Date: 21/09/2011

Source: Other

Title: SA: Ndungane: Address by the President of African Monitor, on the occasion of being awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Walter Sisulu University

It is a distinctive honour and privilege for me to accept the Award of an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Philosophy. To be associated with a university that has not only produced some outstanding leaders in our country, but which has also helped so many poor people around Mthatha who could not afford to send their children to other universities because of the high cost of education in our country, gives me great pleasure and joy.

I am truly honoured and humbled at having this degree bestowed on me, and I shall cherish this day. May I wish you God’s richest blessings as you continue to do your important work in the field of education. There can be few other activities more important than providing the infrastructure and human resources needed to mentor those who will be torch bearers for us as we go forward as a nation. It is always instructive to recognise that institutions of higher learning enjoy the rare privilege of bringing out the potential of young people from almost every conceivable background. As Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that a daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of a farm worker can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

Before me I see South Africa’s and indeed, Africa’s, future. Surrounding me is the catalyst for that future. Universities such as yours, play a significant role not only in personal formation, but in nation building. In the words of Benjamin Disraeli, one time British Prime Minister, “Upon Education rests the future of this nation.”

There can be no doubt that a sound educational system is critical if our social, economic and political institutions are to be strengthened. Education gives us the opportunity to change our own circumstances and teaches us how to change the environment we live in. It stimulates us to have enquiring minds to ensure that we don’t simply take things for granted, and provides us with the academic discipline to debate in a creative manner so that we can contribute meaningfully to the common good. For those of you here today who still have time left at university, I want to encourage you to use your time here profitably, so that when you leave, you are well equipped to face the many challenges that you will encounter. And, like the graduands who are celebrating their success today, you will be well placed to make a meaningful contribution to the growth and development of South Africa because, as we stand on the cusp of the African century, our land has many challenges facing it.

We are a young nation with half of our population under 35 years of age, many of whom are uneducated. We are a country with growth pangs, there can be no doubt. On an all too regular basis we face volatile social situations through service delivery protests, often by young people.

We are also a land in desperate need of a reservoir of good, strong, moral and ethical leadership. The spirit of reconciliation and harmony that Nelson Mandela instilled in us when he became president is all too often absent these days.

We have high levels of poverty and inequalities which needs to be addressed. We are in need of policies and actions that promote economic opportunities to young people, the urban poor and people in rural areas. We have a select few benefitting from tenders resulting in a need for policies that stimulate the creation of wealth and entrepreneurship so that the largesse resulting from such policies can cascade to the poor, and not just be enjoyed by those who enjoy showing off their new-found personal riches. South Africa is peculiar in the African continent in that most of its poor are generally sitting at home waiting for income grants and other forms of social assistance. In other African countries, the poor are generally engaged in the informal sector, busy finding ways to generate their own livelihoods.

Since 1994 South Africa’s role in Africa in particular and the world in general, has become seminal. This is no better illustrated in our global village than the increasingly influential role we are playing in forums such as the United Nations and our recent entry into the economic and socio-political bloc known as BRICS. In Africa, our role as a country which has social systems that attract Africans north of the Limpopo is paramount. All of these are important as we go forward as a nation.

But for us to grow in this role there can be nothing more important than the protection, sustenance and strengthening of our young constitutional democracy.

In saying this I want to emphasise that we need a broad vision for South Africa in AFRICA. Such a vision must be founded on the constitutional democracy which we attained in 1994 and for which countless South Africans from all walks of life paid a high price.

It was the American Christian intellectual, Reinold Niebuhr, who made the powerful point that “man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” These powerful words are germane given the volatile social situations in which South Africa often appears to find itself. The volatility to which I refer is of deep concern to many. It is also a threat to our constitutional democracy - based on a Constitution that was hammered out on the anvil of pain and suffering. And what are these threats? There are many, but they include threats that come through rhetoric from many of our leaders, as reported in the media, as well as the wanton destruction to our infrastructure through service delivery strikes.

Let me be clear: the voice of protest must never be allowed to die in any democracy, and particularly in ours. But what is objectionable is the violence and destruction of property that accompanies many of the protests we are witnessing in South Africa.

Such volatile actions occur with little or no regard for the checks and balances written into the Constitution, for the consequences for our land. These checks and balances, notably in the judiciary, executive and parliament, have proved over the 17 years of our democracy to be generally robust and responsible. But we now run the risk, given the volatility of which I have referred, of falling into the temptation of undermining what should bind us together for the common good.

It’s almost as if we have forgotten the rich tapestry of our colourful society with its richness of cultures and community, all of which excited us all in 1994 as we looked to the future. We need to celebrate our rich diversity and use it to seize every possible opportunity for the greater good, and not be imprisoned by our past.

Martin Prozesky painted an image of South Africa which is indelible in my mind. He says, “South Africa is like many streams that flow from a mountain into one river.” If I take that analogy further, as South Africans we are that river, bound together by our common humanity. The colourful tapestry of our land truly reflects that we are created in the image of God with intrinsic dignity and worth. We embrace the values of Ubuntu. This is what gives us our identity as a nation that is truly African.

Of course, in the socio-political and economic world in which we all operate, at the highest level it should be our Constitution that unites and guides us. It is the challenge we face and that we must overcome, the challenge of championing the over-arching needs of communities and limiting the role of the individual that must unite us. South Africa does not need egocentric leaders – it needs leaders that can display the value of responsibility, and give mature guidance and direction.

