ANC Today --------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 1, No. 40, 26 October - 1 November 2001 --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK: * Letter from the President: Religious leaders who immersed themselves in struggle * Irish Peace Process: Weapons move an act of political courage * Zandspruit attacks: No justification for violent acts of intolerance --------------------------------------------------------------------- LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Religious leaders who immersed themselves in struggle Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu has just celebrated his 70th birthday. Once more we say a very happy birthday to him and may he live another three score and ten! Our sincere greetings and best wishes also go to his dear wife, Sis ' Leah. It may be that difficult situations everywhere in the world create the conditions for the emergence of rare people who are both heroic and human, who see themselves as foot soldiers while they bear the burdens of general-officers-commanding. Our country has been blessed to have a fair number of such people who have made immeasurable contributions to the assertion and recovery of our humanity. One of these is Desmond Mpilo Tutu. It is for this reason that when he celebrates, many in our country celebrate with him. When he grieves, many feel the pain. This has happened because when millions in our country have experienced pain, he has shared that pain with them. When they rejoiced, he has been among the millions of celebrants. He, a general, has been and is one of us, the foot soldiers without whom no battle can be won, without whom there can be no victors. The last line in W.B. Yeats' poem "Among School Children", poses the question: "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" We might rephrase this question and ask - how can we know the faithful from the faith? For it must be the case that Desmond Tutu was so shaped by his faith that none could tell him apart from his faith, nor speak of his humanity without its integration within his beliefs or of his beliefs without their integration with his personality. Therefore, when we speak of Desmond Tutu, we speak also of the succession of religious leaders of our country and people who translated their faith into a passionate statement for and an active engagement in the collective engagement to free ourselves from oppression, indignity and humiliation. Thus does he sit among a galaxy of stars that we are proud to count among the true patriots. One of the first among these was the Rev Tiyo Soga, who stood up for the dignity of the African people even as they continued to sink under the heavy yoke of colonial oppression and exploitation and passed away 130 years ago this year. In his book, "Ethiopianism and the Order of Ethiopia", the Rt Rev Sigqibo Dwane writes of the missionary Rev William Chalmers, who said that "British Kaffraria was littered with canteens and lazy, drunken Kaffirs," and that "this will most effectively exterminate them if the weapons of the British warfare have failed." Soga responded to this in a letter to the King William's Town Gazette of May 1865 and said: "I find the family of the Kaffir tribe nearly to the equator; along this I find them taking the North-eastern Coast of Africa, the dominant and governing race. Now I venture to say that if this (Chalmers) doom includes all these tribes, the process of its extinction will be very long indeed." Here, almost two decades before the formal partitioning of Africa by the European powers, Tiyo Soga was already speaking of the fact of the shared destiny of the peoples of Africa. Despite the supremacy of the guns of the colonisers in our country and the debilitating effects of colonialism on the colonised, he prophesied that the peoples of Africa were indestructible. Their future could not be defined as one of doom. J.G. Xaba, one of the 19th century founders of the "Ethiopian" African Christian movement in our country stated the matter of African unity plainly in 1897, when he said "the aim of the Ethiopian Church is to promote Christianity and unity in the whole continent of Africa". Asserting the inevitability of the liberation of Africa, Tiyo Soga proclaimed that "Ethiopia shall soon stretch her hands to God!" Soga also looked beyond the African shores to the African Diaspora and spoke of those who had been transported to the United States as slaves, many years ahead of the first Pan African Congress held in London in 1900. Of the African Americans, he said that as they engaged in struggle with characteristic African resilience, they were "looking forward to the dawn of a better day for (the black American) and all his sable brethren in Africa". Of himself, educated in Scotland, he said, "among my own people I am a Kaffir of Kaffirs". When his sons went to Great Britain for their own education, he advised them that "if you do not wish to feel the taunt of men, which you sometimes may well feel - take your place in the world as coloured, not as white men; as Kaffirs, not as Englishmen." In 1846, Tiyo Soga was taken to Scotland by the first principal of Lovedale, the Rev William Govan, who saw in him the potential to develop into a great thinker and leader. In his 1941 book "Lovedale, South Africa", a later principal at this institution, the Rev R.H.W. Shepherd wrote of Soga's transfer to Scotland that this "was a great venture thus to test the capacity of the Bantu mind, but the Principal believed that his pupil would ultimately be a means of great good to his fellow-countrymen". Shepherd goes on to say: "Tiyo Soga died at Tutura near Butterworth on 12th August, 1871. He was in the prime of life, being only forty-two years of age, but was worn out by incessant labour on behalf of his countrymen. He left, in addition to his wonderful translation of the Pilgrim's Progress, some remarkable hymns, and in his closing years helped forward with enthusiasm the revised translation of the Bible." The Rev Dr James Stewart succeeded Govan as principal of Lovedale. From 1880, Dr Stewart contributed articles to the institution's monthly magazine, The Christian Express. In one of these articles, Stewart wrote: "We say we sought these black men before they sought us. What we mean is, we were sent to them in the providence of God, which makes no mistakes - even though it is generally on the side of the newest rifles and the heaviest artillery. It is assuming too much to hold that we were