being piloted through parliament. The Bill was passed with a reliable majority even though opinion surveys indicated that most people were opposed to it in principle. But the underlying liberal democratic principle of the legislation was not to pronounce on its morality, but to give expression to the constitutional imperatives of equality and dignity. These imperatives are not necessarily tenets of all religions. Saint Paul, for example, gave instructions on how masters should treat their slaves and that women were subordinate to men! The prevailing mood, including in my church itself, has, of course, moved on since then. I say "Praise the Lord" without a trace of irony.
The sublime beauty of constitutional democracy is that it protects minorities from the "tyranny of the majority" whatever the prevailing mood might be. When the mood swings forward or when it swings back a bit (like in America in the shadow of 09/11), the Bill of Rights and the Constitution remain constant – hopefully.
And this brings me directly onto the question of religion and politics, namely whether the churches and other faith-based organisations have a role to play in the politics of our country. Last week I mentioned an example of when, I believe, the church precluded itself from playing a role of honest broker in a highly politicised saga. The TRC exercise, under the chairmanship of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was, I believe, manifestly unfair in its political bias towards the ruling party. ‘The Arch’, as he is now fondly known, had made his mind up about what he considered the ‘truth’ to be!
The TRC process gilded, as it was, with a sprinkling of pseudo Judeo-Christian theology and the Archbishop’s undoubted star quality, too often eschewed the standard of proof which would be required in any court of law. Although I made a substantial presentation to the TRC on behalf of the IFP leadership, ordinary party supporters did not give testimonies or receive reparations because we would not receive a fair hearing.
It would have been better, I contend, if the TRC had been chaired in a secularist manner, even by a secularist Christian (or a secularist Muslim or Hindu for that matter), than by a distinguished cleric of my own denomination who had so clearly pinned his political colours to the mast. The example of Chile and similar processes in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe would have been the way to go.
However, happily, I can also present an example of when the church is spot on right. Last night I attended the farewell dinner for Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane.
When I spoke at Saint George’s Cathedral two years ago, I said that "with the authority of the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos, and the agape compassion of the New Testament saints", Archbishop Ndungane had spoken out with "righteous indignation" when anti-retroviral drugs were withheld and Global Fund monies, allocated for KwaZulu Natal, were placed at risk. He did so, I added, not to score political points, but to challenge all politicians and people beyond the political divide, to ensure that the human rights of people living with HIV/Aids are observed.
He successfully squared the biblical injunction "to act justly and love mercy" with the constitutional imperative of equal human dignity. The church today has an indisputable role to play in dispelling the stigma and silence surrounding HIV/Aids, and people like the Archbishop have shown the way without unduly crossing the boundaries I mentioned at the beginning.
Yours sincerely,
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi MP