In short, it needs leaders who will embrace our rich heritage.
Allow me to quote Niebuhr again: “There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilisation, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.”

I have no doubt that it was sentiments such as these which were interwoven in the philosophy of President Nelson Mandela when he emerged from Robben Island, not as a bitter and angry man, but as a statesman revered the world over for the spirit of reconciliation and harmony which he brought. He was a leader who put the interests and well-being of all South Africans above his own; an apostle of reconciliation and forgiveness par excellence.

So why is the spirit of reconciliation and harmony now so difficult to maintain? Why is it that in my travels, most recently in the last few weeks to India, I am confronted with challenging questions about the volatility that surrounds the protests in our country? The image that South Arica is fast earning in the world, not least in other African countries and the BRICS bloc , is one in which that spirit of reconciliation and harmony that President Mandela left as his legacy is often absent.

What has happened to our political organisations that madness now rules supreme during protests? Why has brawn and lunacy replaced brain and dignity as the currency of today’s social exchange?

One answer is perhaps to be found, with some sadness I may say, in the unfortunate fact that as a nation we have found it easier to hold on to a heritage of violence than to fully embrace the legacy of reconciliation and harmony. If we continue on this course, our image in the world and in Africa will become ever more tarnished until there is no positive image at all.

The question then that we have to ask is what is necessary to stop the hurt and harm being caused to our society; what has to be done to reverse the process in which voluble people seek to demean and humiliate the legacy of our past leaders?
I believe that one way in which we can do this is to harness the energies and creativity of youth for good in shaping the future of our country. We need to nurture our youth, provide the best education that we can, and more importantly, we need good role models so that we can create leaders who are ethical and will lead with integrity.

I said at the beginning of this address that we are on the cusp of the African century. This of course suggests that I am optimistic about the future for Africa, as indeed I am for the future for South Africa. But my later comments will also have suggested to you that I am appalled at the assault I perceive on our young constitutional democracy.

People in powerful and influential positions who seek to denigrate the institutions that are critical to our constitutional democracy clearly have no understanding or appreciation of the privileged position they now have as free South African citizens. Nor do they even begin to recognise the high price paid to obtain our freedom in 1994.

Going forward in deepening our democracy, we need as a society to promote the notion of ‘The Common Good’. The notion of the common good finds expression in the best of democratic processes which give expression within the nation to the assumption that everyone matters, and that everyone matters equally. This was effectively articulated centuries ago by Aristotle, who argued that human life is just as good when it is shaped by pursuing ends that are intrinsically good. Then the common good follows. The Roman Catholic Fathers in ‘Gaudium et Spes’ define the common good as “the sum of social conditions which allow people either as individuals or as groups to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily”.

It is ironic that when one looks back over the 17 years of our democracy that the high points of the common good of the community can almost all be traced back to sporting events. Last year, of course, when the FIFA World Cup was held here, our country united with a spirit of unity and generosity that was infectious.

This year has seen a milder form of that infectious spirit with the Springboks leaving for the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, and Banyana Banyana qualifying for the 2012 Olympics. When the Bokke won the Rugby World Cup in 1995, and President Mandela immortalised his image in the minds of countless people worldwide by wearing the Springbok Number 6 jersey, we saw just what was achievable through sport – a feat repeated when they won the world Cup again in 2007. Similarly, the almost unthinkable occurred last year when that bastion of Afrikaner conservatism, the crowd at Loftus Versfeld Stadium, moved en masse to see the final of the Super 14 rugby match between the Bulls and the Stormers, to Orlando Stadium in Soweto – the home in 1976 to protests against Afrikaans as a language of instruction in schools! Blacks and whites mingled freely, not least as they celebrated together after the match in the taverns of Soweto and proclaimed as one their love of sport. There is much to make us feel depressed in our land, but if we can show our colours as truly proud South Africans in these circumstances, what is wrong with us that we can’t do so when we are called on to build real nationhood for the common good?

Nation building that embraces reconciliation and harmony requires more, however, than intermittent celebrations of our sporting prowess. Building a spirit of reconciliation and harmony on the one hand, and a productive economy on the other – both of which serve the common good - requires that we transcend sport and move our commitment to all realms of society.

Reconciliation needs to be tackled in a balanced way. True reconciliation will only occur if there is a meaningful redistribution of wealth and economic opportunity that it is not confined to the elites but that the whole nation shares in it. And the dialogue about this must include business, the holders of economic power, as well as those who have political power.

What is required, is a resurgence of that infectious spirit of which I spoke, but this time initiated and sustained by our leaders with their considerable influence of the masses – leaders in the political, economic, business and religious spheres; leaders who shun the cult of individualism and embrace the potential of a nation united, not just for the good of our country, but of Africa as a whole. An infectious spirit that can be carried forward by our youth, as well as ordinary citizens. For it is important that all citizens take responsibility for their own livelihoods and the future of South Africa – firstly by holding leaders to account for the use of resources and the direction South Africa is taking, as well as by engaging in activities that build the nation and improve productivity.

What we need is a growing practice of reconciliation and harmony; to desert the streets of protest and to build on our Constitution and our heritage, and to expend our energy in optimising the opportunities that South Africa calls us to seize. We need to liberate our mindsets, and move forward as one – “One Nation, One South Africa”.

Archbishop Ndungane founded African Monitor in 2006, a pan-African non-profit organization that monitors both the fulfillment of the promises of both aid-giving and aid-receiving countries.