FO CUS

Issue 62 • august 2011

Religion  African
Traditional

& Society
Religion
Sibusiso Masondo

Religion and
Revival
Ivor Chipkin and

Does God Annie Leatt

Islam and
have a Vote? Democracy
Abdulkader Tayob
Anthony Egan
Religion and
Social Progress
Religion and Iraj Abedian

Equality in Liberal
Review Article
Hugh Lewin
Claudia B Braude

Constitutionalism Reviews
Lewis Mash
David Bilchitz William Gumede

helen.suzman.foundation
promoting liberal constitutional democracy
Director and Editor-in-Chief
Francis Antonie

Principal Sub-editor
Kate Francis

Sub-editors
Michael Edmeston
Tim Kenny
Lewis Mash
Anele Mtwesi
Joe Roussos

Editorial Advisory Board

Wendy Appelbaum,
Raphael de Kadt
Gillian Godsell,
William Gumede,
Raymond Louw,
Howard Preece,
Lawrence Schlemmer,
Sipho Seepe, Mary Slack,
Alfred Stadler and
Richard Steyn

Board of Trustees
Hylton Appelbaum,
Wendy Appelbaum,
Doug Band, Colin Eglin,
Jane Evans, Nicole Jaff,
Daniel Jowell,
Temba Nolutshungu,
Krishna Patel,
Modise Phekonyane,
Gary Ralfe, Sipho Seepe,
Mary Slack, Richard Steyn,
David Unterhalter

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ISSN 1680-9822

The publication of Focus

is made possible through
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Foundation for Liberty
CONTENTS

Editorial – Francis Antonie 2

Does God have a Vote? Faith, Democratic

Politics and the Secular Age
Anthony Egan 3

The Tension Between Freedom of Religion and Equality

in Liberal Constitutionalism
David Bilchitz 11

Islam and Democracy in South Africa

Abdulkader Tayob 20

Religion and Social Progress: Beyond the Clash of Extremes

Iraj Abedian 25

African Traditional Religion in the face of Secularism in South Africa

Sibusiso Masondo 32

Religion and Revival in post-apartheid South Africa

Ivor Chipkin and Annie Leatt 39

Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity and the Making

of Female Managers
Maria Frahm-Arp 47

“Doing God” and Policy: In Search of Social Capital and Innovation

Francis Davis 54

Review Article: Stones against the Mirror by Hugh Lewin

Claudia B Braude 60

BOOK ReviewS

• Lewis Mash 70
Helen Suzman: by Gillian Godsell
• William Gumede 72
Liberal Democracy and Peace in South Africa
by Pierre du Toit and Hennie Kotze

T r i b u te

In Memoriam: Patrick Laurence

Richard Steyn 75

The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the
views of the Helen Suzman Foundation.

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edi tori al

This edition of Focus is dedicated to exploring some of the relationships between religious belief and society. In a modern
and supposedly secular age, religious belief and practice have a curious and intriguing persistence – the assumption
being that religion has no real place in a modern or modernising world: when it occurs, it is, no doubt, a legacy of some
sort of archaic sensibility.
There are problems with this view, which can and heterotopic spaces capture the complexity
easily be caricatured as a species of (western) of the dilemmas which confront all believers in
triumphalist secularism. The secular sensibility their relations with a secular liberal constitutional
can no doubt persuade and convince us that order.
the logic of modernity leaves no place for these
Iraj Abedian pursues a similar line of argument
archaic sensibilities. That may be so. But in killing
when he considers the relationship between
off God, modernity may very well have forgotten
religion and social progress. His concern is the
about the Devil – evil not being a category readily
distorting impact which ‘materialistic’ secularism
accessible to sociologists!
has had on social, political and economic human
How then do we understand secularism and, in a activity.
secular polity, how do we accommodate varieties
Sibusiso Masondo extends our discussion when
of the religious experience?
he considers the relationship between African
Francis Antonie Some of these dilemmas are neatly captured by Traditional Religions and secularism. Here,
is the Director of the eminent historian, Michael Burleigh1, who we face a long history of marginalisation and
the Helen Suzman poses two questions: “Can a society survive that discrimination by missionaries, and colonial and
Foundation. He is is not the object of commitments to its core apartheid governments. Paradoxically – from the
a graduate of Wits, values or a focus for the fundamental identities of secular perspective – the post-1994 dispensation
Leicester and Exeter all its members?”and “Can a nation state survive opened up a space for African Traditional
Universities. He was that is only a legal and political shell, or a ‘market Religions, as Masondo suggests, “to have a public
awarded the Helen state’ for discrete ethnic or religious communities voice and profile”.
Suzman Chevening that share little by way of common values other
Ivor Chipkin and Annie Leatt pursue a parallel
than use of the same currency?” Burleigh is here,
Fellowship by the line of enquiry in their discussion on Religion
of course, concerned with the issues of identity in
UK Foreign Office in and Revival in post-apartheid South Africa.
a highly secularised Europe. But these questions
1994. From 1996 to They suggest that an important paradigm shift
do have relevance for us in secular South Africa
2006 he was senior has taken place which is best encapsulated by the
where religious belief persists, notwithstanding
economist at Standard phrase the return of religion. Of particular interest
the forces of modernity, materialism and secular-
are their discussions about Pentecostalism and of
Bank; thereafter he ism.
post-apartheid Afrikaners.
was director of the
All our contributors wrestle with the problem of
Graduate School of Maria Frahm-Arp further explores Pente-
belief in a secular age.
Public Development costalism and wonderfully illustrates its ongoing
and Management at
Anthony Egan, somewhat provocatively, begins appeal in her discussion on the Making of Female
by posing the question, “Does God have a vote?” Managers.
Wits University. He is
He sketches out the broad themes of the secular
the founding managing Francis Davis brings our discussion on religion
imagination and gives a brief outline of the
director of Strauss & and society to a close by offering a perspective
historical hostility of organised Christianity to
Co. from the UK. For Davis, religious belief is an
democracy, but also of the (Catholic) Church’s
important contributor, even if indirectly, to the
sometimes very fumbling attempts to come to
formation of social capital. How then do policy
terms with modernity.
makers mobilise this social capital?
David Bilchitz’s article explores the tension
This edition includes a review article by Claudia
between religious belief and equality in the liberal
Braude of Hugh Lewin’s recently published
constitutional setting in contemporary South
Stones Against the Mirror. Braude explores, with
Africa. What underpins Bilchitz’s argument
great sensitivity, the issues of responsibility,
is the importance – he in fact regards it as an
activism and justice. Reviews by Lewis Mash
imperative – that all religious associations need to
of Gillian Godsell’s Helen Suzman, and by
embody an ethos that respects the equal dignity
William Gumede on du Toit and Kotze’s Liberal
of all individuals.
Democracy and Peace in South Africa, are also
This theme is taken up by Abdulkader Tayob included. We end with Richard Steyn’s tribute to
in his article on Islam and Democracy in South the late Patrick Laurence, a long-serving editor
Africa. For Tayob, Foucault’s concepts of utopian of Focus.
NOTES
1 Burleigh, M. Earthly Powers, United Kingdom: Harper Collins, 2005

2
Does God have a Vote?
Faith, Democratic Politics
and the Secular Age
A flippant answer to the question in the title might be: if God has
registered to vote, God can vote. This comment, though for some a tad
impious perhaps, encapsulates a range of questions and presuppositions
about how religious people face up to the complexity of being democratic
citizens in a secular state. In this article I shall start by trying to define
and tease out the historical growth of what Canadian social philosopher
Charles Taylor has dubbed the ‘secular age’,1 in particular as it impacted on
the Christian tradition, with particular reference to Roman Catholicism.
Finally, drawing on the thought of philosopher Robert Audi, I present a
case for religious engagement in secular public discourse that respects the Dr Anthony
reality of the secular, pluralist society in which we live. Egan, a Catholic
priest and Jesuit, is a
The secular social imaginary member of the Jesuit
Charles Taylor, frequently uses the term ‘social imaginary’ in his works that look at Institute – South Africa
in Johannesburg. He
the emergence of modern secular society. By this he means
is Research Fellow
at the Helen Suzman
“something much broader and deeper than the intellectual schemes people
Foundation. Trained
may entertain when they think about social reality in a disengaged mode. I am
in history and politics
thinking, rather, of the ways people imagine their social existence, how they
at UCT (MA) and Wits
fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, (PhD) he is also a
the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and moral theologian, who
images that underlie these expectations.”2 has lectured at Wits
University (Political
Where many theorists of secularisation look at the phenomenon from ‘above’ – Studies), St John
from the view of elites, or from shifts in policy – Taylor takes a more ‘democratic’ Vianney Seminary
approach, looking at human worldviews in general. (moral theology) and
St Augustine College
Secularisation is a term that describes the way in which religion has largely of South Africa (moral
withdrawn from worldly prominence over the last few centuries. Sociologist Jose theology and applied
Casanova3 indicates that it comprises three elements: ethics). He is completing
a book on just war
• The differentiation of the secular and religious spheres of life. theory.
• The decline in religious practice.
• The marginalisation of religion to the private sphere, including the end of
religious domination of political life.

Charles Taylor4 sees the retreat of religion from the public space, which he often calls
secularity, as a process entailing three stages. First, the religious worldview withdraws
from the public sphere. This for Taylor is not simply caused by the rise of the scientific

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anthony e gan

worldview – which had little impact initially on most people – but is part of a deeper
de-enchantment of reality.5 Where once “[h]uman agents are embedded in society,
society in the cosmos, and the cosmos incorporates the divine”6, the embedding
is broken. From the Reformation through the Enlightenment to Modernity and
now Postmodernity the “sacred canopy” (to use Peter Berger’s evocative term)7 has
disappeared. The world is now human-centred and run according to a range of
rational human principles based on reason. This happened, Taylor, suggests initially
with an elite during the Reformation who, by promoting the idea of unmediated
individual access to God, unintentionally led to a new mentality: “from a hierarchical
order of personalized links to an impersonal egalitarian one, from a vertical world of
mediated access to horizontal, direct-access societies.”8

The second stage of this saw the decline of individual

It was also, as Taylor points out, based religious involvement. As people started “using Reason
and Science, instead of Religion and Superstition”9 to
on a growing unease with the notion of
interpret a reality where God was no longer integrally
‘providential deism’: if science, not direct part of the worldview, the ‘designer’ God of reformed
divine action, explains how things happen, Christianity (that replaced the enchanted God of
God becomes increasingly transcendent, far a previous epoch) started to fade away. Of course,
with this growing sense of a scientific worldview, the
away from the swirl of daily life, originator
integrated ‘enchanted cosmos’ started to fade, and
of everything but not really involved. In with it the power of organised religion over the lives
short a kind of absentee landlord. The result of, first, elites and later, perhaps as late as the 19th
is what Taylor calls the ‘anthropocentric Century, the masses. This alienation of the European
masses from the Church was initially linked to church
shift’: the world is now no longer God’s but
leaders’ hostility to democratic movements, only later
human-centred. to ‘crisis of faith’. It was also, as Taylor points out, based
on a growing unease with the notion of ‘providential
deism’: if science, not direct divine action, explains how things happen, God
becomes increasingly transcendent, far away from the swirl of daily life, originator
of everything but not really involved. In short a kind of absentee landlord. The result
is what Taylor calls the ‘anthropocentric shift’10: the world is now no longer God’s
but human-centred.

The third stage, in effect the third type of secularism Taylor identifies, entails the
recent shift in many parts of the world away from the assumption that religious
belief is the norm. This form began in the 18th Century. Taylor argues:

“The multiple critiques leveled at orthodox religion, Deism, and the new
humanism, and their cross-polemics, end up generating a number of new
positions, including modes of unbelief which have broken out of the humanism
of freedom and mutual benefit (e.g., Nietzsche and his followers) – and
lots else besides. So that our present predicament offers a gamut of possible
positions which extend way beyond the options available in the late eighteenth
century.”11

This opening up of multiple possible approaches to making meaning, spread beyond

elites to the masses. The result is that no single meaningful discourse is acting as
a means to keep moral/spiritual coherence. A non-religious, humanist, morally
polyvalent approach has become the default position for society. The growth of a
global system and the interaction of Western society with multiple non-European

4
 d o e s g o d h ave a vo t e ?

religious and cultural systems has intensified this and, I would argue, made this
polyvalence both inevitable and necessary for congenial coexistence.

This has not meant the suppression of religion as such. Indeed today there has been
a revival of religious belief and practice in many places, but no single religion holds
sway12. Religions exist plurally among a range of other social discourses. Except in
places where movements spearheaded by hard-line religions (fundamentalism) have
seized control, the resurgence of religion has not overtly led to religious states.

The problem we face is that secularisation and secularity is often confused with
overt hostility to religion and a radical commitment to excise religion from the
public life.13 We see this ideology played out in the writings and pronouncements of
the ‘new atheists’ like Dawkins and Hitchens.

Religious belief and Democracy

Hard line new atheists seem to regard the intervention of any religious person in the
public sphere with a mixture of fear and loathing. Any religious contribution is for
them the beginning of a slippery slope from democracy back into the ‘dark ages’14
of superstition and theocracy. They see the political mobilisation of fundamentalists
as a dangerous threat to liberty, science and inquiry. Here one can only agree. The
way that Christian fundamentalist groups have campaigned for their agenda in the
United States is chilling, particularly when they use the institutions of democracy
to impose bizarre Creationist views on school curricula. At their most extreme
they have agitated for laws based on ‘biblical’ (read:
literalist) interpretation and discrimination against
non-Christians and non-believers. Similarly the rise of Mainstream religion has evolved beyond
conservative movements of political Islam, in countries extremism even if it remains uncomfortable
as varied as Iran and Saudi Arabia, have imposed anti- with the secular state, with some sections of
democratic social values on societies. Similar pressure
groups are emerging from the other great religions of
it perhaps hoping against hope for a return
the world. At the most extreme, one sees the coupling to the lost enchanted world under a sacred
of conservative religion and political violence in what canopy.
might be called ‘faith-based terrorist organisations’.

Are the new atheists right, then? Insofar as they select the most extreme religious
groups and views, they are, to my mind, burning a straw man. Mainstream religion
has evolved beyond extremism even if it remains uncomfortable with the secular
state, with some sections of it perhaps hoping against hope for a return to the
lost enchanted world under a sacred canopy. The challenge has been to generate
an effective modus vivendi for religious organisations to engage positively and
constructively with secular (post)modernity. For religious and secular moderates like
ethicist Jeffrey Stout “[e]thical discourse in religiously plural modern democracies is
secularized… only in the sense that it does not take for granted a set of agreed-upon
assumptions about the nature and existence of God.” You can’t thus take for granted
that “religious commitments have default authority in this context.”15

However before we take up Stout’s challenge we need to first acknowledge that

religions have had a profoundly ambivalent, often hostile, attitude to democracy and
secularity. This is best illustrated by a potted account of a tradition, Christianity, and
one important part of it, Roman Catholicism.

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anthony e gan
The Christian Church’s hostility to
Democracy
Democracy should not be seen as foundational to
Christianity, though churches today endorse it.
There has been a long, turbulent history of mutual
suspicion and hostility that has only really in the last
two centuries eased into a generally healthy working
relationship.
The Judeo-Christian Scriptures offer no direct
endorsement of democracy. This is unsurprising given
that democracy as such did not exist at the time: the
political leitmotif was mostly one of kingship. God
is King, Jesus is Lord. The early Christians organised
along oligarchic lines prevalent in the Greco-Roman
world without attempting to change the status quo.
Christianity, though multi-class in composition, did
not in the first centuries overthrow the dominant order,
but Christianised it, and monarchical and later feudal
politico-economic relationships predominated. This
was brought to the world in the age of colonisation.
Religious minorities did indeed promote more
egalitarian – what we might today call democratic –
values and practices, drawing political analogies to
biblical teachings about human dignity, equality of
persons under God, and Christ’s rejection of a class/
caste system and incorporation of marginalised people
(women, children, Samaritans, the ritually impure, the
sick, etc).
And what happened to them? They were called heretics,
persecuted and killed. From medieval penitential and
millenarian movements, through the wars of the
Reformation (where Luther sided with the German
princes against the peasant movements of radical
reformation, and where Calvin quickly imposed a
theocracy of sorts in Geneva), through the 17th century
religious wars and the English Civil War, democratic
Christians were systematically exterminated.
Secularisation and Democracy 16
What started as an exposure and critique of corrupt
church practices (i.e. the Reformation) moved into a
critique of doctrine itself, culminating philosophically
in intellectual deism and political liberalism that
paved the way for the French Revolution, separation
of church and state and ultimately modern secular
democracy.17 Liberalism and Romanticism, the two
great intellectual movements of the 19th century,
can thus be seen as the logical outcome not simply of
6
Enlightenment atheism but as the logical extension of
the Reformation into the politico-cultural spheres.
In “On Liberty” (1859) John Stuart Mill summed
up the impact of such a movement on religion in
politics:
“Those who first broke the yoke of what called
itself the Universal Church, were in general as little
willing to permit difference of religious opinion as
the Church itself. But when the heat of the conflict
was over, without giving a complete victory to any
party, and each church or sect was reduced to limit
its hopes to retaining possession of the ground it
already occupied; minorities, seeing they had no
chance of becoming majorities, were under the
necessity of pleading to those whom they could
not convert, for permission to differ…”18
Mill’s fundamental principle of liberty – self-
protection of the individual from unnecessary and
undue influence by society as a whole – expresses
deep suspicion of any interventionist state, whether
monarchical or democratic, theocratic or secular:
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion,
and only one person were of the contrary opinion,
mankind would be no more justified in silencing
that one person, than he, if he had the power,
would be justified in silencing mankind.”19
The next piece in the 19th century puzzle is the notion
of Natural Supernaturalism,20 both a literary cultural
movement (Romanticism) and the culmination of the
Reformation-Enlightenment movement away from
medieval religio-political and cultural cosmology
through deism towards modern atheism. Old religious
practices and eschatology gave way to an emphasis
on this-worldly salvation and humanist theologies
that questioned the classical religious system. Much
theology became, as John Kent noted, rooted in
“the historical approach; the concomitant rejection
of Verbal Inspiration theories; anti-dogmatism; the
tendency to prefer existentially defined ‘religions’ to
creeds, confessional statements and propositional
theology in general”.21 Here too we see Charles
Taylor’s theory of disenchantment and the rise of
expressive individualism in the very discourse of
Christian religion itself.
Traditional religion was shaken at its foundations by the
 d o e s g o d h ave a vo t e ?

rise of nationalism, socialism and industrialisation. With the rise of communications

to serve the latter in particular, small isolated communities that had been locked in
a ‘total’ system including ‘folk religion’ (the remnants of Taylor’s ‘enchanted world’)
were incorporated into larger economic and geographical units. They developed
new identities outside the old system – whether as workers, Frenchmen, or through
nationalist movements as Germans and Italians. These identities became, for most,
primary: in the face of scientific rationalism and modernity, the old religious verities
also crumbled.

