The challenge to transform country and continent
Africa's communal experience of life and sprituality offers a way forward to South Africa, the continent and the world in responding to the destructive effects of Western individualism and transforming our societies.
This article examines the secular interface between politics and religion as Africa seeks liberation from western domination. The problems which assail us are essentially 'spiritual', affecting both believers and unbelievers. Western civilisation promotes individualistic and dualistic ways which are often anti-human. We need to recover the understanding of society known in basic communities, prophetic religions, and the traditions of Africa. This view is holistic, communalistic, and recognises and responds to a vital force within humanity. It embraces some religious insights, but is a secular spirituality, the pursuit of vision and values which overcome the lures of becoming little westerners, and makes citizens to transform a suicidal acquisitive society into a functioning ubuntu community.
Nelson Mandela has analysed the problems we face: "...the corruption of public servants by the private sector; the low level of tax morality; white collar crime and the subversion of business ethics; venality, theft and fraud within the public sector; corruption in the criminal justice system; the uninhibited commitment to unbridled self-gratification which underlies such crimes as rape and child abuse; disrespect for human life and the inviolability of the individual person and the easy resort to the use of force in the ordering of inter-personal relations; the acceptance of robbery and theft as a means of personal enrichment and advancement; mendacity in the conduct of public affairs; contempt for the law and the state; and the virtual collapse among the Africans of a system of social behaviour informed by the precepts of humanism which, historically, have informed African culture."(1) These are moral and ethical challenges demanding spiritual guts. 'Spiritual' does not mean weird, spooky, superstitious, religious, or unearthly.
We are people of body, mind and spirit living in community. Our spirit directs our minds and bodies. It is the drive and vision of the vital force inside us.
A positive spirit spreads love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, loyalty, humility, and self control.(2) Others have a proud, lustful, jealous, angry, greedy, selfish or lazy spirit. So spirituality is a highly secular concern, having political, economic, social and religious elements.
'Spiritual' life is usually assigned to the religious sphere, which is under the jurisdiction of religious institutions (such as the National Religious Leaders Forum, SA Council of Churches, Muslim Judicial Council, Jewish Board of Deputies, Hindu Maha Sabha, and other bodies). But many 'believers' are clearly not coping with the spiritual challenges.
In this post-religious age many reject religion, including thousands of our intellectual, moneyed, political, leading citizens. They need not apologise:
All humans are spiritual, but not all are religious. Agnostics are moral people. Others, who retain a strong personal faith, have also withdrawn from organised religion for various reasons. This rejection of religion does not mean neglect of the spiritual and the moral. But many 'unbelievers' are clearly not coping with the spiritual challenges.
Believers and un-believers all live in social environments: empires, nations, cultures, institutions. Some societies promote anti-human structures, policies and theologies, including colonialism, apartheid, slavery, racial superiority, sexism, corruption and unethical priorities.
Others encourage positive behaviour. But people are not good because they know they ought to be good. The 1998 Moral Summit of political and religious leaders did not change society. So how can the spiritual moral character of believers and unbelievers be developed in society today?
THE WESTERN APPROACH
Western civilisation is considered enlightened, and is promoted by the media, schools, entertainment, religion and many politicians. But the Western approach is individualistic. Neville Richardson writes of "the entrenchment of the moral sovereignty of the individual in Western consciousness".(3)
"The individual has become the focal point of our sense of identity and morality. How can the moral agent be anything but the reasoning individual?
It says: 'I am the centre of my life and deserve all I can get out of it'."
As WE Henley wrote:
"It matters not how strait the gate,
how charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul."
The West keeps different elements of society in their place. Don't mix religion and politics, or business and pleasure. This dualism manifests itself in other ways: human - divine; physical - spiritual; sacred -secular; government - civil society; personal - social; faith - politics; Christianity - 'other' religions.
Individualism and dualism are destructive divisive elements in society and promote many of our problems.
It affects the economy. The structure of the global economy makes most people poor, and this is evil, anti-human, destructive. People say: "So what? That's the way the world is. I am responsible for profit, not for the environment." Personal wealth is all that matters: the worship of Mammon.
It affects sex. Sex is marvelous, but deadly when it ignores social factors.
Lust and promiscuity dominate the media, film, TV, advertising, and much behaviour. Free sex is very expensive for the whole society.
Overpopulation is irresponsible.