sent here to become possessors of the soil at the expense of another race. We are not such special favourites of heaven as all that. We have higher duties to perform to them than merely to subjugate them, to force them to labour, to leave them to heathenism, or to drive them beyond the frontier, and thus make the colonial boundary a line always rolling outwards, and never inwards." Given these sentiments among the missionaries of the Church of Scotland which established and ran Lovedale Institution, it was perhaps not an accident that Tiyo Soga was among the first of our Christian leaders to assert the right of the colonised to freedom and the right of all Africans to equality and pride in their identity. On 1909, three years before the ANC was established, the Anglican Church set up a Commission to inquire into matters relating to the Order of Ethiopia which was part of the Anglican Church. In its report it said: "The quest of the Ethiopians was that they should be accepted as they were - a church for the black race, governed by black people themselves, whose aim was to become a church of the black people of South Africa." It was, in good measure, out of the tradition established by Tiyo Soga, the Ethiopian movement among African Christian converts and others, that the ANC was born. It was thus natural that the religious leaders of the day not only provided the ANC with the perspective of "Ethiopianism", but also actually established and led the ANC. As the Order of Ethiopia demanded a church of the black people in South Africa in 1909, Pixley ka Isaka Seme demanded that in forming the Native National Congress, the black people of South Africa had a duty "to bury the demon of tribalism". It is a matter of great pride to us that from the very beginning of the existence of the ANC, the religious leaders of our people saw themselves and acted as part of our movement and struggle. This tradition was maintained by patriots and religious leaders such as Desmond Tutu. These refused to abandon the forward trenches of struggle, even as those 'blessed' with 'the newest rifles and the heaviest artillery', as Stewart put it, conducted a desperate struggle to save the apartheid system from defeat. But clearly, the objective which Tiyo Soga proclaimed, of "the dawn of a better day for (the black American) and all his sable brethren in Africa" has not yet been accomplished in all its fullness. Everywhere, in Africa and the African Diaspora, 'Ethiopia' has, indeed stretched her hands to God and achieved the political emancipation these words sought to express. But everywhere, in Africa and the African Diaspora, the black masses whose fulfilment Tiyo Soga sought, as a result of which he died 'in the prime of life, being only forty-two years of age, (and) worn out by incessant labour on (their) behalf', continue to suffer from poverty, underdevelopment and the curse of racist arrogance. Our continent continues to be seen as a peculiar region of the world that seems condemned to violent conflicts, the large scale displacement of millions of people, the blight of infectious diseases and diseases of poverty and permanent regression further away from the situation in which the masses of the people can enjoy a life of peace and prosperity. This situation demands that we recall the vision enunciated by our early Christian leaders and the actions they took to transform their dreams into reality. The recalling of that vision places a requirement on all of us that, once more, we strive to ensure that the church and all other faiths in our country and continent actively engage the challenge of the all-round emancipation of our people that the founders of Ethiopianism sought. The reality however is that as we achieved our common political victory over the system of apartheid, the religious faiths in our country that had, in some instances, been engaged in struggle for our liberation for over a century, had some difficulty in determining what their role would be in the aftermath of this victory. Rightly or wrongly, the perception emerged that the religious communities had come to the conclusion that the end of white minority rule had also brought to an end their own obligation to be involved in the continuing struggle to address the terrible legacy of the political and social system against which they had struggled. And yet, both in our country and in the rest of our continent, the facts stare us in the face that our collective work is not yet done. We have no choice but to engage the challenge that faces us of uniting in action to build a better life for all our people. In the end, as with Desmond Mpilo Tutu, because of what we do, none should be able to know the dancer from the dance, to know the faithful from the faith. Tshezi - happy birthday! Thabo Mbeki --------------------------------------------------------------------- IRISH PEACE PROCESS Weapons move an act of political courage The unprecedented move this week by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to decommission a quantity of its weapons was a courageous political act with important consequences for the peace process in Northern Ireland. The move follows a statement on Monday by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams that a groundbreaking move on the arms issue could save the peace process from collapse. But, he said, a positive IRA move must be responded to with generosity and vision. In a letter to Adams, ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe commended Sinn Fein for the clear and strategic leadership provided on "matters critical to the achievement of lasting peace, justice and equality". He pledged the ANC's supports the latest initiative to achieve a decisive move on the issue of IRA weapons as part of a broader collective effort to give impetus and direction to the peace process. "The difficulties inherent in such an approach cannot be underestimated. Nor should we underrate the level of strategic clarity and political courage required to see it through," Motlanthe said. "As the ANC, we are acutely aware of the sensitivities surrounding a move of this nature. We are also aware of the obligation which each progressive liberation movement has to make strategic compromises to propel forward the search for peace and the achievement of liberation," he said. The IRA's move has rescued the peace process, and will contribute to the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. The British government has undertaken