As secular democratic ideas gained ground, the

churches almost universally sided with the ancien Faced with radical anti-clericalism and
regime. Some were more explicit than others. A socialism, the Catholic Church rather
succession of 19th century popes denounced liberalism
and democracy as heretical. Pius IX, after the 1848
reluctantly endorsed democracy more as a
revolutions in Europe, intransigently resisted the lesser evil than a good that could be drawn
Italian unification and the assimilation of the Papal out analogically from scripture, tradition and
States became unstoppable. This found expression in reason.
the 1864 Syllabus of Errors, with its stinging attack on
the ‘evils’ of the 19th century – pantheism, naturalism,
absolute or moderate rationalism, indifferentism, latitudinarianism, socialism,
communism, secret societies, bible societies, clerico-liberal societies, restrictions on
the Church’s (or pontiff ’s) political powers or civil and educational rights, in short
the very notion that the “Roman pontiff can and ought to reconcile and harmonize
himself with progress, with liberalism, and with modern civilization.”22

The pope’s political power ultimately collapsed with the final annexation of
Rome in 1871. For decades after the unification of Italy popes denounced the
constitutional monarchy, threatening any Catholic who voted (or joined a party) with
excommunication.23 Gradually this changed. Faced with radical anti-clericalism and
socialism, the Catholic Church rather reluctantly endorsed democracy more as a
lesser evil than a good that could be drawn out analogically from scripture, tradition
and reason.

Why were the churches uneasy with democracy? I think the reason lay in their (quite
justifiable) sense that democratic politics would undermine religious authority. In
an era of cuius regius eius religio (religion of the ruler dictates religion of the ruled)
and notions of the divine right of kings, the social order mirrored the religious order
of popes, bishops, priests and ‘the rest’, with similar notions occurring in protestant
traditions, e.g. the monarch as head of the Church of England or Scandinavian
Lutheran traditions, the dominance of church leaders in Calvinist states. Not to be
of the faith of the ruler was unpatriotic; to call for religious tolerance was to drive a
wedge between spiritual and temporal authority, leading to a secular state.

The popes were right in their judgment, but their actions proved futile and alienated
them from modern society. The wedge between temporal and spiritual was firmly
driven into popular consciousness.

In 1893 Pope Leo XIII introduced what became known as Catholic Social Thought
in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, partly an attempt by the church to engage with
the wider world. This and subsequent encyclicals were characterised by an appeal to
secular philosophical reasoning to provide a common language for discussion. By

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anthony e gan

calling the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) Pope John XXIII further tried to
bring the church into dialogue with secularity, trying to build up common ground
with other churches and societies. This aggiornamento can be seen as an attempt
to bring the church into the new secular reality – dialogue with modernity and
the values of democracy and human rights within society. Aggiornamento was the
Catholic Church’s attempt to embrace and engage with the fait accompli of the
secular age.

It was not, however, welcomed by everyone. Many

Authoritarian attitudes in the Church, objected that any accommodation with modernity
and claims to ‘special authority’ based on was compromising the faith. This created insecurity
and crises of identity. While some churches effectively
anthropologies and certain forms of reasoning turned their backs on modernity and retreated from
not shared by everyone – …have an impact the early 20th century into biblical fundamentalism,
on how the church is perceived… the Catholic Church from 1965 onwards became a
battle ground between modernisers and restorationists.
Restorationism started in about 1968. While
promoting a political progressivism that supported political democratisation and
economic justice on every continent, the church leadership, no doubt with an
eye on Vatican I, centralised ecclesial authority, tightened theological and clerical
discipline and remained uncompromising on personal moral issues. This rejection of
democracy, as Margaret Farley has noted,

“awakens old fears (whether fairly or not) of nondemocratic organizations overly

influencing a democratic society. It raises suspicions (whether legitimately or
not) of hidden agendas, manipulation by external powers, and loyalties not
appropriate for participation in a democratic process. Once again, the credibility
of the church’s political agenda, and its calls for justice, are compromised.”24

Authoritarian attitudes in the Church, and claims to ‘special authority’ based on

anthropologies and certain forms of reasoning not shared by everyone – though they
may have no relation to its socio-political stance in many areas – have an impact on how
the church is perceived by the state, by non-Catholics and by many Catholics too.

Redefining Religion’s role in Democracy

How then does religion fit into democracy today? Philosopher Robert Audi25
proposes that in a secular liberal democracy we need to adhere to three guiding
principles for church-state relations:

• The Libertarian Principle. The state must permit any religion to function, within
the limits of civil and criminal law26 (tolerance). While the state does not
necessarily approve of a religion it recognises its right to exist.
• The Equalitarian Principle. The state gives no preference to one religion over
another (impartiality). In short there is no established church.
• The Neutrality Principle. The state should neither favour nor disfavour religion as
such (no favouritism).27

Such principles should apply in both directions, he suggests: state to church and
church to state. This does not apply in a dictatorship where religions may feel
compelled to exercise their role in opposing tyranny, but in a functioning democracy
where secular structures exist to exercise influence on society. Going through these

8

structures is the process whereby society, including the
religions, can exercise influence on governance.
Audi does not naively presume that there is a
disconnection between the political and the moral.
Morality and politics are inevitably connected; what
he is against is a particular morality imposed on
everyone, particularly where such a morality is rooted
in a theological set of presuppositions which may
disadvantage the exercise of the two foundational
ideas of liberal democracy namely personal liberty and
basic political equality.
Unlike some philosophers, Audi does not rule out
religious arguments but merely insists that they
should not be the foundational or sole foundations
for a church’s political engagement, since they do
not necessarily hold the same value for believers as
for unbelievers (or indeed, one might add, be shared
by believers within a particular church or religious
tradition). A religious argument advanced in a
democracy has to be conscious of the degree to which
its content is founded on a particular religious belief,
the way it uses empirical and other evidence to justify
itself, its motivation, and the historical pedigree of its
argument.28 Its argument should not simply be based
on some ‘conversation-stopper’ rooted in unverifiable
‘divine revelation’, claims based on scriptures or
doctrines not everyone shares or on claims to the
authority of religious leaders. Audi is deeply concerned
about many of the phenomena and ways in which
religions conduct themselves in trying to pursue their
religio-political agenda, including:
• infallible expressions of authority
• condemnatory tendencies
• threats of religious domination
• tendencies towards cults and fundamentalisms
• attitudes of self-importance
• obsessions with outsiders, and
• other features that often prefigure institutional
intolerance.29
Aggressive, authoritarian expression of a position may
result, rather than moderation, prudence and openness
to dialogue. Fallibility, recognition of limitations
and openness to change are values Audi and other
democrats prize. Indeed, they are a sine qua non of
democracy.
To those who object that secular reasoning as pursued
9
d o e s g o d h ave a vo t e ?
in democracy is fallible because it is human, Audi
responds that religious reasoning is equally fallible.30
Given that one cannot prove that such reasoning,
whether from scriptures or authority, is truly divine
(unless one accepts it as such) – and only divine for
those who share in the particular religion – religious
reasoning cannot legitimately be privileged, let alone
when religious reasonings are themselves contradictory
between and within religions.
There is also the danger within religious reasoning
that it bases its secular reasoning on unverifiable
religious presuppositions couched in secular language.
At best this may simply be naivety on the part of
religious activists who cannot see that what they’re
saying is fundamentally based on faith, not scientific
evidence; at worst it may be intellectual dishonesty
and manipulation.
Should religion say anything, then? Unlike rabid
secularists, Audi thinks they should. “Reason without
intuition“, he argues, “is at best too formal to guide
everyday life” but “faith requires reason to interpret its
objects and human life in general; and the traditions
most worthy of our attention surely reflect reason
in major ways or at least depend on it for their
interpretation.”31 Religious intuitions, although not
based on cold empirical facts, may offer insights that
need to be addressed, may open areas of debate that
may be overlooked. But, Audi insists, when dealing
with questions of policy, religions should advance
arguments that are basically rational and secular in
content and form.
A conclusion (of sorts)
Despite the revival of religion in many parts of the
world, a revival that some like the sociologist Peter
Berger see as a refutation of the secularisation thesis
he and others previously espoused, such a revival in
democratic societies has not had the effect of turning
the clock back. Secularisation, in the sense of a decline
in religious belief and practice, may not be as universal
as previously thought. But this, Taylor has reminded
us, is not the essence of secularisation.
Religious revival and the political power of religion
in some places may well be a sign of the failure of
democratic states in some places – where the state
infrastructure is weak, where confidence in democratic
governance is weak, religions may even serve as an
alternative government. But this is no guarantee that a
anthony e gan

change of fortunes – a renewal of democracy, effective
governance, economic and social recovery – will not
sweep away the ‘gains’ made by religion. Apart from
the moral dubiousness of religions ‘cashing in’ on
human misfortune, this seems merely to be delaying
the inevitable. It also disempowers religions by
giving them an overinflated sense of self-importance,
promotes leadership by power-mongers, and ‘de-skills’
religions from learning how to cope with living in a
democratic environment.
Personally, as one who is both a religious person and
a strong supporter of the secular democratic tradition,
I am convinced that the kind of approach outlined
by Robert Audi is something religious institutions
and believing citizens should welcome. In South
Africa one sees how Audi’s model actually works –
in the shape of the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison
Office in Cape Town, a body formed by the Southern
African Catholic Bishops’ Conference to engage with
Parliament in policy formulation and debate. Similar
groups have been established by the South African
Council of Churches and by the Muslim community.
Neither anointing the secular nor condemning it,
they debate with policy makers in secular terms,
albeit informed by their faith traditions. In this, they
are robust exemplars of how religions engage with
democracy in the secular age.

NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 Taylor (2007). M. H. Abrams, 1971. Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic
2 Taylor (2004), 23. Writing (New York: W. W. Norton).
3 Casanova (1994). Robert Audi, 2000. Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (Cambridge:
4 Taylor (2007). Cambridge University Press).
5 Intriguingly this was, as sociologist Rodney Stark convincingly argues, largely S. J. Barnett, 1999. Idol Temples and Crafty Priests: The origins of Enlightenment
done within the framework of Christendom. Personal spats between prelates Anticlericalism (New York: St Martin’s Press).
and astronomers aside, Stark debunks the claim that the Church opposed Peter L. Berger, 1967. The Sacred Canopy: elements of a sociological theory of
science, arguing convincingly that the rise of science in medieval Europe was religion (New York: Doubleday).
the result of theological curiosity about the nature of God’s creation. See: Stark Peter L. Berger, 2000. The Desecularization of the World. (Grand Rapids: William
(2003), 121-199. B Eerdmans).
6 Taylor (2007), 152. Jose Casanova, 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University
7 Berger (1967). of Chicago Press).
8 Taylor (2007), 209. Anthony Egan, 2000. “The Crisis of modernity and the ‘invention’ of Vatican I”, The
9 Ibid. 270. Month, December, 469-473.
10 Ibid. 221-269, 290-292. Margaret A. Farley, 2001. “The Church in the Public Forum: Scandal or Prophetic
Witness?”, in: Charles E Curran &
11 Ibid. 299.
Leslie Griffin (eds.), The Catholic Church, Morality and Politics (New York: Paulist
12 Note here Berger’s revision of the ‘sacred canopy’ theory. Cf. Berger (2000). Press).
13 Stout (2004), 93. John H. S. Kent, 1982. The End of the Line: The development of Christian Theology
14 A myth, argues Stark (2003), quite convincingly. in the Last Two Centuries (Philadelphia: Fortress Press).
15 Stout (2004), 99. David I. Kertzner, 2004. Prisoner of the Vatican (Boston: Houghton Mifflin).
16 Parts of this section are drawn on an article I published some years back: Egan Graeme R. McLean, 1997 “Freedom of Religion and State Neutrality: A Philosophical
(2000), 469-473. Problem.” South African Law Journal 174.
17 Barnett, (1999). John Stuart Mill, 1961. Essential Works of John Stuart Mill (New York: Bantam
18 Mill, (1961), 261. Books).
19 Ibid. 269. Rodney Stark, 2003. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations,
20 Cf. Abrams, (1971). Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton NJ: Princeton University
21 Kent, (1982), 23-4. Press).
22 Syllabus of Errors (1864). Jeffrey Stout, 2004. Democracy and Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press).
23 Cf. Kertzner, (2004).
Charles Taylor, 2007. A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press/Harvard
24 Farley, (2001), 215. University Press).
25 Audi (2000) Charles Taylor, 2004. Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham, NC, & London: Duke
26 How the state may limit religious freedom where it violates civil-criminal law is University Press).
suggested by McLean (1997).
27 Audi (2000), 32-33.
28 Ibid. 69-75.
29 Ibid. 100-103.
30 Ibid. 138.
31 Ibid. 215.

10
 Dr David Bilchitz is Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg and
Director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human
Rights and International Law (SAIFAC). He has a BA (Hons) LLB cum laude from
Wits University. He also has an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge. He
worked as a law clerk to Chief Justice Langa (then Deputy Judge-President) of the
Constitutional Court in 2000 and is an admitted attorney. David has published a book
‘Poverty and Fundamental Rights’ with Oxford University and has written numerous
journal articles relating to fundamental rights. David is also a committed activist
working towards social reform with his involvement in feminist, gay rights, poverty and
animal rights issues.

The Tension Between

Freedom of Religion
and Equality in Liberal
Constitutionalism1
The Problem of Freedom and Equality
Orthodox Judaism, as it currently exists in South Africa, refuses to ordain women. Seminaries for Orthodox
Jewish learning in South Africa (often known as yeshivot) also generally only admit men. No regard is paid to
how intellectually capable a prospective female applicant is or how suitable she may be emotionally, socially
or personally: the mere fact she is a woman is sufficient to justify her exclusion from yeshivot and rabbinical
positions. It is unfair to single out Orthodox Judaism; similar exclusions on the basis of sex/gender exist with
regard to becoming a priest in the Roman Catholic tradition and an imam in traditional Islamic communities.
Yet, in most other contexts, it is quite clear that the exclusion of women from such positions on the basis of their
sex or gender constitutes unfair discrimination. The South African Constitution prohibits not only the state
but individuals and civil society entities (such as religions) from engaging in unfair discrimination on several
prohibited grounds which include sex and gender.3 In order to give effect to this prohibition, a more detailed law
titled the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (‘PEPUDA’) was passed in 2000.

Nevertheless, there remain arguments that many find convincing for a liberal democracy not to outlaw the
discriminatory practices of Orthodox Judaism, Roman Catholicism and Islamic communities or even to penalise
these groups for their exclusionary practices. These arguments generally are rooted in the principles underlying
two other important rights in the South African Constitution: the right to freedom of religion and the right
to freedom of association.4 These freedoms, it is often argued, guarantee that religious groupings are entitled
to hold the beliefs that they do and to organise their communities according to their beliefs. Given that these
groupings hold the religious view that only men are entitled to hold religious offices, they should be entitled to
act accordingly and to organise their communities on this basis.

