OPENING ADDRESS BY DEPUTY PRESIDENT JACOB ZUMA TO THE SOUTH AFRICAN COUNCIL OF CHURCHES WORKSHOP ON THE PROJECT FOR REVITALISATION OF EDUCATION
KEMPTON PARK 3 AUGUST 1999
Deputy Minister Smangaliso Mkhatshwa
General Secretary, Rev Charity Majiza
Chairperson of the South African Council of Churches Education
Standing Committee, Professor Seth Manaka
Delegates and participants
Distinguished Guests:
I would like to thank you for the invitation to share some ideas with you in this workshop. This is the first opportunity after a very long time that I have of meeting you. I would like to commend the South African Council of Churches for its initiative in providing a forum in which to deliberate on the state of education in our country.
It is my view that educate must be understood in its broader sense, not simply what happens inside a classroom or formal centres of learning, but also the kind of education whereby the values and morals of a society and the knowledge of a community are instilled in our daily lives.
I truly believe that religion can play important roles in many aspects of our lives in any situation that presents itself, as it can now in our present situation, in the crisis we are facing in this country as regards education - Not simply formal education but this overall education of people in becoming social and moral beings, taking responsibility for their thoughts and actions, measuring this against their system of values and a well-developed moral framework.
Having said this, I want to point to the long history of the church in this country and the role prominent members of the church played in the struggle for freedom right from the early beginnings of this struggle.
It is a fact that in the struggle against colonialism and later apartheid, the African Intellectuals together with African traditional leaders (who had fought the wars of dispossession) were those who came together to form our movement against oppression. It was like a parliament of the people, accommodating everyone. Incidentally, even these African intellectuals were among those who had achieved higher education through the initiatives of missionaries - so even then those from the church played a big role in education in our country. Among the African intellectuals, there were lawyers and teachers, but it is often overlooked that a sizeable proportion of these intellectuals, these thinkers, were people of the church and that these African church leaders were at the forefront of the struggle.
We cannot measure the progress of the struggle against oppression without speaking about the contributions of outstanding leaders such as John Dube, Reverend Rubusana, Reverend Calata, Albert Luthuli. Later, some individuals who were priests even saw it fit to take up arms in the struggle for liberation. I have in mind Reverend Mandla Msibi who went to Swaziland.
I remember that the establishment of the Christian front, also called the religious front, within the movement, was seen to be an important initiative whereby the church could be recognised as an integral and inextricable part of the struggle. When in later years in this long struggle, apartheid was declared a heresy, it was thanks largely to our church community and the international church community that this came about, a declaration which took our struggle so much further in the eyes of the international Christian community.
The birth of liberation theology in this country came about because there were those in the church, some of whom are here with us today, who believed that their role was to take up the socio-economic challenges facing traditional theologies. These challenges facing theologians led to a search for something new and better to meet the needs of the people. Here too, the idea of a theology of liberation meant a broadening of your understanding even of what education meant. You defined your theology as relevant to the struggle for liberation. From within that tradition, came political leaders preaching peace and reconciliation.
We are mindful of the contributions that church organisations, especially the Council of Churches, have made over the years in the struggle for justice and democracy in our country. Perhaps it is only fitting that the principled partnerships forged in the hard, difficult struggle should be translated now into a concrete agenda of transformation.