to return to "normal security arrangements", including reducing the levels of troops and installations in Northern Ireland. Work is beginning with the demolition of a number of observation towers and an army base. The British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Dr John Reid, echoed Sinn Fein's call for a positive response from unionists, particularly paramilitary groups. "Some of the loyalist organisations have played a crucial part in the peace process. I now ask them to ask themselves what they can do to move the process forward now. Whatever else there must be an end to the mindless sectarian violence of recent weeks," Reid said. "Our collective responsibility at this time is to settle our differences and I appeal to the leaders of unionism to join with us in doing that so that all sections of our people can go forward on the basis of equality," Adams said. "Sinn Fein's strategy commits and compels us to be part of the effort to establish a fair and just society for all the people of this island. Our effort is to replace conflict and strife with genuine partnership and equality," he said. Sinn Fein acknowledged the decommissioning of arms would pose a number of difficulties for the IRA and would test the unity and resolve of the republican movement: It said the enemies of Irish republicanism and the peace process would present a positive IRA move on weapons in disparaging terms, or would say the IRA had acted under pressure. "But everyone knows that the IRA is not an organisation that bows to pressure or which moves on British or unionist terms," Adams said. He appealed to republicans, and IRA volunteers and their families, to remain united and committed to the republican cause. "It is time for clear heads and brave hearts," he said. MORE INFORMATION: Address by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, 22 October 2001 http://sinnfein.ie/documents/01/10adamsaddress.html British Government statement on decommissioning, 24 October 2001 http://www.number-10.gov.uk/news.asp?NewsId=2835 Sinn Fein website http://www.sinnfein.ie/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- ZANDSPRUIT ATTACKS No justification for violent acts of intolerance The attacks this week on Zimbabweans living in the Zandspruit informal settlement in Johannesburg must be condemned as acts of thuggery and xenophobia. Around 112 shacks were burnt down and 126 looted as a number of Zimbabweans were forced by South Africans to leave the area. The attacks reportedly follow an ultimatum given to Zimbabweans to leave the settlement, after a South African women was killed there in September, allegedly by a Zimbabwean. No crime, however, can justify the targeting of particular groups for attack, nor the resort to such criminal acts of violence. In a statement released after the attacks, the ANC said no group of people should be made to suffer just because a single individual among them has allegedly committed a crime. "And even the individual accused of committing such a crime should be reported to the police. No person has the right to take the law into their own hands. Mob justice is absolutely unacceptable," it said. A number of commentators have blamed the violence on the community's frustration around poverty, homelessness and unemployment. It has been suggested that the community, in their frustration, has - wrongly -identified foreigners as being responsible for or contributing to the socio-economic problems they face. While this frustration is understandable, it is necessary to identify the real causes of these problems, like the legacy of apartheid and colonialism, rapid urbanisation and unfavourable economic conditions. A research report produced recently by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation says xenophobia is not peculiar to South Africa. "International literature shows that the South African experience is part of a worldwide phenomenon. A key global trend is that of racism underpinning xenophobia, with black foreigners representing the common victims of violence and hostility. Xenophobia is particularly predominant in countries undergoing transition. Another key global trend, especially within these countries, is a tendency for governments to conflate foreigners with crime and use them as scapegoats for social problems such as unemployment and poverty," the report says. The report says the South African media represents foreigners in a negative and stereotypical manner. Foreigners are regularly connected with crime, poverty, unemployment and large social costs. It suggest that statements which connect illegal immigrants to crime are not confirmed by statistics. "Out of all of the arrests made in 1998, South African citizens comprise an average of 98% of the nationality breakdown. The arrest rate of foreigners points to very low figures, figures that rarely exceed 1% for any grouping. Given the vulnerability of African foreigners to arrest (see preceding section regarding undocumented migrants boosting police arrest figures), this is significant," it says. Studies reveal high levels of hostility and resentment among the South African public towards refugees and migrants, the report says. Such public sentiment appears to have developed via hearsay (through instruments like the media), rather than through direct contact with foreigners. It also appears that most South Africans have very little knowledge about the rights accorded to refugees and migrants in South Africa, the report says. It is clear that xenophobia, like racism, is about the irrational intolerance of people who are different, which at the same time reflects real differences in power and control over resources. As South Africans united, and continue to unite, to fight racism, in both its social and material manifestations, the country needs to unite to tackle xenophobic attitudes and actions. MORE INFORMATION: 'A Foreign Experience: Violence, Crime and Xenophobia during South Africa's transition', CSVR, August 2001 http://www.csvr.org.za/papers/papvtp5.htm#executive 'Intolerance to fellow Africans must be tackled', ANC Today No 31 http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2001/at31.htm#art2 --------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue of ANC Today is available from the ANC web site at: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2001/at40.htm To receive ANC Today free of charge by e-mail each week go to: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/subscribe.html