11
Dav i d Bi lchit z

This example raises a fundamental tension at the heart of liberal democracies,

between freedom and equality, both central values in our constitutional order. On
the one hand, it is of great importance that individuals (and communities) be given
the freedom to decide what beliefs they hold and to put these beliefs into practice;
on the other hand, individuals should be treated with equal importance and not be
subject to arbitrary discrimination on the basis of characteristics they can do little
about. How is this tension between these foundational values to be resolved? How
far should the domain of religious freedom extend? These are the questions I shall
engage in this article. I shall contend, ultimately, that liberalism is not just about
defending the freedom of individuals; it is in fact concerned with ensuring ‘equal
freedom’ for all. Since discriminatory practices harm the ability of some individuals
to live an equal manner with others, I shall argue for a strong presumption in favour
of equality and against exempting religious associations from provisions prohibiting
discrimination in the Constitution and PEPUDA. I will ultimately defend an
egalitarian form of liberalism (rooted in some of the great philosophers) which
recognises that individuals and associations should be accorded the freedom to
practice their own ways of life only insofar as they do not undermine the capacity of
other individuals to do likewise.

Protecting Diversity and Reciprocity

It is thus no surprise that the protection of Religious persecution was rife in Christian Europe
freedom of religion became a cornerstone throughout the Middle Ages and into the early days of
the Enlightenment. John Locke’s A Letter of Toleration
of liberalism and was protected in such of 1689 was a centrally important philosophical text
important documents as the French which made the case for tolerating religious difference.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and It has been described recently as ‘finding a political-
philosophical basis for a negotiated settlement that
Citizens and the first amendment of the would prevent England from being continually riven
Constitution of the United States of America. by religious strife’.5 Majority religions sought to wield
their power to crush dissent, forcing individuals with
differing religious beliefs to flee Europe. The United
States, of course, saw the arrival of many escaping religious persecution; and in
South Africa, too, our history was affected by the arrival of the Huguenots who
fled persecution in Europe. It is thus no surprise that the protection of freedom of
religion became a cornerstone of liberalism and was protected in such important
documents as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens and the
first amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Religious
oppression and persecution were the basic underlying conditions that necessitated
the protection of freedom of religion. Recognising such a freedom required
individuals to accept that, though they may have very strong beliefs in their own
religions, others are entitled to differ and follow other systems. No one is to be
coerced into a particular belief or practice, and everyone’s individual autonomy is to
be protected that includes the ability to have diverse beliefs and practices.6

South Africa has never had a complete denial of religious freedom and diversity.
During the apartheid era, a clear priority was given to particular forms of
Christianity. This had a negative impact upon minority religious groupings with
Muslim marriages, for instance, not being recognised by the state as they were
potentially polygamous. Censorship laws also often accorded with conservative
Christian religious proscriptions and laws restricted such activities as shopping,
sport and entertainment on Sundays. Whilst freedom was no doubt curtailed, Jews,
Hindus and Muslims were able by and large to practice their religions without fear

12
 T h e T ens ion B etween F r eedom o f R e li g i o n a n d E q u a li t y i n L i b e r a l C o n s t i t u t i o n a li s m

of major persecution. The key wrong perpetrated during apartheid in this regard
could thus be described as a denial of equal freedom and treatment to the followers
of religions other than Christianity rather than a complete denial of freedom of
religion itself. Such unequal treatment fails adequately to respect the full diversity
of South Africa’s peoples and their beliefs and practices.

Respect for diversity is thus one of the key reasons

underlying the protection of freedom of religion.
Once we recognise that prohibitions on non-
Importantly, however, respecting diversity is also one
of the core values underlying the right to equality. discrimination protect the ‘equal freedom’ of
The prohibition on unfair discrimination is there individuals, it becomes more evident why
to ensure that individuals are not disadvantaged on religious associations should not be exempt
the basis of certain characteristics that render them
from these proscriptions.
different from other individuals. The grounds upon
which discrimination is expressly prohibited in South
Africa include race, sex, gender, sexual orientation,
age, religion and several others. These categories provide recognition of the fact
that South Africa is comprised of individuals that differ in a variety of ways and
that both the state and private parties must not, in general, subject any individual
to prejudicial treatment on account of their differences (particularly where such
differences have led to discrimination in the past). The concern for equality also,
importantly, ensures that individuals are able to exercise their freedom in an equal
manner to others: unfair discrimination often prevents the exercise of freedom on
the basis of an individual’s difference to another. Once we recognise that prohibitions
on non-discrimination protect the ‘equal freedom’ of individuals, it becomes more
evident why religious associations should not be exempt from these proscriptions.

Associations – whether religious or otherwise – that act in a discriminatory manner

fail to honour the value of respect for diversity and understand the importance of
‘equal freedom’. A religious grouping such as Orthodox Judaism must claim the right
to follow its beliefs and practices is founded in the values of respect for freedom,
equality and diversity. Yet, if it wishes to claim such protections, then it needs to
respect these very values in its treatment of others. To claim a freedom based on
respect for diversity where one fails to respect that very diversity demonstrates a lack
of reciprocity and a desire to gain the benefits of liberal societies without subscribing
to its basic foundational values.

In outlining his version of political liberalism, John Rawls, for instance, recognises
the importance of creating space for a range of ‘reasonable comprehensive doctrines’.7
In specifying what is meant by reasonable, Rawls explains that ‘[r]easonable persons,
we say, are not moved by the general good as such but desire for its own sake a social
world in which they, as free and equal, can cooperate with others on terms all can
accept. They insist that reciprocity should hold within that world so that each benefits
along with others. By contrast, people are unreasonable in the same basic aspect when
they plan to engage in cooperative schemes but are unwilling to honour, or even to
propose, except as a necessary public pretense, any general principles or standards for
specifying fair terms of co-operation.’8 The liberal state need not, according to this
view, accommodate those that are unreasonable and are not prepared to respect the
rules of society that determine the basis upon which we co-operate.

An example can help illustrate this point. Take, for instance, the strong campaign
by the Catholic church against states recognising the civil marriages of same-sex

13
Dav i d Bi lchit z

couples. Proponents of such reforms (which include liberal religious groupings) do

not seek to force the Catholic church to conduct same-sex marriages; they simply
wish to conduct those marriages themselves. The Catholic church, on the other
hand, wants all other groups in society – including
liberal religions – to be forced by the operation of
… by a religious association acting in a law to adopt their definition of marriage. As such,
manner that discriminates unfairly on the the church claims a freedom – to conduct marriages
according to their own doctrines – that they deny to
prohibited grounds, it demonstrates that it is
others who differ from them. Such claims which are
not prepared to subscribe to one of the most not reciprocal and deny the equal freedom of others
fundamental underlying principles of the should generally not be protected in a constitutional
South African state: equality and respect for democracy.
the diversity of individuals.
Similarly, by a religious association acting in a manner
that discriminates unfairly on the prohibited grounds,
it demonstrates that it is not prepared to subscribe to one of the most fundamental
underlying principles of the South African state: equality and respect for the
diversity of individuals. Such groupings fail to respect the very values that provide
the grounding for their own claims to be protected. As such, courts should not
accord protection to such associations to engage in discriminatory practices and
there should be a strong presumption against exempting religious groupings from
the operation of prohibitions of non-discrimination.

Harm to Others
A further argument that supports this view, is rooted in the important point,
famously made by John Stuart Mill, that individual freedom may be limited where
the exercise of that freedom causes harm to other individuals.9 No-one is entitled
to the freedom to blow up a plane or to abuse a child. In the latter case, in recent
years, there has been some resistance by members of the Catholic church to state
investigations into child abuse by priests with a range of measures being taken to
obstruct the release of incriminating evidence.10 Many in the church structures
would like for these matters to be left to internal investigations. Yet, the internal
structures have in the past covered up much abuse and often transferred individuals
to other roles within the church where they were able to continue their abusive
activities.11 It is clear that the harm to vulnerable children has largely (at least in the
public) been recognised as sufficient justification to limit the associational rights of
the church to police its own members.

A similar reason can be given for not allowing religious groupings to discriminate
on the prohibited grounds in the South African Constitution. Such discrimination
causes concrete harm to the individuals concerned: it can lead to the loss of
employment opportunities, fulfillment of deeply-held goals and emotional
and psychological distress. Discrimination on the basis of any of the prohibited
grounds listed in the Constitution harms the dignity of the individual concerned.
As Chief Justice Ngcobo has put it, ‘[d]iscrimination conveys to the person who
is discriminated against that the person is not of equal worth.’ 12. Employment
is of course connected to a person’s sense of dignity and thus losing one’s job on
discriminatory grounds may indeed cause a crisis of self-worth. Yet, the dignity
claim goes beyond this: it is about the exclusion of individuals from a community
(or community position) on the basis of a central element of their identity, and the
stigma that this causes. It involves fundamentally a failure to treat individuals as
ends in themselves. It involves reducing individuals to a particular characteristic

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 T h e T ens ion B etween F r eedom o f R e li g i o n a n d E q u a li t y i n L i b e r a l C o n s t i t u t i o n a li s m

and taking decisions that have a detrimental impact upon them simply because of
that characteristic. These were the exact evils that were at issue under apartheid:
the prejudicial treatment of black people simply because of the colour of their skin.
Such discrimination is ugly and harmful to the individual concerned, impacting
on their self-worth and their associational relationships. The non-pecuniary harm
caused to individuals in these circumstances needs to be seriously considered in any
justification that is given for discriminatory treatment.

The harms attendant upon discriminatory practices also

have a social dimension. Here, it is of great importance
Discriminatory practices and attitudes
to recognise that certain religious groupings (such as
the Dutch Reformed Church) actually played a role within religious communities can thus
in legitimising the policy of apartheid. Discrimination harm the transformative project of creating
on the basis of race was rife within the internal affairs a society free from unfair discrimination
of even more progressive churches. Before the Truth
that respects the dignity, freedom and
and Reconciliation Commission, religious groupings
‘were virtually unanimous in apologising for playing equality of all.
a role, whether through omission or commission in
the abuses in the past’.13 Religion in the past has not
only supported discrimination on the basis of race but also on such grounds as
gender and sexual orientation. The history of religion in South Africa demonstrates
that the impact of religious teachings and practices do not remain neatly confined
within the internal affairs of a religious association. Such discrimination can also
undermine the very equality of black people, women and lesbian/gay people in the
wider community as well. Similarly, if discrimination is allowed within religious
associations, individuals may not neatly compartmentalise this objectionable
behavior within such a community. Discriminatory practices and attitudes within
religious communities can thus harm the transformative project of creating a society
free from unfair discrimination that respects the dignity, freedom and equality of
all. The harms attendant upon discrimination thus provide strong reasons why the
prohibitions on non-discrimination in our law should apply with equal force to
religious associations with a strong burden being placed on any group that seeks to
justify any discriminatory actions on its part.

Minorities Within Religions

The last argument I wish to provide seeks to elaborate on the idea of ‘equal freedom’
through considering the problem of minority or marginalised groups within religious
groupings such as Orthodox Judaism. It is often assumed (sometimes by courts) that
religious associations are homogenous in themselves with clear rules and doctrines.
Yet, it is important to recognise that there is always some form of internal diversity
within any religious group. Communities will usually include individuals who differ
in at least one or more of the following respects, including age, disability, sex, gender,
race and sexual orientation. Should the dominant segment of a religious association
act in a discriminatory manner towards any one of these groups, that may affect the
very freedom of religion and association of the marginalised group.

If confronted with a case concerning unfair discrimination, courts are not only
required to adjudicate upon a clash between equality and freedom of religion
and association. There is in fact a clash between the very freedoms of differing
parties within the association: often the dominant structures of the association
and a minority or marginalised group. Courts will, of necessity, in deciding the case
have to decide whose freedom should take precedence. In such circumstances, I

15
Dav i d Bi lchit z

would argue that courts in South Africa should err on the side of equality and avoid
sanctioning any position within a denomination that seeks to exclude individuals
on the basis of any of the prohibited grounds from exercising their freedom of
association within that group.

An example may help clarify these theoretical claims.

If it condemns the action, it would be Imagine that a highly suitable female candidate named
Deborah, applies to be admitted to the Orthodox
defending the freedom of association of rabbinical training programme in Johannesburg
those members of the Orthodox community expressing her view that she ultimately wishes to
who believe women can be rabbis. In such be a rabbi. Deborah is already learned and, explains,
that in her view there is both precedent for female
circumstances, there is an internal clash rabbis in the tradition as well as no barrier in Jewish
within the group and courts are required to law (or halacha). She is refused admission on the
decide upon whose side they should intervene. grounds simply that she is female and that the yeshiva
itself subscribes to the dominant Orthodox view that
women cannot train to be rabbis. Deborah approaches
a secular court claiming unfair discrimination on grounds of sex and/or gender.
What should the court do? What I have been seeking to show in this section is that
such a case demonstrates that there is a clash not simply between Deborah’s right
to equal treatment and the yeshiva’s right to freedom of religion and association;
the clash is also between Deborah’s right to freedom of religion and association and
that of the yeshiva. If the court upholds the yeshiva’s actions, it would respect the
freedom of association of those within the Orthodox community who believe that
a women may not be a rabbi. If it condemns the action, it would be defending the
freedom of association of those members of the Orthodox community who believe
women can be rabbis. In such circumstances, there is an internal clash within the
group and courts are required to decide upon whose side they should intervene.

The traditional objection to this line of reasoning is that the freedom of association
of the marginalised individual or group (Deborah, in this example) is adequately
protected so long as she can leave religious association that has treated her in a
discriminatory manner and be part of a grouping that is not discriminatory (or form
her own).14 The problem with this response is it essentially sees religious belief as a
‘personal preference that can be changed easily. However, religion is not necessarily
a voluntary association’.15 Individuals usually are born into a religious community
and grow up with a particular faith. Being forced to leave that faith because of
discriminatory practices within a religious denomination is to require them to
rupture a part of their own identities. This is not to argue that it is not possible to
change a religious belief but that courts must recognise the severe burden imposed
on individuals of doing so: indeed, being forced to leave a community is a severe
violation of that individual’s own freedom of religion and association. For instance,
Deborah may be an intensely devout Orthodox Jewess with no desire to leave the
community. Her desire to be a rabbi flows from her intense commitment to this
very community. Having to leave the community would leave her socially isolated
and away from the path she believes to be true; on the other hand, failing to pursue
her rabbinical ambitions, will leave her personally bereft and unfulfilled.

The courts should recognise in situations such as this, that the dominant structures
of Orthodox Judaism, here, are failing take account of the very diversity of their
own congregation. They wish to deny an individual a position within the religion

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 T h e T ens ion B etween F r eedom o f R e li g i o n a n d E q u a li t y i n L i b e r a l C o n s t i t u t i o n a li s m

on the basis of a characteristic that she can do nothing about. The leadership in
this example displays a disregard for the dignity and freedom of association of the
individual (or minority) which can cause some of the severe harms elaborated upon
above. They thus are acting in a way that goes against the very basis of their own
claim to freedom of association and non-discrimination on grounds of their own
religious tradition. They do this, however, on the basis of firm religious convictions
rooted in their understanding of tradition. To require them to do otherwise would
be a serious intrusion into their religious beliefs and practices. That renders the
decision that has to be made one which evaluates the freedom of association of
some individuals against other individuals within the religious grouping. Protecting
equal freedom requires finding ways in which to prevent discrimination whilst
according maximum respect for freedom of religion and association of all parties.
What then should courts do practically in a situation such as this?

Unfair Discrimination and Judicial Remedies

In light of the arguments made above and the still shaky commitment to non-
discrimination on all prohibited grounds, courts should allow very little latitude to
religions who wish to discriminate on the grounds contained in the equality clause.
The one exception here is discrimination on the basis of religion in the case of
religious leadership: it seems clearly justifiable for a Christian community to refuse
to employ a Jewish, or Muslim minister or any person who does not profess the
faith of that community.

This is a different matter altogether from refusing

to employ a black, female or gay individual as a What is important to recognise, however, is
religious leader where such individual belongs to such
a community, professes its beliefs and identifies with
that, if the discriminatory practice or policy is
that community. Some may contend that, where the indeed a precept of the faith, then that precept
precepts of the faith are opposed to black, female, excludes individuals from the community (or
or gay/lesbian people assuming office, then such assuming positions therein) on the basis of a
individuals, by applying for formal positions within
that faith, are seeking to contravene its precepts. This
fundamental element of their identity that
will no doubt take us into doctrinal matters and, as they can do very little about.
has been explained in the article, will often require the
law to take a position. What is important to recognise,
however, is that, if the discriminatory practice or policy is indeed a precept of the
faith, then that precept excludes individuals from the community (or assuming
positions therein) on the basis of a fundamental element of their identity that they
can do very little about. These are people within the community who, through a
deep-seated characteristic of self, are treated detrimentally by that community. The
precepts of the faith here are incompatible with the values of South African society
within which the religious association resides.