It affects politics. The quest for personal power at any price is undemocratic, unjust and immoral. It twists thinking, as Bertrand Russell observed.(4) National and financial goals are destroying global life and progress, and promoting violence and terrorism. All weapons for the mass Destruction of humanity are evil.
It also affect theology. Right wing fundamentalism destroys the spirit and truth of both historical and pentecostal religions. Life is cursed by individualistic superstition, and by dualistic speculation about after-death. The Church Theology once castigated by the Kairos Document now rules many religions; prophets are rejected; many think religions are bankrupt; they are primarily interested in themselves, and are responsible for producing the 'post-religious' age.
Western civilisation has a crisis of orientation which Hans Kung says is not freedom but meaninglessness: nihilism.(5) It needs to be challenged directly and rejected. A different understanding and approach is required if humanity is to succeed.
THE COMMUNAL APPROACH
A different understanding of society appears in the primal beliefs of humanity: American Indians, Inuits, Siberians, Maoris, and Asiatics. It runs through religions from the Hindus to the Taoists, from the Old Testament to Jesus and Mohammed, from the Aztecs to the Ancestors. This communal approach reaches a critical mass of public opinion in Africa. Cooperation is life: competition is death.
"Africans recognise life as life-in-community. We can truly know ourselves if we remain true to our community, past, and present. The concept of individual success or failure is secondary. The ethnic group, the village, the locality, are crucial in one's estimation of oneself," writes Mercy Oduyoye.(6) Apartheid in any society lacerates humanity. Our pairs of opposites are a unity. They work together. Two sides of same coin. We need two feet to walk.
'God' is not a religious construct, but a factor in the political, economic, social and secular world. Liberating ourselves from imported colonial dualistic theology leads us to a uniting, coherent, holistic approach to life: "It is for the good of all, not only the good of me. I am responsible for others - not just to myself." We belong to one realm of being; life is a whole.
Social systems must have a positive influence on the welfare of others. Community is the arbiter of morality and spirituality, not personal entitlement.
Community is the measure of what is right and good, not personal ambition. Joe Slovo said: "The all-round development of the individual and the creation of opportunities for every person to express his or her talents to the full can only find expression in a society which dedicates itself to people rather than profit."(7) Poverty is the problem of society, not of the poor. It puts communal need before personal greed. The spiritual moral character of humanity is worldly, not heavenly.
For John Mbiti this is encapsulated in the concept of Ubuntu: "I am because we are, and because we are, I am."(8)
The love, joy and peace of religions are community-centred activities not self-centred. Environment, ecology, economics, justice and politics are communal activities. Real personal fulfillment is in communal fulfillment.
Communities respond to a concern for the whole life situation, not just souls. A Vital Force is the ground of our being. People have different concepts of 'God', but the word is shorthand for both believers and unbelievers who recognise the Vital Life Force, within the community. The truth is greater than the myths which convey it, and goes beyond individuals.
"Divine reality is not alien, but is part of ordinary human reality," writes Andre Van Niekerk.(9)
Barney Pityana writes: "There is a universal character to virtue and values, whatever cultural system one inhabits. These are the virtues of goodness and honour, and the values of justice, peace and family solidarity... All moral principles, ultimately, must be subjected to the moral principle of how they serve the well being of the family and the community."(10) There is a motivating spiritual force in the evolution of secular human society; and it is only in the secular that the spiritual can be discovered.
Jesus' objective was to proclaim the Ruling Power of God (Kingdom) in human community.(11) "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me; he has sent me to announce good news to the poor; to proclaim release for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind; to let the broken victims go free; and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Luke 4.1
The Ruling Power, or Vital Force, is linked to a nitty gritty love in all the great prophets:
Love is the vital political and social force found in human community. Not in the sky.
The original name of the Kairos Document was 'Challenge to the Church'.
Its prophetic theology rose in the height of apartheid oppression in 1985: "We need a bold and incisive response that is prophetic because it speaks to the particular circumstances of this crisis, a response that does not give the impression of sitting on the fence but is clearly and unambiguously taking a stand."(12)
This response can be prompted from various sources: upbringing, culture, Marx, Jesus, Mohammed, Gautama, Zoroaster and others. The focus is on a conviction to stir both reason and will. But how?(13) How can we harness the vital force, which prompts the holistic and communalistic answers in our society?
AFRICA'S ANSWER TO THE CHALLENGE
We see the communal approach through the eyes of Africa. South Africa has a holistic and communal thrust of a secular spirituality. It is a vision and set of values to free ourselves from Western individualistic intellectualism. "Our theology must be brewed in African pots," says Bishop Ivan Abrahams. So must our politics and economics.