In such circumstances, the political community (and its courts) should not simply
defer to the precepts of faith as it would not do if a faith sanctioned other harmful
practices such as child abuse or terrorism. Courts should, at a minimum, declare
that unfair discrimination has taken place in a case such as Deborah’s or any other
where arbitrary and unequal treatment is evident. Recognising such practices as
unfair discrimination does not render the state complicit in sanctioning them and
represents a strong moral condemnation. Yet, should the courts go beyond such a
declaration and order specific relief?

17
Dav i d Bi lchit z

One possibility would be for the court to adopt the most coercive intervention and
to force a community to behave in a non-discriminatory manner by, for instance,
re-instating a dismissed employee or admitting Deborah to the yeshiva. As much
as such an approach has certain advantages, I do not believe it is generally desirable
in relation to religious associations. Let us imagine that a community is ordered
by a court to admit Deborah to the yeshiva and grant ordination to her once she
has complied with the requirements for becoming a rabbi. The community could
technically obey yet eventually boycott the synagogue in which she is appointed
(presuming this occurs). No law could prevent the side-lining of Deborah within
the decision-making structures of the community. It is thus unlikely that law in a
liberal society could be effective in coercing a change
in this manner. Moreover, such a highly interventionist
It can indeed be hoped that religious approach is likely to result in a serious backlash with
associations that recognised the evils of racial religious associations feeling persecuted for their
beliefs and finding ways to resist coercive measures they
discrimination can come to recognise and perceive to be secular impositions upon their religious
reject discrimination on grounds of gender convictions. Part of the case for toleration of diverse
and sexual orientation as well. religions is to promote the stability of society:16 such
overly interventionist remedies could in extreme cases
lead to an undermining of the stability of the state
with religious resistance (armed or otherwise) challenging the constitutional order.
Moreover, the state here may achieve an own goal: seeking to change discriminatory
attitudes, it may in fact land up reinforcing them or driving them under-ground.

In light of these considerations, courts can stop short of coercing the change in
question whilst still making the important point that South African society does
not accept unfair discrimination even where this is sanctioned by the doctrines of a
religious association and occurs in relation to employees functioning in a religious
capacity. In the case of Deborah, it seems to me that an award of damages would be
wholly appropriate. Such a remedy clearly indicates to the religious association that
the South African state does not approve of its discriminatory behavior and helps
to compensate victims for the harm caused to them. 17 It does so, however, without
forcing a change in the rules of the association itself.

Perhaps, more creatively, courts could order religious associations to engage in a

process of deliberation requiring them to consider the very rules of the association
that result in discriminatory practices. Such an order would again not compel such a
change but nevertheless require the community to consider whether their rules and
practices are appropriate in the new South Africa. Such internal processes may take
time to bear fruit, yet provide a catalyst for change within the religious groupings
in question. Indeed, the rapid change in many religious associations to reject racial
discrimination in light of the new South Africa bodes well for the long-term
possibilities such internal processes may yield. It can indeed be hoped that religious
associations that recognised the evils of racial discrimination can come to recognise
and reject discrimination on grounds of gender and sexual orientation as well.18
Internal changes in attitudes are also more likely to be sustainable in the longer
term. Through creative and sensitive remedial relief, a balance thus can be struck by
the courts between recognising the unacceptability of the unfair discrimination that
has taken place whilst respecting the internal processes of change within religious
groupings.

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 T h e T ens ion B etween F r eedom o f R e li g i o n a n d E q u a li t y i n L i b e r a l C o n s t i t u t i o n a li s m

As we have seen in this article, a deep tension arises in liberal democracy concerning
whether to allow religious associations to engage in conduct that constitutes unfair
discrimination. I have suggested that the requirements of reciprocity, protection
of diversity, avoiding harm to others and balancing the freedom of association of
differing parties supports a strong presumption in favour of equality and against non-
discrimination being allowed in the context of religious associations. Suggestions
were made as to how courts can practically instantiate this ethos. South Africans
understand the perils of religiously-sanctioned discrimination in light of our
history: for transformative constitutionalism to be successful it will be imperative
for religious associations also to be required to embody an ethos that respects the
equal dignity of all individuals.

notes
1 This piece includes arguments and segments drawn from an academic article I have authored titled ‘Should Religious
Associations be Allowed to Discriminate Unfairly?’ to be published in the South African Journal of Human Rights 2011 (2)
(forthcoming). Please see the full article for a more extensive argument on the themes addressed in this article. I would like
to thank the managing editor for permission to reproduce some of these segments in Focus.
2 Associate Professor, University of Johannesburg; Director, South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human
Rights and International Law
3 Section 9 of the South African Constitution
4 The former is protected in section 15 of the Constitution and the latter in section 18 of the Constitution.
5 S Woolman ‘On the Fragility of Associational Life: a Constitutive Liberal’s Response to Patrick Lenta’ (2009 ) 25 South African
Journal of Human Rights 280-305.
6 P Lenta ‘Taking Diversity Seriously: Religious Associations and Work-related Discrimination’ (2009) 126 South African Law
Journal 827-860.
7 John Rawls Political Liberalism (1992) 58ff.
8 Ibid 50.
9 Famously, John Stuart Mill On Liberty (1860) available at http://www.constitution.org/jsm/liberty.htm stated that ‘[t]he only
purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent
harm to others’.
10 See ‘Catholic Sex Abuse Cases’ and several comments therein at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases.
11 Ibid.
12 Bhe v Khayelitsha Magistrate 2005 (1) SA 580 (CC) para 187.
13 J Cochrane, J De Gruchy and S Martin Facing the Truth: South African Faith Communities and the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (1999) 34.
14 This is one of the key factors that leads Brian Barry Culture and Equality (2000) 176 to conclude that laws prohibiting
employment discrimination should not be applied to religious associations.
15 J Rutherford ‘Equality as the Primary Constitutional Value: the Case for Applying Employment Discrimination Laws to Religion’
(1996) 81 Cornell L.Rev. 1049, 1100.
16 Rawls (note 6 above) xviii-xix places the ‘problem of stability’ between a plurality of comprehensive religious, philosophical,
and moral doctrines at the heart of his development of a form of political liberalism.
17 A similar approach is adopted by J Rutherford (note 14 above) 1126.
18 Indeed, the authors of the RICSA Report (note 12 above) 73 state that it ‘stands as an indictment of the faith communities that
for the most part they continue to see racial, economic and gender oppression as separate categories’.

19
Islam and Democracy
in South Africa
Prof Abdulkader
Tayob holds the chair
in Islam, African Publics
and Religious Values at
the University of Cape
Town, South Africa.
He enjoys extensive
international experience,
including a position
as ISIM Chair at the
Radboud University
(2002-2006) and shorter
periods in Germany, the
United States and Cairo.
He has published on
Islam in South Africa,
modern Islamic Thought
and Islam in the History
of Religions. His latest
book was published
by Hurst and Columbia
University Press (Religion
in Modern Islamic
Discourse, 2009). For
more information on his
other publications and full
CV, see http://www.cci.
uct.ac.za/faf/tayob/
During the debate on the Civil Union Bill in 2006, a prominent
Mufti (Muslim jurisprudent) in Kwazulu Natal said that he rejected
homosexuality, but he had no objection to Parliament granting gays and
lesbians the right to a union:
… we would, you know abhor, those kind of things. But at the same time, we have
to understand that we have a democratic dispensation … [that] would have to
dispense the needs of all its citizens. So if certain citizens have made their claim,
and if they have a right of staying in the country, we would expect that, the
democratic dispensation facilitates for them as well …1
Mufti Ebrahim Desai could not condone homosexuality, as such, but asserted that
unions between homosexuals deserved the protection of the Constitution. Mufti
Desai is a leading teacher who heads a seminary outside Pietermaritzburg and
dispenses guidance on the Internet to thousands of Muslims within and outside the
borders of South Africa (www.askimam.org).
Over the last few years, in contrast, security specialists have raised concerns about
the probability of strong anti-democratic currents within Muslim communities in
South Africa. The vigilante group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD)
in 1990s was described as an Islamist movement that rejected the authority of the
Constitution and the rule of law. Religious law, in its view, would never stand under
a man-made law.2
South African Muslim convictions and practices oscillate between these two poles.
In spite of constituting only 1.46% of the population, Muslim political views are
diverse and reflect the diversity of trends in South Africa. On the one hand, ardent
democrats support the Constitution without question; on the other hand, certain
individuals and groups regard the Constitution as a rival authority to Islamic Law.
Utopia and Heterotopia
Michel Foucault’s concepts of utopia and heterotopia are helpful in revealing this
complex relationship between South Africa’s constitution and public expressions of
Islam. In a short article written in 1967, Foucault reflected on various attempts by
the modern nation-state to inscribe a new public space to replace the cosmologically
defined space of the ancien régime. Such a new secularized space was to be infused
with new ideals and values. Foucault went on to argue that such ideal spaces of the
nation did not really exist, and were thus were more correctly regarded as utopian.
Apart from this imaginary category of utopian space, however, there was another
kind of space in the modern nation. Such spaces, Foucault argued, were “real places
– places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society – which are
something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real
sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously
represented, contested, and inverted.” Foucault called these other sites heterotopias,
20
 I s la m a n d D e m o c r a c y i n S o u t h Af r i c a

which were not pure representations of the nation, but could not be detached from
them. Sometimes they seemed to represent the nation, but could just as easily contest
and invert it. Unreal utopias reflected the imaginary places of the new nation, but
heterotopias acted as real but imperfect mirrors of the nation.3

Foucault wrote about spaces in relation to the nation. We can justifiably argue that
in South Africa, the Constitution rather than the nation would more accurately
capture the play between utopia and heterotopia. While the idea of a nation has
no doubted permeated South African public life since 1994, the Constitution
represents a more widely shared set of values. Its values take shape in official spaces
like the parliaments, schools and courts that have been transformed and rebuilt, but
also public spaces and monuments like Freedom Park and the many museums that
have mushroomed around the country since 1994. Utopia and heterotopia provide
a useful framework for thinking about religions and South Africa’s constitutional
democracy. In this article, I would like to apply this framework to the public
expressions of Islam since 1994 which reflect both perfectly and imperfectly the
values of the constitution.

Muslims, Politics and Law

Muslims are deeply involved in national politics, and … the South African Constitution
are fully represented in different levels of government. represented shared universal values in the
Their representation at this level, in fact, far outweighs
their proportion in the general population. In 2007, light of which Muslim Marriage law may
for example, 18 out of 490 members of parliament be re-interpreted. The majority of Muslims
from both houses were Muslim (3.7%); 2 out of 26 believed, however, that a compromise with
ministers (7.6%); 2 out of 22 deputy ministers (9%); the Constitution was inherently impossible.
15 out of 210 Cape Town city councillors (7%); 4 out
of 173 councillors in Johannesburg (2.3%). Muslims
are also well represented among prominent and outspoken public leaders and
cabinet ministers. These range from Ahmad Kathrada, who spent 27 years with
Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, to the recently deceased Professor Kader Asmal
who became very critical of the African National Congress in the last few years
of his life. Another prominent ANC leader, Ebrahim Rasool, stands out among
these national leaders. During his tenure as Premier of the Western Cape, Rasool
articulated a religious approach to democratic politics. Emerging from the small,
but vocal Muslim anti-apartheid activist groups in the 1980s, Rasool regularly
espoused an Islamic justification for democracy and a national Muslim identity that
did not contradict Islam.4

Moving from politics to law, a more heterotopic picture emerges of Muslim response
to the Constitution. The Constitution of South Africa (Article 15 of Chapter
2) recognises “marriages concluded under any tradition, or a system of religious,
personal or family law.” The particular application of this principle to Islam has
been highly controversial among Muslims since 1994. Human rights activists
have argued that Islamic law was a product of human history, subject to continued
interpretation and adjustment. In their view, the South African Constitution
represented shared universal values in the light of which Muslim Marriage law may
be re-interpreted.5 The majority of Muslims believed, however, that a compromise
with the Constitution was inherently impossible. In contrast with the human
construction of the Constitution, they argued that Muslim Personal Law (MPL)
was divine in origin and intent, which implied that its provisions should not be
subject to compromise and historical conditioning.6

21
abdul kade r tayob

A closer examination of some prominent arguments against the re-interpretation

of Islamic Law reveals a more complex picture. Their initial religiously formulated
rejection also harbours a political and even constitutional position. The Majlis
(lit. the gathering), a newspaper published in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape
which has a wide coverage and also an Internet site, has consistently rejected
attempts to formulate a law that would balance the demands of Islamic Law and
the Constitution. It associated the various Bills presented for public debate with
kufr (disbelief ), suggesting heresy for any Muslim associated with it. Interestingly,
however, the newspaper also advised Muslims how to deal with the supreme law of
the land:

… there is ample room to work within and round the country’s Constitution
to ensure that Muslims regulate their lives in accordance with the Shariah
while this is not possible with MPL legislation because such legislation is kufr
legislation presented in the name of Islam.7

The author recognised a space created within and

by the Constitution for the practice of religion. He
… this increased devotion has led to a variety argued that the relevant clause (Chapter 2, clause 15
of trends and schools, including a fair share of cited above) did not compel Muslims to approach the
conflicts between puritan, text-centred trends state to recognize their marriages. It only provided
and cultural practices inherited from the past. the possibility of how the state might recognize
Muslim Personal Law. Muslims in South Africa
The result may be described as a veritable could comfortably get along without the intervention
Islamic market that vies for clients as it and interference of the Constitution in the practice
continuously produces new offerings. of the Sharīah. Others, including the Mufti quoted
in the opening paragraph of this article, have added
their weight to this position. They found support in
the secularity of the Constitution, and declared that any Muslim Marriage Bill
presented to parliament amounted to direct interference in the affairs of Islam.8
Supporting the secularity of the state, they wanted no interference in the religious
affairs of Muslims.

Religious Observance and the Constitution

So far, I have particularly referred to political and legal relations between Muslims
and South Africa’s constitutional democracy. We should not ignore general religious
developments that affect such relations. In the last few decades, Muslims in South
Africa have been turning in significant ways to greater religious observance. A
greater number of men and women attend prayers on a daily and weekly basis, fast
in Ramadan, organize charities, and go on pilgrimage to Mecca. Whilst seminaries
have been founded in the country since the 1970s, students still go to the Indian
subcontinent and the Middle East to pursue higher education or for more authentic
religious guidance. New religious movements like the Indian Tablighi Jamaat
have found fertile ground within Muslim societies since the 1960s and now draw
thousands to their gatherings at Easter time. As expected, this increased devotion
has led to a variety of trends and schools, including a fair share of conflicts between
puritan, text-centred trends and cultural practices inherited from the past. The result
may be described as a veritable Islamic market that vies for clients as it continuously
produces new offerings.9

In the context of the South African Constitution, this general religious trend
suggests two very divergent interpretations. Firstly, we may look at it as a product
of the freedoms of the Constitution and the rule of law. Since 1994, the South

22
 I s la m a n d D e m o c r a c y i n S o u t h Af r i c a

African democratic context has directly and indirectly supported religious practices
and movements in the country. All religious groups have experienced some
revival. Islamic religious practices have increased noticeably. Moreover, new global
movements from England and elsewhere in Africa have found South Africa a more
secure place to practise Islam, escaping increasing oversight of Islamic groups in the
West and repressive and unstable political climates in Muslim-majority countries.
Somali refugees have established religious networks alongside existing established
mosques and groups, but so too has a British Murabitun movement established itself
in the heart of the city of Cape Town. On the other hand, radical Islamic ideologies
have also found receptive ears. Apart from the controversial PAGAD movement
mentioned already, individuals and small groups have turned to radical theologies.10
Each in their own way has found support in the South African constitution and its
legal framework. Radicals have demanded greater evidence in the courts of law in a
high level extradition case, and conflicts over ancient burial sites around Cape Town
have been debated in Muslim media and national newspapers. Some concerns have
been raised about radicalism, but the open and vigorous civic space has mitigated
its most dangerous effects. In general, the South African constitutional order has
clearly supported the proliferation of religious observances and trends.

Alternatively, greater religious observance among

Muslims might be interpreted as a general trend away This is a good illustration of a heterotopic
from engagement in the national public sphere. Each
of the groups offers religious goals and objectives that space of religious consumption, reflecting the
clearly derive support from the Constitution and the nation but also inverting and subverting it.
rule of law, but ironically turn individuals away from Beyond consumption, this kind of space is also
fully embracing the same. Whilst the Constitution evident in religious groups who pursue the
guarantees freedom of religion, it does not necessarily
spell out the substance of that freedom. There is ultimate search for God (Sufis) or a global
clearly a tension between religious objectives and Islamic conformity to religious devotion
commitments on the one hand, and the objectives (puritan movements) or tiny cells that pursue
of South African Constitution on the other. The a dream of an Islamic state.
example of Muslim Personal Law discussed above
suggests how the goals of equality in the Constitution
may be compromised. Muslim consumption patterns provide a benign example of
this tension in another form. The Halal symbol on foods permitted for Muslims
has become ubiquitous in governmental institutions, supermarkets and fast-food
chain stores. On the one hand, the symbol represents the place of Muslims in the
rainbow nation of South Africa. On the other hand, it also points to the erection
of much stronger boundaries between Muslims and other religious and cultural
groups in the country. This is a good illustration of a heterotopic space of religious
consumption, reflecting the nation but also inverting and subverting it. Beyond
consumption, this kind of space is also evident in religious groups who pursue the
ultimate search for God (Sufis) or a global Islamic conformity to religious devotion
(puritan movements) or tiny cells that pursue a dream of an Islamic state. In each
case, there is a fine line between religious practices justified and permitted by the
Constitution, and the ultimate goals and outcomes pursued.

Conclusion
There is no easy way of representing the public expressions of Islam in South
Africa’s constitutional democracy. Foucault’s concepts of utopian and heterotopic
spaces capture the complexity of these expressions – sometimes reflecting the goals
of the Constitution but also inverting, subverting and often going beyond them.

23
abdul kade r tayob

A small number of people have clearly worked to reflect constitutional values in

religious terms. I would certainly include herein former premier Ebrahim Rassool’s
theology for democracy and human rights, and human rights activists who have
fought for a greater rights-based interpretation of Islam. But Majlis’ attempt to
work “within and around” the constitution is not too far behind this attempt to
reconcile Islam and the Constitution. Such interpretative gestures, though, mask
a much larger canvas of Muslims thriving in democratic South Africa. Turning to
these larger trends of greater religious devotion among Muslims, heterotopia seems
to fit the liberties enjoyed under the Constitution, while pursuing divergent and
opposing goals. Most of these goals are very much part of the fabric of religious life
in any country, which makes heterotopia a most apt concept for the diversity and
fragility of South Africa’s democracy.

notes
1 Ebrahim Desai, “Interview,” Camperdown with Abdulkader Tayob, 2006.
2 Anneli Botha, “Pagad: A Case Study of Radical Islam in South Africa,” Terrorism Monitor 3(7), no. 7, 2005, accessed at
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369781.
3 Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces,” Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité, 1984, accessed at http://foucault.info/
documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html.
4 Ebrahim Rasool, “Speech Delivered by Western Cape Premier, His Excellency Ebrahim Rasool At the Official Launch of the
International Symposium on Islamic Civilisation in Southern Africa,”, 2006, accessed at http://www.awqafsa.org.za/Library%20
&%20Resources/Symposium%202006/Premier%20Ebrahim%20Rasool%20Speech%20Leewenhof%2028062006.doc.
5 Ebrahim Moosa, “Muslim Family Law in South Africa: Paradoxes and Ironies,” in Muslim Family Law in Sub-Saharan
Africa: Colonial Legacies and Post-Colonial Challenges, ed. S. Jeppie, et al. (Amsterdam University Press,
2010).
6 Muslim responses have been extensive, but a sample of such views are captured in the South African Law Commission Report
of 2003 (Project 59: Islamic marriages and related matters, retrieved 24 August 2007, at wwwserver.law.wits.ac.za/salc/salc.
html). See particularly for a well-articulated rejectionist argument in A. K. Toffar, “The Quranic Constitution and Its Expression
in Law - a Legal Dilemma in a Non-Muslim State,” Occasional Journal of ICOSA 2, 1422, 1-20.
7 The Majlis. “Miscellaneous Fatwas.” http://www.themajlis.net/modules.php (accessed August 18, 2007).
8 Ziyad Motala, “The Draft Bill on the Recognition of Muslim Marriages: An Unwise, Improvident and Questionable Constitutional
Exercise,” 2002 (accessed July, 4, 2006 at http://www.alinaam.org.za/misc/mplziyaadone.htm).
9 Goolam Vahed, and Shamil Jeppie, “Multiple Communities: Muslims in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” in State of the
Nation: South Africa 2004-2005, ed. John Daniel, et al. (HSRC Press, 2005).
10 Khadija Abdul Qahaar, “Mustafa Jonker: “Ours is a Blessed Terror”,” http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.
php?article=1002617&list=/index.php (accessed May 25, 2008).

24
Religion and Social
Progress: Beyond the
Clash of Extremes
It is fairly safe to suggest that, over the past century, hardly any issue
has been as controversial as the role of religion in public life. It is also a
historic fact that over the period, a mix of scientific, technological, and
social developments has made socio-economic life far more complex and
intellectually exciting, yet systemically unstable, with rising vulnerability
to socio-political volatility. It is equally true that in the process our human
conduct, both personal and collective, has drifted away from largely
spiritual to manifestly functional utilitarian objectives. The rapid pace of
globalisation has compounded the complexities and accelerated the move
Dr Iraj Abedian towards a more utilitarian worldview.
is the founder and
Chief Executive of Experts may differ as to the root causes of these developments. Yet there is
Pan-African Capital little disagreement that the upshot of them all is the prevailing unstable and
Holdings (Pty) Ltd. He troublesome socio-political system the world over. Widespread human suffering,
is an Extraordinary abuse of political power, misuse of financial and economic resources, the spread of
Professor of Economics corruption, the rise of malfunctioning public administrations, and the scarcity of
at Gordon Institute inspired leadership are the common phenomena in both developing and developed
of Business Science countries, in established and emerging democracies, in democratic and totalitarian
(GIBS), University of states, in traditional tribal settings and in modern unified societies, in poor as well
Pretoria, and serves on as in resourceful territories. In short, our sophisticated socio-economic system is
the board of private and facing a crisis of sustainability, legitimacy, and integrity.
public entities, including
the membership of The evolution of social progress, propelled by unprecedented advancements in
the National Spiritual technology, communication, transportation, and fostering of ideas, has systemically
Assembly of the Baha’i’s reduced the role of morality and ethics in various spheres of human civilization.
of SA. He is the former Perspectives have shifted away from essential and long-term considerations to
Group Economist at functional and short-term preoccupations. As such, this paper argues, a systemic
Standard Bank. issue has emerged which needs a systemic solution. Partial measures driven by
opportunistic exigencies would at best deal with symptoms, leaving the root causes
intact. This paper maintains that the systemic fault-line is largely due to the rise
of materialistic secularism in the name of modernity and near neglect of religion
and spirituality. The working premise of this paper is that science (as the engine
of secularism) and religion (as the propagator of spirituality) are the two forces
of social advancement. This is one of the central tenets of the Bahá’í Faith. The
challenge facing us is thus not to sacrifice one on the altar of the other. To this end,
Section I will review the rise of materialistic secularism and its aftermath. Section
II will focus on social governance and the notion of development as it pervades
public policy. This will be followed, in Section III, by a discussion of the spiritual

25
i raj abedian

nature of humankind and the need for a paradigm change in unlocking human
potential towards social progress. Section IV will offer some concluding remarks.

The Rise of Secularism and Its Aftermath

Although the British writer George Holyoake is widely credited with having
coined the term ‘secularism’ in 18511, the underlying idea – of the need for mutual
compatibility of faith and reason – is much older. According to Bhatt, “We might
say…that [12th century Islamic scholar] Ibn Rushd originated the modern form
of secularism.”2 Neither Holyoake nor Ibn Rushd set out to actively undermine
religious belief. Indeed, Holyoake stated in his Principles of Secularism that his was
a doctrine “to which the idea of God is not essential, nor the denial of the idea
necessary.”3 However, the term secularism itself has evolved over time. Karl Marx’s
famous phrase, “religion is the opiate of the masses”, helped shift the connotation
of secularism into a materialistic domain. The subsequent emergence of socialist
and communist states in the 20th century expressed a vast and prominent social
experiment inspired by the materialistic notions of secularism.

Interestingly, Western capitalist societies followed a similar materialistic secular

path, albeit with more reliance on market mechanisms, and with less systematic
oppression of religion and its institutions.

The philosophical and intellectual rebellion against

The moral and intellectual outrage against
secular state practices, both in the East
and in the West, has led to a wide range
of protestations, even terrorism. It may be
argued that the aftermath of materialistic
secularism in its diverse manifestations is
no less or more undesirable than the reign
of static and institutionalised oppressive
religious regimes.
religion and religious abuse was understandable. The
undeniable historical truth is that religions have been
manipulated and used for the realisation of narrow
ends. Not only in bygone ages, but also at present,
in many parts of the world, religions are used as an
instrument of oppression, social abuse of women in
particular, human rights violations in general, and
political domination. Many wars have been fought
in the name of religion and against the resurgence
of religious sentiments. Much socio-economic
destruction and widespread disillusionment with
religion and institutionalised religious establishments
have emerged accordingly and justifiably.

Secularism over time has evolved and led to social experiments that continue to
have widespread undesirable social, economic and environmental consequences.
These have resulted in reactionary backlash on the part of religious groupings and
institutions as well as non-religious social activists all over the world. The moral
and intellectual outrage against secular state practices, both in the East and in the
West, has led to a wide range of protestations, even terrorism. It may be argued
that the aftermath of materialistic secularism in its diverse manifestations is no
less or more undesirable than the reign of static and institutionalised oppressive
religious regimes.

For social progress, prosperity and development the role of religion and secularism
needs a far more nuanced and scientific approach. As noted by the Bahá’í
International Community, on the Occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the United
Nations:

The debate about religion in the public sphere, however, has been driven by the
voices and actions of extreme proponents on both sides -- those who impose

26
 R el ig ion a n d S o c i a l P r o g r e s s : B e yo n d t h e C la s h o f E x t r e m e s

their religious ideology by force, whose most visible expression is terrorism

-- and those who deny any place for expressions of faith or belief in the public
sphere. Yet neither extreme is representative of the majority of humankind and
neither promotes a sustainable peace. 4

Social Governance and Developmental Goals

The rise of secularism and its rapid transmutation into materialism has had deep
systemic consequences. As mentioned earlier, all modalities of social governance, ie
capitalism, socialism and communism, defined progress and the ultimate goals of
socio-economic development in terms of material indicators alone. These systems
of governance differed only in terms of the means of delivery; that is, some relied on
the machinery of the state to achieve developmental goals whilst others propagated
a mixed economy made of both state and market structures. In effect,

development defined in terms of certain patterns of “modernization,” however,

seems to refer exactly to those processes, which promote the domination of
people’s material ambitions over their spiritual goals. While the search of a
scientific and technologically modern society is a central goal of human
development, it must base its educational, economic, political, and cultural
structures on the concept of the spiritual nature of the human being and not
only on his or her material needs.5

However, the sidelining of religion in the definition of developmental objectives

reduced the developmental challenge to a purely materialistic enterprise. This, in
turn, has led to a gradual but systemic dilution of ethical conduct over the period.

In almost all countries, including South Africa, over

the past while, a gradual but tangible rift has emerged Frequently, government ministers and
between the country’s socio-economic and political departmental executives espouse ‘global best
‘formal’ (professed) as opposed to ‘informal’ (practised)
ethics. For example, in the business sector, executives practices’, and yet operationally in their
and corporations formally subscribe to ‘codes of good organisational and managerial conduct there
corporate governance’. Their annual glossy reports are is little evidence of the values, standards,
decorated with ‘impressive evidence’ of their socially or practices that conform to their formal
responsible citizenship. Yet, operationally, they do
not hesitate to collude or abuse their market powers. statements.
Evidence of price fixing amongst pharmaceutical
companies, bread producers and steel manufacturers has led, in recent years, to high
profile cases in South Africa. Sasol, South Africa’s most celebrated petrochemical
corporation, has been heavily fined, both locally and by the EU, for its extensive
anti-competitive practices. The country’s banking sector is also accused of
malpractice and a report in this regard is yet to be made public by the Competition
Commission. The banking sector is alleged to be exerting every pressure to halt its
publication. Cellphone companies are likewise accused of collusion.

The gap between formal and informal ethics within the government sector is even
more pervasive. Frequently, government ministers and departmental executives
espouse ‘global best practices’, and yet operationally in their organisational and
managerial conduct there is little evidence of the values, standards, or practices that
conform to their formal statements. Duality of values is equally prevalent in labour
unions, the media sector and other social structures. Most poignantly, religious
organisations have not been spared the scourge of the duality of values either.

27
i raj abedian

So, the world over, there is an evident and disturbing prevalence of systemic
inconsistency of ethical conduct. This, I submit, is the bitter fruit of the promotion
of a materialistic enterprise over the past century. This is best captured in the
modern theory of the firm. The firm, within the finance paradigm, is seen as a
complex network of contractual relations, mostly implicit, between various interest
groups. “Within this finance paradigm,” Dobson observes,

a rational agent is simply one who pursues personal material advantage ad

infinitum. In essence, to be rational in finance is to be individualistic, materialistic,
and competitive. Business is a game played by individuals, as with all games the
object is to win, and winning is measured in terms solely of material wealth.
Within the discipline this rationality concept is never questioned, and has
indeed become the theory-of-the-firm’s sine qua non.6

The same paradigm is by and large replicated in competitive democratic governance

regimes. As Michael Karlberg, in his assessment of Western Liberal Democracy, notes:

The breakdown in civility, the rise of mean-spiritedness, the problem of gridlock,

and the spread of political corruption – assuming these things have indeed
deteriorated over time – are not abuses or corruption of the partisan system.
Such developments are the culmination – the ‘perfection’ – of a system that
political scientist Jane Mansbridge refers to as “adversary democracy”.7

Furthermore, Karlberg argues that political competition undermines the ability of

the state to correct market distortions and failures. He maintains:

The reasons for this are not difficult to understand. Political competition is
an expensive activity – and growing more expensive with every generation.
Successful campaigns are waged by those who have the financial support,
both direct and indirect, of the most affluent market
actors (i.e. those who have profited the most from
Complex social, economic and environmental market excesses and deficiencies)…This problem is
problems inherently require long-term a primary cause of the growing disparities of wealth
planning and continued commitment. Yet, and poverty that are now witnessed throughout the
world, including within the Western world.8
individualistic competitive political leaders
seek short-term remedies, often at the expense The prevalence of materialistic secularism has yet
of exacerbating the problems. another critical adverse socio-economic consequence.
Complex social, economic and environmental
problems inherently require long-term planning
and continued commitment. Yet, individualistic competitive political leaders seek
short-term remedies, often at the expense of exacerbating the problems. Karlberg
underscores the point that

in order to gain and maintain power, political entrepreneurs must cater to the
immediate interests of their constituents so that visible results can be realized
within relatively frequent election cycles. Even when long-term political
commitments are made out of principle by one candidate or party, continuity is
often compromised by succeeding candidates or parties who dismantle or fail
to enforce the programmes of their predecessors in order to distance themselves
from policies they were previously compelled to oppose on campaign trail or
as the voice of opposition. The focus of campaigns and political parties on
constituencies-in-the-present therefore undermines commitment to the
interests of future generations.9

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 R el ig ion a n d S o c i a l P r o g r e s s : B e yo n d t h e C la s h o f E x t r e m e s

In brief, in nearly all spheres of human activity the dominance of materialistic

secularism has caused systemic distortions with deep social, political and economic
impact. The most fundamental of these distortions is about the concept of human
nature. Underlying all these practices is the assumption that human nature is
essentially selfish, competitive and exclusionary. This basic assumption needs to
be challenged. The Universal House of Justice, the governing body of the Bahá’í
International Community, observes that

it is in the glorification of material pursuits, at once the progenitor and

common feature of all such ideologies, that we find the roots which nourish
the falsehood that human beings are incorrigibly selfish and aggressive. It is
here that the ground must be cleared for the building of a new world fit for our
descendants.10

Changing the Paradigm: Engaging with

the Spiritual Essence of Human Nature The progress of an ever-advancing
In line with all major divine religions, the Bahá’í Faith civilization generates continuous change
emphasises the spiritual essence of human nature. It and social complexity, and as such spiritual
acknowledges humanity’s inherent potential for both
education is needed to ensure matching
egoism and altruism, and in this context it underscores
the significance of education, social environment, and human spiritual maturity to engender social
the promotion of a balanced material and spiritual harmony and peace.
advancement. Education, the Bahá’í Faith further
underscores, has both a divine and a secular source.
The former is infused through religion, via divine Teachers or Messengers, whereas
the latter originates from scientific research and intellectual inquiry.

The spiritual essence of human nature necessitates continuous nurturing via

Progressive Revelation11 – a process which is conducive to the spiritual evolution
of mankind. Spiritual growth itself is a key requirement for social cohesion, the
promotion of social harmony and the creation of reciprocity within a socially
complex environment. The progress of an ever-advancing civilization generates
continuous change and social complexity, and as such spiritual education is needed
to ensure matching human spiritual maturity to engender social harmony and
peace.

Bahá’u’lláh (the Prophet-Founder of the Faith) taught, that Religion is the chief
foundation of love and unity and the cause of oneness. If a religion become the
cause of hatred and disharmony, it would be better that it should not exist. To
be without such a religion is better than to be with it.12

Critically, science and religion are seen as

inter-twined with each other and cannot be separated. These are the two wings
with which humanity must fly. One wing is not enough. …God has endowed
man with intelligence and reason whereby he is required to determine the verity
of questions and propositions. If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary
to the standards of science they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for the
antithesis of knowledge is ignorance, and the child of ignorance is superstition.
Unquestionably there must be agreement between true religion and science.13

Not only the harmony between science and religion, but also a number of other
principles are vital for creating a just and sustainable social order. Amongst them,
the equality of rights of men and women stands uniquely significant. As the

29
i raj abedian

Bahá’í scriptures highlight, “Until the reality of equality between men and women is
established and attained, the highest social development of mankind is not possible.”