Many South Africans living together today recognise they share a common spiritual vision. We are no longer colonial Christians promoting the religions of imperialist Britain, Roman Catholicism, Christian National apartheid, German Lutheranism, or the products of right wing America. We are no longer Hindus from India, Buddhists from Tibet, Muslims from the Far or the Middle East, Bahai's from Persia, Jews from Europe, or Communists from Russia, Cuba or China. Our experience of liberation goes beyond the colonial cultural apartheid we inherited.
We are a community of South African people of faith, through whom the winds of change have blown. We have our own vision of human society. Various spiritual riches from the past are now rooted in the soil of our own current experience, and a new indigenous knowledge system is growing among us.(14) Our vision and values lie deep in our history and experience. The priorities of the Freedom Charter still ring true: "These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty."
The values of the SA Constitution are hailed world wide:
The Moral Summit's code of conduct for persons in positions of responsibility, the Moral Regeneral Movement's Charter of Positive Values, and many others agree.
The actual experience of liberation in a community loud-mouthed by self-centredness leads to the trauma of transformation. There is a vision here of society driven by generosity, caring and sharing; enjoying a new culture; of government and civil society cooperating on political and social points of agreement; establishing a new cooperative economy; and undergirding the African Union and New Partnership for Africa's Development.
It is holistic, communalistic, driven by a Vital Force within us; and needs motivating. It goes beyond the fatal limitations of western politics, economics and religion and is rooted in African experience.
At the heart of it is a huge challenge. The western world wishes to ensnare us in its toils, as people subject to its financial, political and religious domination.
"The forces of privilege want us to be so weak that they can control the national agenda... they want us to be weak so that we are unable to bring about the fundamental social transformation of our country," says President Thabo Mbeki.(15)
Steve Biko warned us years ago that the oppressor's greatest weapon is the mind of the oppressed. Daryl Balia puts the challenge clearly and brutally:
"What is required is a more comprehensive and dynamic approach to the contextual reality so that the whole person becomes the object of theological discourse. Blacks will increasingly find themselves in influential positions, and the critical issue will be whether they will buttress the imperialist ideology of cultural domination or foster a sense of community and return to the vision of a displaced world view."(16) Whites too!
How do we engage the Vital Force behind our vision and values? The Vital
Force comes through action, response, practice and emotive words. Faith comes through works. The harvest of the spirit comes after planting and nurturing in secular ground. Liberation and Transformation come through joining the struggle for positive values and against the greed of capitalist dictatorship, and the superstitions of right wing fundamentalism. The Vital Force is within humans; its spiritual power is released through secular involvement. It transforms us from a suicidal acquisitive society into a functioning ubuntu community.
Releasing the spiritual power in Africa has many elements:
Both believers and unbelievers are seeking a new society, together. It needs to be proclaimed clearly and fearlessly as a new focus for Africa. We need to motivate a new global progressive movement. The vision of a new type of society in Africa can turn the world upside down.
This is a discussion document prepared by the ANC Commission for Religious Affairs.
Notes
1. Nelson Mandela at 1997 ANC Conference.
2. Paul of Tarsus: Gal.5.19-23.
3. Neville Richardson. 1998 .Questions about Life and Morality. JL van Schaik. 39.
4. See Russell on his 'political discovery.'
5. Hans Kung.
6. Mercy Odoyuye. 1992 The Value of African Beliefs and Practices for Christian Theology.
7. Joe Slovo. Has Socialism failed? Inkululeko Publications. January 1990.
8. John Mbiti. 1969 African Religions and Philosophy. Heinemann p.108-109.
9. Andre Van Neikerk. 1998 Questions about Life and Morality. JL van Schaik. 264
10. African Renaissance: The New Struggle. p.144.
11. It is interesting but neither conclusive nor very helpful to speculate about the origin of the Vital Force on Earth. It thrusts through humanity in religion, music and art, architecture and literature, as a major social concern. It is, and it is here.
12. The Kairos Document. 1985.
13. This motivation forms communities of people with a shared identity, who develop a common memory, hope, shared by human stories. The personal stories must be fitted into the greater story that unites - by listening to their stories. Charles Villa-Vicencio.
14. See Harvey Cox in Many Mansions 1992 Beacon Press p10.
15. Cosatu Conference 2000.
16. Daryl Balia. 1991. Black Methoists and White Supremacy. Madiba Publications. 99.
[Contents]