Critical for humanity’s spiritual progress and social advancement is the rendering
of service to the community. The Bahá’í Holy Writings state that “all effort and
exertion put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted
by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity. This is worship: to
serve mankind and to minister to the needs of the people. Service is prayer.”14

In fact, the combination of learning and service, as part

Contrary to the aforementioned ideologies, of an integrated framework, constitutes an important
process of dynamic and collective empowerment.
and in vivid contrast to the assumptions The world over, Bahá’í communities in thousands of
of materialistic secularism, this spiritual locations are engaged in the promotion of concurrent
enterprise promotes an alternative approach learning and service rendering to their immediate
of people learning by advancing together, communities and social environments. This is
central to the global spiritual enterprise promoted
as opposed to the teacher-student format. It and sustained by the worldwide Bahá’í community.
combines learning with doing, and especially Further emphasis is placed on children, pre-youth
with a strong service orientation. and youth. The working premise of this process is that
each human being is endowed with a latent capability,
with a spiritual awareness and a consciousness
that, if enhanced, can lead to both self and group empowerment. Contrary to the
aforementioned ideologies, and in vivid contrast to the assumptions of materialistic
secularism, this spiritual enterprise promotes an alternative approach of people
learning by advancing together, as opposed to the teacher-student format. It
combines learning with doing, and especially with a strong service orientation.

The experience of the South African Bahá’í community in this regard is encouraging
and indeed inspiring. More often than not, the youth and pre-youth groups – the
very groups who are expected to be rebellious and selfish – demonstrate considerable
propensity to collaborate, cooperate and be constructive. Their willingness to render
selfless service to the community and their energy to sustain creative initiatives for
social good is immense.

The failure of materialistic secularism, and its resultant systemic malaise the world
over, has necessitated the development and promotion of alternative approaches.
Critical for such alternatives is the recognition of the spiritual essence of human
nature. One such approach is the current worldwide spiritual enterprise promoted
by the Bahá’í International Community.

Concluding Remarks
Despite the prevalence of materialistic secularism over the past century, it has
proven futile, indeed self-defeating, to sideline religion. This is analogous to
religious institutions’ attempts at sidelining science in the Early Modern period.
Both experiments have failed. Science and religion have critical, but different, roles
to play in advancing civilization.

Given the spiritual nature of human beings, religion has a pivotal role in socio-
economic, political and public spheres. Even the forefathers of modern economics
have argued convincingly that no socio-economic system is sustainable, let alone
prosperous, without a set of moral values that are generally internalised across the
society. With the rise of globalisation and growing diversity, the establishment and

30
 R el ig ion a n d S o c i a l P r o g r e s s : B e yo n d t h e C la s h o f E x t r e m e s

promotion of an explicit set of values is of overwhelming importance for the success

of modern societies. It may be argued that given the overwhelming evidence of
worldwide corruption, unethical conduct and the resultant social destruction, the
need for religion, as the propagator of ethical conduct, has never been so dire.

However, for religion to play its pivotal role, it is imperative that mindsets change
and paradigms shift. As Gregory Dahl, the author of One World One People notes:

It is a fact that most people in today’s world are accustomed to the idea of
change in all aspects of life except religion, which is viewed as static and in
need of protection.  The Bahá’í Faith, in contrast, is a religion which challenges
us to change and grow, and which is itself changing and growing under the
leadership of the Universal House of Justice so that it can meet the changing
needs of the Bahá’í community and the world.  In this faith the community, the
individuals within it and the institutions collaborate and change together in a
dynamic and organic process.  This gives everyone a constructive role to play.15

notes
1 McGee, John E. (1948), A History of the British Secular Movement, Girard: Haldeman-Julius Publications
2 Bhatt, Chetan (2008), “The times of movements: a response to Judith Butler”, The British Journal of Sociology 59(1), p. 26
3 Holyoake, George J., The Principles of Secularism, London: Austin & Co.
4 “The Search for Values in an Age of Transition”, A Statement of the Bahá’í International Community on the Occasion of the
60th Anniversary of the United Nations
5 Ibid.
6 Dobson, J. (1997), Finance Ethics: The Rationality of Virtue, New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
7 Michael Karlberg, “Western Liberal Democracy as New World Order?”, The Bahá’í World 2005-2006, Haifa: Bahá’í World
Centre, p. 136
8 Ibid., pp. 138-39
9 Ibid., pp. 142-43
10 Universal House of Justice (1985), The Promise of World Peace, Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, p. 7
11 The notion of Progressive Revelation is an insightful and revealing tenet of the Bahá’í Faith. It suggests that the religion of
God is one, but it has been revealed in a progressive manner over time dependent on the ability of the recipient in the age
concerned. As such, it considers all the divine Messengers of God as successive authors of the various chapters of the same
divine Book.
12 Abdu’l-Baha, Abdu’l-Baha in London, p. 28
13 Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i World Faith, p. 240
14 Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 176
15 Dahl, Gregory C. (1998), “One World One People: How Globalization is Shaping Our Future”, Bahai Publishing, Wilmette,
Illinois, USA

31
 African Traditional
Religion in the face
of Secularism in
South Africa
Dr Sibusiso
Masondo is a lecturer
in the Department of
Religious Studies at
UCT. His research and
teaching is focused, It is a well documented fact that African Traditional Religion was
broadly speaking, around discriminated against by the missionaries, as well as colonial and
African Religion, culture apartheid governments. African traditionalist and academic Nokuzola
and philosophy. More
specifically, Dr Masondo
Mndende1 points out that under these regimes the public profile of African
is concerned with African knowledge systems declined and African religion became an “underground
Traditional Religion, praxis”. Religious historian David Chidester2 has documented a history of
African Christianity and intolerance toward African religious traditions from the time when settlers
indigenous meaning
systems, African set foot on South African soil. Initially there was a denial that Africans
Indigenous Churches, had a religion, based on the idea that Africans had no idea of a Supreme
and comparative religion. Being or God. Such an assertion implied that Africans were at the same
level as animals and therefore had no human rights, thus justifying the
seizure of land and oppression of Africans in general. Later there was
acceptance that Africans did have religion, but it was considered inferior,
as it was ‘superstition’.
The 1993 Interim Constitution ushered in a dispensation of racial inclusiveness
and human rights. Freedom of religion was one of the rights introduced. There was
an attempt by the writers of the Constitution to avoid making the same mistakes
as the previous regimes by privileging one religion over others. The Constitution
recognised that South Africa is a religiously plural society, and aimed to protect
people’s rights to belong to any religion without fear of being discriminated against
or persecuted. Freedom was also extended to those who hold no religious beliefs.
This protection of religious freedom should be understood as part of the project of
cultivating tolerance in a previously deeply divided society3.

Section 15 (1) of the Bill of Rights says “Everyone has the right to freedom of
conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion”. Ebrahim Moosa4 holds the view
that the South African Constitution has a dualistic view of religion, that is,

• religion as an abstract and unarticulated dogma and

• religion as practice.

The translation of belief into practice is severely limited by the constitution. The
constitution individualises religion and confines it to a private space. If religion
appears in public spaces it must be regulated in such a way that it does not interfere

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 Afr ic a n T r a d i t i o n a l R e li g i o n i n t h e fa c e o f S e c u la r i s m i n S a

with the norms and values of the secular state. Individuals can hold beliefs and
put them in practice as long as they do not violate the constitution or the law. In
other words, Muslims, African Traditionalists, and Hindus can believe in polygamy
but the law will not recognise such unions. The same is true for Rastafarians: they
can believe in the spiritual power of cannabis (dagga) but it is illegal to possess or
smoke it. The state, on the other hand, cannot afford to allow the practice of forced
marriages, ritual murder and other violent crimes in the name of religious practice.

The 1996 Constitution ushered in an era of openness, democracy and human rights
in South Africa. The Bill of Rights was designed to protect people from abuses by
private citizens or the state. Religion is subordinated to the authority of the state.
It has the ability to mould people but it has to do so within the parameters of state
authority. Historically, religions have been implicated in human rights violations
throughout the world. State morality has clashed with religious morality: thus the
the failed Constitutional Court challenge by Gareth Prince to put aside a decision
by the Law Society of the Western Cape not to register him as an attorney because,
as a Rastafarian, he had been convicted on two occasions for possession of cannabis
(dagga)5.

The aim of this paper is to reflect on how African

Traditional Religion (ATR) has fared in the face of In the post 1994 period a number of events
secularism in South Africa. We will consider a number related to ATR have been brought to the
of practices that have caught the attention of the public.
Chirevo Kwenda6, in defining ATR, bemoaned the fact public attention through the media. Some
that African intellectuals, in their attempt to define of these events were highly controversial:
what it means to be African, were preoccupied with botched circumcisions, …
trying to correct outsiders, paying homage to Western
shrine keepers, and seeking acceptance from the West.
For Kwenda, the version of ATR produced by the scholars is tainted. However, there
is a version that is produced by ordinary people, who simply do what they do without
caring who is watching them. In the post 1994 period a number of events related to
ATR have been brought to the public attention through the media. Some of these
events were highly controversial: botched circumcisions, ukweshwama, ritual slaughter
of animals, virginity testing, polygamy, “muthi” murders, witch-finding and burning,
etc.

ATR in the aftermath of 1994

The post 1994 dispensation opened up space for ATR and other marginalised
traditions; space to have a public voice and profile. The dominant public view of
ATR was generally negative before 1994. For some African Christians, it was
deemed an embarrassment to be seen to be engaged in traditional rituals and
practices, or to consult traditional religious specialists. African Christians continued
to practise some of their rituals, albeit without the knowledge of the missionary
authorities. Sacrifices would be performed at night and feasts would be held during
the day. These traditional rituals would be referred to as either “tea” or “dinner”.
Many Christians were uneasy with the use of the traditional terms umsebenzi or
tirelo, that is, “service”, because these terms (“tea” and “dinner”) were part of the
missionary discourse. The same is true for consultations with the sacred specialists,
which would be done secretly. Nokuzola Mndende7 accused African Christians of
double talk and serving two masters. Among fellow Christians they professed the
power of the blood of Jesus but among traditionalists they swore by the power of
their ancestors for health and good fortune.

33
Si busi so Maso nd o

House opening rituals have become common in urban areas. McAllister8 observed
that among AmaXhosa, ancestral religion was adapted to meet the needs of a
changing socio-political and economic reality. With the advent of migrant labour,
African men moved from their familiar rural setting to the unfamiliar and supposedly
dangerous urban areas. Ancestral religion was affected by this movement. There was
an appeal to the ancestors for protection on the journey as well as during their
stay in the urban areas. Initially, urban areas were not perceived as places where
people settled permanently because the rural areas provided all the elements that
made one human. Migrant labour became another aspect of male initiation – in
this instance a man has to prove his manhood through his ability to earn money to
both build a homestead and cater for the needs of his wife and children. Post 1994,
with Africans being allowed to stay permanently in the urban areas and being able
to purchase property in former white suburbs, there developed an idea of ‘house
opening’. During this ritual, ancestors are invited to come and stay in the house with
the owner and the family.

Ukweshwama is one of the rituals that have captured the nation’s imagination and
sparked a fierce debate and contestation that ended up in court. The meaning and
content of the celebration were not the contested subjects. The Animal Rights
Activists petitioned the High Court in Pietermaritzburg to instruct the Zulu King
not to allow the ritual killing of the bull during the celebrations in 2009 because it
constituted cruelty to the animal in question. Ukweshwama can be described as the
ritual of the first fruit. During this ritual, the King –
who is the first citizen, the ritual leader (chief priest),
Ukweshwama can be described as the ritual the link between the royal ancestors and the rest of
of the first fruit. During this ritual, the King the group – would taste the first fruit of the season.
One of the major aspects of this ritual is thanksgiving
– who is the first citizen, the ritual leader
to the ancestors for their provision. It highlights an
(chief priest), the link between the royal important link between people and the environment
ancestors and the rest of the group – would on which they depend. However, what became part
taste the first fruit of the season. One of the of the public debate was the apparent barbarism
and cruelty of killing the bull. The Animal Rights
major aspects of this ritual is thanksgiving to
Activists failed to convince the court and it confirmed
the ancestors for their provision. It highlights the right of the King to have the ritual without any
an important link between people and the alterations. The ecological aspect of ukweshwama was
environment on which they depend. debated and reports about the custom never mention
it. After going to court and winning the contest, King
Zwelithini announced during the celebrations in 2009
that he was reinstituting circumcision as part of male initiation. Being aware of
problems experienced by AmaXhosa with regard to this issue, he pointed out that
he was going to consult other African groups and enlist the help of the medical
fraternity in carrying out circumcisions. By doing this he responded to critics of
virginity testing that it only focussed on girls. He was seen to be doing something to
create awareness among boys about HIV/AIDS. His decision stood on two pillars;
first, restoration of an old custom and, second, medical evidence that circumcision
reduces chances of contracting HIV.

The subject of ritual slaughter came to the public view after the release of Tony
Yengeni from prison. The family believed that there was something defiling about
prison. He had paid his debt to society for corruption and he needed to be cleansed
and restored to his previous position both in the family and the community. The
family maintained that it is part of their tradition to slaughter a bull for a cleansing

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 Afr ic a n T r a d i t i o n a l R e li g i o n i n t h e fa c e o f S e c u la r i s m i n S a

ceremony. Since the animal is dedicated to the ancestors, it is expected that it should
bellow to indicate that there is acceptance of the offering in the ancestral world. The
public debate that ensued highlighted the tension between culture and aspects of
the law. The ability to negotiate these tensions points to the strength of the South
African constitution and the institutions that support it.

Rainmaking and fertility rituals are very prominent among Southern African
people. Queen Mudjadji of Lovedu people was known throughout Southern Africa
as the rain queen. Eileen Krige9, in her important work, The realm of a rain-queen: a
study of the pattern of Lovedu society, points out that Mudjadji received delegations
from all over Southern Africa for her rainmaking abilities. Such rituals indicate
people’s uncertainty about what nature would do. The aim is to ask nature to be kind
to them. Thereby creating a situation where there is harmony between people and
nature, which is a critical realisation that humanity depends on nature for survival.
For Chirevo Kwenda, through

going beyond co-operation with nature, itself

a progressive step, human beings learn to bear The celebration of Nomkhubulwane and
themselves with humility in the face of nature.
They sit at its feet to be taught seemingly familiar
ukweshwama were some of the ways
yet unfathomable wonders, which may contain in which AmaZulu demonstrated their
keys to intractable human problems. They come dependence on nature.
to see, or rediscover, that nature is there in its
own right, for itself primarily, and secondarily
for mutual co-operation with humankind. They make the sobering discovery
that while they need nature, nature does not need them. Perhaps they must
not stop there; they must move on in boldness to affirm that human beings
are ontologically not caretakers or stewards of anything, but dependents and
beneficiaries of the universe. They are only caretakers by default, as a result of
their status as naturicides.10

The celebration of Nomkhubulwane and ukweshwama were some of the ways in

which AmaZulu demonstrated their dependence on nature. Nomkhubulwane is the
only daughter of Mvelinqangi. She is the Zulu divinity in female form. Eileen Krige
described as “Inkosazana, personification of nature, was symbolised as standing on
the threshold of summer like a girl at her puberty ceremony, ready for marriage and
procreation”11. Mazisi Kunene points out that

Nomkhubulwane is the most central symbol of creation. She establishes the

female principle as philosophically the primary force in creation. Through the
female principle, the seemingly irreconcilable elements are brought together.
Thus the conciliation of opposites and the establishment of balance become the
very essence of growth and creation12.

In Zulu cosmology Nomkhubulwane is associated with light, rain, and fertility.

Fertility is an all encompassing term which includes the land, animals, and humans.
For the woman, fertility was important, as her womanhood was pegged on her
ability to reproduce. Keeping pure and celebrating Nomkhubulwane meant that once
married the woman would be able to reproduce. In the past she was celebrated
locally by a group of girls who would cultivate a field in her honour. Such a field
was not tended and no one was allowed to harvest anything from it. The celebration
of Nomkhubulwane disappeared during the colonial period and, when it was re-

35
Si busi so Maso nd o

introduced, it was made into a national spectacle, which was led and directed by
izangoma. As part of the spectacle the facilitators included virginity testing. The
reasons for the re-introduction of the celebration were twofold:

• to assert an African cultural identity; and

• to respond to calls for moral regeneration and increased HIV/AIDS awareness.

Virginity testing is meant encourage girls to abstain from sexual activity until they
are married. It serves to keep them pure while at the same time protecting them
from HIV/AIDS. The practice received a barrage of criticism from various sectors
of the South African population. The Commission on Gender Equality has been
the fiercest critic of the practice. Interestingly, the practice not only got support
from traditional establishments13 but also received the backing of Kwasizabantu
Mission. In a media statement on 9 February 2000 Rev. Stegen made it clear that
the practice promoted the same values of purity as they did and, as such, they could
not condemn it.

American researcher Kendall14 reports that Nomagugu

The major complaint attributed to the
ancestors is that they have been neglected.
Rapid urbanisation has seen African culture,
tradition and custom being watered down by
the influence of other cultures.
Ngobese re-introduced the festival of Nomkhubulwane
in 1995 after an instruction by her ancestors in a
dream15 in 1994. According to Kendall, many sacred
specialists in KwaZulu-Natal explained the plight of
AmaZulu and other Black people as a result of the
wrath of the ancestors. In his discussion of sacred
specialists, Geoffrey Parrinder points out that,

In all religions one finds experts in religious matters, whether full-time or

not. The sacred is dangerous to ordinary mortals, its demands are mysterious
and perhaps its character capricious, so that intermediaries are needed who
themselves partake of the divine nature16.

The major complaint attributed to the ancestors is that they have been neglected.
Rapid urbanisation has seen African culture, tradition and custom being watered
down by the influence of other cultures. Africans are accused of turning away from
their roots. When the African people turned away from their core spiritual entities,
Nomkhubulwane in particular, society lost its balance. With the loss of balance,

• disease swept through the people (HIV/ AIDS);

• there was disharmony in society, which explains the high levels of crime and civil
discontent;
• respect for women was lost, resulting in the high incidence of rape and abuse of
women.

The political violence of 1980s and 90s and civil strife experienced by AmaZulu
could be traced back to the neglect of Nomkhubulwane.

Gender issues in African thought

President Jacob Zuma’s rape trial and the fact that he had a child with a woman
to whom he was not married created an opening for a debate on gender relations
in African communities17. The dominant view is that ATR has many elements
which deny women their human rights and dignity. The idea of purity, especially as
promoted by the advocates of virginity testing, is burdensome to women. In the case

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 Afr ic a n T r a d i t i o n a l R e li g i o n i n t h e fa c e o f S e c u la r i s m i n S a

of virginity, it is the sole responsibility of the girl to remain so until she is married
but the same demands are not made of men18. Deidre Badejo19 argues that African
oral tradition and myths placed women at the centre of production. Furthermore,
power and femininity are intertwined rather than antithetical. What happened
here? What created a scenario where power and femininity are antithetical? What
happened to the power of femininity? Do the powerful take such oral traditions
seriously? What needs to be done to place such aspects of oral tradition at the
centre of public discourse and practice? Badejo alludes to the fact that western
sexism played a critical role in distorting African gender relations. Celebrations like
Nomkhubulwane have the potential to open up the debate on gender inequality.
Zulu cosmology has an in-built principle of complementarity. Oyeronke Olajubu,
commenting on the Yoruba context, asserted that “neutral complementarity describes
more accurately than subordination the relationship between male and female roles
in various precolonial African societies”20.

African Religion in the future

Rosalind Hackett21 argued that New Religious Nomkhubulwane … deals with the erosion of
Movements are not only about providing relevant
morality, the detachment that modern society
spiritual expressions or validating their cultural
roots, but are also about negotiating new indigenous has from the environment, and provides a
forms of Christianity. South Africa experienced the response to the problem of HIV/AIDS.
rise of various movements within the Christian fold
that incorporated aspects of African religion and
practice and are collectively called the African Indigenous Churches (AICs). These
movements were able to keep alive some aspects of ATR. The most important
aspect of ATR is the emergence of Dr. Mathole Motshekga’s Kara Institute and
Dr. Nokuzola Mndende’s Icamagu Institute. The two institutes saw the need for
preservation, recording, classification and research on various aspects of ATR. Given
the fact that ATR is an orally transmitted tradition, with the passing away of many
of the elders it became imperative to have these recorded. Both Drs. Motshekga
and Mndende have written a number of books on leadership, ethics, morality and
other subjects. Mndende went as far as to establish contact with communities in her
endeavour to receive and disseminate information. Her vision is to place ATR at the
centre of public discourse on all issues because she is of the view that it can make
important contributions to building a better country.

Conclusion
This article has looked at a number of appearances of ATR in public. Often when
Africans appeal to institutions of their culture they are accused of hiding behind
tradition. I wish to put forward a different opinion, echoing the view of Jean and
John Comaroff: “it is often a mode of producing new forms of consciousness; of
expressing discontent with modernity and dealing with its deformities”22. Often when
these issues are debated in public, the only content of these traditions taken into
account is those aspects that people find repugnant. Nomkhubulwane, on the other
hand, deals with the erosion of morality, the detachment that modern society has from
the environment, and provides a response to the problem of HIV/AIDS. Kendall
mentioned one incident at a luncheon after one of the Nomkhubulwane festivals
when female izangoma politely refused to serve food to their male colleagues. For
me, that was an important statement by female izangoma. Male and female izangoma
are equals as they both serve the ancestors. Their position is not defined by gender;
isangoma embodies both femininity and masculinity. In other words, the spirit medium
is asexual. This represents a progressive approach to gender relations, which South

37
Si busi so Maso nd o

Africa society could learn from.

South Africa faces many challenges, like poverty, unemployment, racism, etc. It
would be foolhardy to ignore any of the resources at our disposal. I would therefore
concur with Philippe Denis23 that African Traditional Religion has a future in
South Africa.

notes
1 Nokuzola Mndende (1998) “From Underground Praxis to Recognised Religion: Challenges facing African Religions”. Journal
for the Study of Religion, 11(2): 115.
2 David Chidester (1994). Authentic Forgery or forging authenticity: comparative religion in South Africa. Inaugural lecture
no.186, University of Cape Town. David Chidester (1996). Savage Systems: Colonialism and comparative religion in Southern
Africa. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia.
3 Laurens M. Du Plessis (2001). Freedom of or Freedom from Religion? An Overview of issues pertinent to the constitutional
protection or religious rights and freedom in “the New South Africa”. Birmingham Young University Law Review, 442.
4 Ebrahim Moosa (2000). Tensions in legal and religious values in the 1996 South African Constitution. Mahmood Mamdani
(ed.) Beyond Rights Talk and cultural talk. Cape Town: David Philip.
5 Mail and Guardian (2005) “Rasta Lawyer to petition UN for the right to dope”. http://mg.co.za/article/2005-09-02-rasta-
lawyer-to-petition-un-for-right-dope Mail and Guardian (2002) “Africans are still looked down upon”. After losing his
constitutional court battle, Gareth Prince criticised the court for suppressing African practices. It has to be noted that the
decision of the Constitutional Court was not unanimous; it also drew strong criticism from the minority report compiled by
Justices Albie Sachs and Yvonne Mokgoro. http://wwrn.org/articles/5593/
6 Chirevo V Kwenda (1997) “African Traditional Religion”, in David Chidester, Chirevo Kwenda et al, African Traditional Religion
in South Africa. Westport, Connecticut, London: Greenwood Press, 1–9.
7 Nokuzola Mndende (1998) Siyacamagusha. Cape Town: Icamagu Institute, 9.
8 P. A. McAllister (1980) ‘Work, Homestead, and the Shades: The ritual interpretation of labour migration among the Gcaleka’.
Philip Meyer (ed.) Black Villagers in Industrial Society: Anthropological Perspectives on Labour Migration in South Africa. Cape
Town: Oxford University Press, 205-253.
9 Eileen Jensen Krige (1978) The realm of a rain-queen: a study of the pattern of Lovedu society. New York: AMS Press
10 Chirevo V. Kwenda (2000) “Beyond Patronage: Giving and Receiving in the construction of civil society”. James R. Cochrane
and Bastienne Klein (eds.) Sameness and Difference: Problems and Potentials in South African Civil Society. Washington: The
Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 243-268.
11 Eileen Jensen Krige (1968) “Girls’ puberty songs and their relation to fertility, health, morality, and religion among the Zulu”.
Africa, 38(2): 173.
12 Mazisi Kunene, (1981) Anthem of the decades: a Zulu epic dedicated to the women of Africa. London: Heinemann, XIII-XL.
13 Philippe Denis(2006) “The rise of traditional African religion in post-apartheid South Africa”. Missionalia 34:2/3 310–323.
He points out that there was political support for initiatives in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape but that change with the
introduction of Children’s Act in 2005, which limited testing on children under the age16. The Children’s Act was criticised by
the King Zwelithini as an infringement on the parent’s rights to raise their children.
14 Kendal (1999) “The role of Izangoma in bringing a Zulu Goddess back to her people”. The Drama Review, 43(2): 94-117.
15 Dreams in African thought are an important and powerful medium of communication with the ancestors. Some are
straightforward and could easily be interpreted by any family elder; however, there are complex ones that require the expert
knowledge of a sacred specialist. Izangoma not only have specialized knowledge but also have access to the supernatural
world, thus they are able give decisive interpretations. The truth can only be uncovered through accessing the supernatural
world. What happens in the seen or visible world is formed and directed from the unseen or invisible world. The truth can only
be uncovered by connecting to that world. The sacred specialists are the key to unlocking that truth.
16 Edward Geoffrey Parrinder (1962) African Traditional Religion London: SPCK, 100
17 For many, Mr. Zuma symbolises the traditional simplicity and elegance reflected by his lifestyle as a polygamous man, as well
as modern suaveness and sophistication reflected in his position as leader of the ANC and president of the Republic of South
Africa.
18 Fiona Scorgie “Virginity Testing and the Politics of Sexual Responsibility: Implications for AIDS Intervention”. African Studies,
61(1): 55-74. She makes a very strong point that in the sexual politics of the community, the idea of testing reinforces the
ideal that men are the initiators of sexual relations. Her fear is that the virginity testing movement will produce young women
who will find it difficult in future to negotiate relationships as the messages that come though are such that young girls should
stay away from boys.
19 Diedre L. Badejo (1998) ‘African Feminism: Mythical and Social Power of Women of African Descent’. Research in African
Literatures, 29(2): 94-111.
20 Oyeronke Olajubu (2004) ‘Seeing through a woman’s eye: Yoruba Religious Tradition and Gender Relations’. Journal of
Feminist Studies in Religion, 20(1): 43.
21 Rosalind Hackett (1986) “African New Religious Movements” African Studies Review 29(3): 141-146.
22 Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff (1999) “Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African
Postcolony” American Ethnologist, 26(2): 284
23 Philippe Denis(2006) “The rise of traditional African religion in post-apartheid South Africa”. Missionalia 34:2/3: 321

38

Prof Ivor Chipkin is
the Director of the Public
Affairs Research Institute.
He is the author of Do
South Africans Exist?
Nationalism, Democracy
and the Identity of ‘the
People’, published by
Wits University Press. He
is currently working on a
new book on government
and governance in South
Africa and Africa.
Dr Annie Leatt
is a lecturer in the
Department of Religious
Studies at the University
of Cape Town. She
completed her PhD on
the subject of secularism
and the South African
constitution through
Wiser at the University of
the Witwatersrand. Annie
has worked widely in
policy and social justice
research and practice at
the Children’s Institute,
Law Race and Gender
Research Unit and at
Triangle Project. Her
current research interests
include the nature of
South Africa’s political
public and the role of
religious leadership, as
well as Buddhism and
the social institutions of
Buddhism in East and
South East Asia.
Religion and Revival
in post-apartheid
South Africa
Until the 1960s, social scientists were convinced that the future of
religion was bleak. They argued that as the world became increasingly
industrialised and urban, and as modes of social life became more
bureaucratised and individualistic, religion would fade from view. They
thought that fewer people would find religion a meaningful part of their
lives, and religion would have no place in public and political life.
This view of religion has informed the majority of international and South African
sociological scholarship until recently. Working with this assumption, scholars have
often dismissed the religion they encountered as some kind of archaic remnant. This
perspective has changed in the last decade.
In this article we will briefly address the many empirical and theoretical critiques of
this earlier secularising view of religion. To do this, we look at what has come to be
known as the “return of religion” – the new ways in which religion is both important
to individuals and communities, and also the return of religion in the analysis of
society, politics, and subjectivity. The major part of the article will then develop this
in relation to South Africa. We argue that, throughout processes of modernisation,
South Africa has remained a deeply religious place. In addition, both apartheid and
religious anti-apartheid activists determined an important place for religion, and
particularly Christianity, in public and political life.
What then is the current status of religion in South Africa? As we will show in this
article, South Africa now has a secular constitutional dispensation and religion is no
longer as distinctive a feature of South African national public life as it was before
1994. But religion has continued to be just as important to the majority of South
Africans in the last two decades. We provide a brief overview of religious adherence.
And new forms of religiosity are becoming increasingly prominent. Pentecostal
Christianity is one such form, and this article speaks to its presence and effects in
local communities.
The return of religion
Secularisation was mainly theorised in the Europe of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. There, levels of individual religiosity have been declining for many decades.
European scholars clearly thought this pattern would and ought to be emulated in
the rest of the world.
As it turns out, Europe is the exception rather than the rule. The first evidence
for this came from the USA where scholars demonstrated that high levels of
39
chi pki n and leatt

urbanisation, commerce, and modernity can coexist with high levels of individual
religiosity as well as a significant public presence of religion, including in political
rhetoric and nationalism.

It has become increasingly apparent that the rest of the world is much more like
the USA than Europe in this respect, and theories of secularisation cannot take
the particular history, politics and experience of religion in Europe as a model for
all human society. Most sociologists of religion have abandoned the secularisation
thesis. Jose Cassanova has called this a Khunian paradigm revolution; “it is not
reality itself which has changed, as much as our perception of it… .”1

This paradigm shift has come to be known as ‘the return of religion’. This has two
meanings. First, religion has returned to our analytical categories and is once again a
legitimate subject for research in the social sciences. Secondly, religion has returned
to prominence in areas in which it was once considered marginal.

None of the major world religions has experienced

Aside from these overtly political
contestations, social movements across the
world have also challenged areas of private
and family law in the name of religion;
around termination of pregnancy for
example, and equal rights for same sex couples
a decline since the Second World War. And from
the 1960s onwards, new forms of religion have been
developed. These include significant transformations of
older religious traditions – the increasing prominence
of Pentecostalism in Christianity and pietism
movements in Islam. In addition, new religious forms
have emerged, New Age, the spread of Asian religions
across the world, astrology, and various ‘spiritual’
traditions.

Aside from these religious movements and the more or less stable demographics
of personal faith, religion has once again come to be an important presence in
public and political life. As Cassanova2 notes, the late 1970s and 1980s witnessed
a remarkable return. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was its first announcement. It
was followed by the rise of Catholic Solidarity in Poland, new roles for Catholicism
in the Sandinista revolution, the emergence of the religious right and Protestant
Fundamentalism as a political force in the USA, and the presence of religious
elements to a number of conflicts in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia
and India. Along with this came the development of liberation theologies, including
in South Africa. Aside from these overtly political contestations, social movements
across the world have also challenged areas of private and family law in the name
of religion; around termination of pregnancy for example, and equal rights for same
sex couples3.

Religion in South Africa

It is clear that in South Africa, like in the many places in which modernity was
introduced through colonialism and missions, modernisation was not accompanied
by an increasing level of atheism. Quite the contrary; Christianity is a significant
part of both our colonial and apartheid histories.

It is clear that in terms of the fates of personal faith, South Africa has been a deeply
religious country – religious in African customary terms, in Christianity, and a significant
minority of other religious traditions – particularly Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism.

Religion has also been very significant to public and political life. The apartheid

40
 R e li g i o n a n d R e vi va l i n p o s t- a pa rt h e i d S o u t h Af r i c a

regime politicised Christianity in a number of ways; through the National Party’s

close association with the Dutch Reformed Church, through apartheid’s political
theology of race, and through Christian national education. Opposition to
apartheid also drew heavily on Christianity. The development of liberation theology
in the 1970s gave a platform to the prominence of Church and Muslim leaders in
the 1980s when they became politically active as the state cracked down on the
leadership of civic and political organisations.

The negotiations that framed South Africa’s new

democracy also paid attention to the place religion According to the Census data we have,
does and ought to take in the country. The negotiators
Christianity, in all its forms, is by far the
acknowledged the importance of religion to the
majority of South Africans and the variety of religious largest religion in the country. It could claim
traditions in the country. The 1996 Constitution the adherence of around 74 percent of the
includes a strong right to freedom of religion, and
country’s inhabitants in 2001.
the possibility of the presence of religion in state
institutions under conditions of fairness and neutrality.
A variety of forms of customary religious marriage are
also provided for. The drafters of the constitution were also very clear to exclude
reference to Christianity in the preamble, and made a point of the importance of
state neutrality towards various religions in law. During important state events,
religious leaders of a variety of traditions play a role. At the same time, the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission and political rhetoric often draws on the legacy of
liberation theology.

Religion in South Africa today

The Census provides the most thorough and reliable data on religious affiliation in
South Africa. Unfortunately these data are somewhat out of date now. There was a
complete census in 1996 and 2001, and it is possible to look at religious affiliation
in these two surveys. The next census is only due in 2011. It will be interesting to see
how much affiliation may have changed in the last important decade.

According to the Census data we have, Christianity, in all its forms, is by far the
largest religion in the country. It could claim the adherence of around 74 percent of
the country’s inhabitants in 2001. Mainline churches, otherwise known as English
speaking churches, are Protestant denominations. They include Methodists (6.7
percent of the population), Anglicans (3.8%), Lutherans (2.5%) and Presbyterians
(1.9%). Reformed church membership declined from 1996 to 2001. The Dutch
Reformed Church, for example, had approximately 3 million adherents in 2001, half
a million less than 5 years previously. It is likely that more have since left the church.
The number of black reformed church members almost halved over the same period.
The Roman Catholic Church had around 3.5 million members in 2001.

The other main Christian denominations are the African Independent Churches
(AIC). From the census data it appears that membership of these churches decreased
from about 34 percent in 1996 to just under 20 percent in 2001. This is a massive
drop in numbers, and it will be necessary to wait for the next census to confirm
the scale of this change. If the census data are to be believed, the AIC aggregation
masks the fact that the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) grew its membership by
around one million (to nearly 5 million) over the five year period, consolidating its
dominance amongst AICs.

41
chi pki n and leatt

The other significant change to Christian demographics has been the rapid rise
of Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity. In 1996 the census category Pentecostal-
Charismatic churches made up 5.4 percent of the population with 2.2 million
adherents. This is probably already significantly higher than it would have been
five years previously. By 2001 they had grown by 1.5 million adherents to make
up 8.2 percent of the population. This growth does not adequately capture the
increasing Pentecostalisation of Christianity in South Africa. The census figures
reveal a fragmentation of Christian denominations as people moved away from
big established churches into smaller apostolic and charismatic groups. If the
census is accurate, the Apostolic Faith Mission Church, for example, which had a
membership of 2.2 million in 1996 declined over these five years to just 250,000. A
catch-all category of ‘other Apostolic’ on the other hand grew from 3.5 million in
1996 to 5.6 million in 2001. And the even less definite ‘other Christian churches’
category more than doubled from 1.3 million to nearly 3 million. Most of these
smaller ‘other’ churches are likely to be Pentecostal. This probably points to a net
increase of around 4 million Pentecostals in just five years.

Some of the detail of these changes can be mapped

According to the 2001 census, Muslims
made up just less than 1.5 percent of South
Africans; about 650,000 people. There were
550,000 Hindus. There were a little more
than 75,000 Jews, about 0.2 percent of the
population. A catch-all category of “other
faiths” which include “Buddhists, Taoists,
“small, mainly charismatic churches, many of which
Confucians, New Age, Jehova’s Witness and
Baha’i” grew from nearly 200,000 in 1996
to nearly 300,000 by 2001.
using the South African Christian Handbook published
for the years 1986/7, 1996/7 and 1999/2000. In
1986/7 the editor notes a move towards charismatic
churches “which are growing at a rate of a new
church every 2.1 days.”4 Ten years later she reports
that the Baptist Union, for example, has “planted no
less than 110 churches in the past five years.”5 She
notes a major shift from large denominations to
are autonomous...” This was accompanied by a rise in
the number of international missions to South Africa,
particularly from the USA, and an explosion of South
African missions to other African countries.

The remaining South Africans are varied in their religious affiliation. Each of the
other religions is relatively small. According to the 2001 census, Muslims made
up just less than 1.5 percent of South Africans; about 650,000 people. There were
550,000 Hindus. There were a little more than 75,000 Jews, about 0.2 percent of the
population. A catch-all category of “other faiths” which include “Buddhists, Taoists,
Confucians, New Age, Jehova’s Witness and Baha’i” grew from nearly 200,000
in 1996 to nearly 300,000 by 2001. The 1996 census for the first time included
“African Traditional Belief ” as an option in the survey sheet. That year just 17,097
people identified with this category. In 2001 however, the number had increased
to nearly 126,000. All the figures for the “minority religious” listed above should
be treated with caution since sampling errors are likely to be greatest where the
population proportion is so low.

What about atheists? In 1996, nearly 11.5 percent of the population – 4.6 million
people – said that they had “no religion”. Another 9 percent or 3.75 million refused
to answer the religion question. By 2001, far fewer people refused, and the number of
people who reported that they had no religion increased to 6.7 million or 15 percent of
the population. It is possible that people are now more open about their non-religiosity
than before. While it is true that South Africa is a religious country, it is also true that a
significant proportion of people don’t claim affiliation to a religious tradition.

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 R e li g i o n a n d R e vi va l i n p o s t- a pa rt h e i d S o u t h Af r i c a

There have been a few other surveys which add to that picture. The most recent
HSRC social attitudes survey reports that 80 percent of South Africans identify
themselves as Christian.6 Aside from identification, it is clear that the intensity
of religious practice is high amongst participants. A little over half the population
attends religious services at least once a week, and another twenty five percent at
least once a month. Even given the likelihood that this is over-reported, these are
very strong indicators of religious attachment. According to the HSRC “three-
quarters of the adult population express a resolute faith in the existence of God
and claim that ‘Jesus is the solution to all the world’s problems.’” Nine out of ten
said that they believed in “the power of prayer,” and three quarters reported that
they pray at least once a day. And “[w]hile trust in many public institutions began
to wane in 2005 ….there remained an overwhelming and steadfast confidence in
churches and religious organisations.”7

Pentecostalism and the State in Africa

Does the apparent growth of Pentecostal churches in
South Africa say anything more than the attractiveness
of their liturgy and mode of prayer for people that are
already Christians? In other words, is Pentecostalism
a strictly Christian affair? There have been two major
social developments on the African continent during
the 1980’s and 1990’s which may be suggestive for
South Africa.
What is more, many of the NGO’s operating
in the development field are subsidiaries of
church organisations. We might say that the
church has taken-over from the state the role
of linking individuals and communities to
wider networks and associations.

The first was the “phenomenal growth” of Christian Churches8 This growth has been
associated with the “precipitous decline” of African economies and marginalisation
of African states. As the state in Africa either withdrew or was unable to provide
education, health and other services, so this role has increasingly been assumed by
church movements. What is more, many of the NGO’s operating in the development
field are subsidiaries of church organisations. We might say that the church has
taken-over from the state the role of linking individuals and communities to wider
networks and associations. “In any major African city,” writes Gillford, “from
Harare to Freetown, from Nairobi to Kinshasa, these new churches were to be
found every Sunday in schoolrooms, cinemas, theatres, halls and hotel conference
rooms. Some of them in the space of a few years have become mega-churches with
a very high profile”9. We might name a few of these: Idahosa’s Church of God
Mission International in Nigeria, Otabil’s International Central Gospel Church
in Accra, Wutawanashe’s Family of God in Zimbabwe, Leslie’s Abundant Life in
Kampala, Gitonga’s Redeemed Gospel Church in Kenya. Twenty years ago, none
of them existed10.

The second striking phenomenon is the form that this growth has taken. It has been
led by Pentecostal churches, often supported by American evangelicals. What has
driven this development has been the “explosion” of North American missionary
activities11. The Florida-based Campus Crusade for Christ, for example, has a staff
of over 40 000 people situated in more than 150 countries. What this means is that
the theology, and sometimes even the politics, of these new churches is strongly
influenced by US-based churches. What is noteworthy, in particular, is how these
churches preach a gospel of ‘wealth and health’: the idea that Divine providence
is evidenced by material riches. They also tend to be organised around powerful
charismatic figures. It is not difficult to see the consequences for such a gospel on
practices of conspicuous consumption.

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chi pki n and leatt

More importantly, Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar suggest that these new
religious movements do not simply fill the vacuum left by the decline of the formal
apparatuses of the State. They have become a major political factor in their own
rights. According to Ellis and ter Haar, “The religious revival in Africa can be said
to reflect a concern with poor governance, expressed in a different idiom, inasmuch
as new religious movements are often centrally concerned with the problem of
evil in society and are looking for alternative sources of power”12. In effect, they
continue, many of these churches challenge the very bases of legitimacy of states
which operate through institutions and norms of governance premised on secular
and administrative/bureaucratic principles13.

There may be something of this dynamic in South

Why has Pentecostalism proved especially Africa as people try to come to terms with the
popular amongst some Christians rather unpredictability of South African social life: as a
citizen (or customer) engaging with the public service,
than others? Why, in particular, have these
the existential uncertainty generated by crime, or by
churches grown amongst Afrikaans-speakers sickness, for young people who are unlikely to find
and amongst the ‘Black Middle Class’? These a job in the formal economy and for those who are
developments suggest the growth of Pentecostal unemployed. Yet as much as it has become routine to
describe government and its associated institutions
churches is embedded in broader social and
and apparatuses in cataclysmic terms – “failed state”
political processes. – the remit of the State is wider today than it was
during the Apartheid period. It is more uniform
than the dozens of fragmented and parallel administrations that made up the
Tricameral system and the Bantustans, even while the performance of state bodies
is highly uneven, ranging from relatively effective to dysfunctional. We do not
know whether patterns of religiosity in South Africa coincide with any of these
variables. Moreover, it is not clear why, even if there is a deep sense of malaise in
South Africa, especially with regard to the State, it should manifest religiously and
take the form specifically of a Pentecostal reaction. Why has Pentecostalism proved
especially popular amongst some Christians rather than others? Why, in particular,
have these churches grown amongst Afrikaans-speakers and amongst the ‘Black
Middle Class’? These developments suggest the growth of Pentecostal churches is
embedded in broader social and political processes.

Afrikaners post-Apartheid
In Fruit of a Poisoned Tree, Anthony Altbeker provides a fascinating account of the
trial of Fred van der Vyver and of the circumstances surrounding the murder of
Inge Lotz. Fred, the former boyfriend of the beautiful Stellenbosch student was
ultimately acquitted for killing her. Both he and she belonged to wealthy and
respected members of the Afrikaans community in Stellenbosch. Altbeker makes
a compelling case that despite the lack of evidence against him, Fred attracted
suspicion, in part because of his religious practices. He had left the NG Church and
had become an active member of the Stellenbosch chapter of His People church –
an American based protestant church that preached a gospel of personal salvation.
Altbeker writes: “Fred’s membership of His People Church was interpreted as
evidence of some imbalance in his personality”14.

Yet Fred’s new religious inclination was neither isolated, nor idiosyncratic. It was
part of a general movement of young, Stellenbosch students away from the Dutch
Reformed Church.

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 R e li g i o n a n d R e vi va l i n p o s t- a pa rt h e i d S o u t h Af r i c a

What Altbeker noticed as a trend in Stellenbosch is the norm in the new

Roodepoort developments. Altbeker’s findings, that is, resonate very stongly
with the conclusions of a Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) study on the
Western edges of Johannesburg, that young Afrikaners are abandoning the Dutch
Reformed Church in favour of Pentecostal churches, often preaching a gospel of
prosperity. Over the last 10 years, hundreds of thousands of mostly young men and
women have crossed over the Witwatersrand to settle in the tens of thousands of
townhouses that have been built during this short period. A substantial portion
of this population consists of young Afrikaners leaving the West Rand towns of
Krugersdorp, Westonaria, Randfontein. They have been joined by equal numbers of
young Black men and women, crossing the historical boundaries of the Apartheid
City from Soweto and townships further afield, like Tsakane, Vosloorus. For our
purposes it is not the unprecedented racial, cultural, linguistic and even diversity of
national origins that is striking about the new society emerging in Roodepoort. The
growth of this new society has happened together with the growth of Pentecostal
churches. To the extent that residents are practicing Christians, they are members of,
or they attend, Pentecostal churches and/or services. In the case of young Afrikaans-
speakers, these patterns of worship represent an abandonment of Dutch Reformed
Church congregations and a repudiation of its theology.

Altbeker implies that in Stellenbosch the growth of churches like His People
amongst university students represents a challenge to the Dutch Reformed Church
as volkskerk, that is, as the spiritual embodiment of Afrikaners as a nation. On
these terms the embrace of Pentecostalism represents a repudiation of Afrikaner
nationalism.

The PARI work supports these conclusions,

though it nuances them as well. It is likely that The embrace of Pentecostalism also allows
amongst Afrikaans-speaking university students
young Afrikaners, like middle class
at the former intellectual bastion of Afrikaner
nationalism, Stellenbosch University, the embrace of Black South Africans, to retain basically
Pentecostalism is as much a spiritual act as a political conservative social attitudes, regarding
one. In the Roodepoort area, however, the Dutch the role of men and women in particular,
Reformed Church is regarded as ‘old fashioned’. In
without the association of Apartheid.
other words, the disavowal of the historical role of the
Dutch Reformed Church as the ‘nation’s church’ is
expressed not so much politically as aesthetically. This is why the move away from
the Dutch Reformed Church is accompanied by the physical movement away from
the ‘old fashioned’ suburbs of their birth to the ‘modern’ townhouses over the ridge
in Roodepoort. Yet the effect is the same as in Stellenbosch – to differentiate the
(political and cultural) ‘tastes’ of this generation of young Afrikaners from those of
their parents and their grandparents. But that is not all.

The embrace of Pentecostalism also allows young Afrikaners, like middle class Black
South Africans, to retain basically conservative social attitudes, regarding the role of
men and women in particular, without the association of Apartheid.

Pentecostalism in South Africa, especially as it was organised through churches like

Rhema, very early on disavowed Apartheid as a system of racial segregation and
discrimination. Even before the Anglican and Catholic churches in South Africa
– traditionally more political in their opposition to Apartheid – desegregated their
congregations, Rhema was convening racially mixed services. Pentecostal theology,

45
chi pki n and leatt

therefore, was hardly deemed complicit in Apartheid, neither politically nor even socially. This is more than
what could be said about the traditional churches in South Africa. Yet apart from their ‘liberalism’ on questions
of race, the Pentecostal churches tend to preach a gospel that valorises patriarchal gender relations, especially
in the home, and is hostile to homosexuality. PARI research shows that whereas during the Apartheid period
conservatism constituted a chain of equivalence linking racism with homophobia with patriarchy with class
exploitation, Pentecostals today have reinvented social conservatism as a legitimate post-Apartheid faith. This goes
a long way to explain the growing attractiveness of these churches in South Africa today.

Conclusion:
To the extent that the end of Apartheid was supposed to herald a more secular age in South Africa, the persistence
of religious practices is, perhaps, surprising. Alternatively, religious observance might be construed as an expression
of the deep social malaise with the post-Apartheid condition. The problem with both takes is that they assume
that a) secularism is the norm and b) they do not acknowledge social meanings of religious practice. Yet it is
precisely these social meanings that help explain the growth and vitality of religious practices today, especially
the growth of the Pentecostal churches. In the case of Afrikaners, for example, Pentecostal practices allow many
people to distance themselves from Apartheid and the institutions associated with it, without forsaking their
attachment to speaking Afrikaans and identifying as Afrikaners. It is important that we pay more nuanced
attention to the social meanings of religious observance.

NOTES
1 Casanova, Jose. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World, p. 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Froise, Marjorie, ed. 1986. South African Christian Handbook 1986/87, p. vii. Florida: World Vision of Southern Africa.
5 Froise, Marjorie, ed. 1996. South African Christian Handbook 1996/7. Welkom: Christian Info
6 Roberts, B., Kivilu, M. wa & Davids, Y.D. (eds). 2010. South African Social Attitudes: 2nd report: reflections on the age of hope. (South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS)). Cape Town: HSRC
Press.
7 Ibid., p. 11
8 Gillford, p. 515
9 Gillford, pp. 515-516
10 Gillford, p. 516
11 Gillford, p.516
12 Ellis and ter Haar, p. 194
13 Ellis and ter Haar, p. 194
14 Altbeker, p. 197

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a Post-Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press.
Ellis, Stephen and Ter Haar, Gerrie. 2001. Worlds of Power. Religious Thought and Political
Practice in Africa. Johannesburg: Wits University Press
Froise, Marjorie, ed. 1986. South African Christian Handbook 1986/87. Florida: World Vision
of Southern Africa.
Froise, Marjorie, ed. 1996. South African Christian Handbook 1996/7. Welkom: Christian
Info.
Gifford, Paul. 1994. ‘Some Recent Developments in African Christianity’, in African Affairs,
93.
Hyslop, Jonathan. 1995. The Prophet Van Rensburg’s vision of Nelson Mandela: White popular
religious culture and responses to democratisation. Social Dynamics 21 (2):23-55.
Leatt, Annie. 2008. Faithfully Secular: Secularism and South African political life. Journal for
the Study of Religion 20 (2):29-44.
Moodie, T Dunbar. 1975. The Rise of Afrikanerdom: Power, Apartheid and the Afrikaner Civil
Religion. Berkeley, CA: University of Chicago Press.
Omar, A Rashid. 2002. Muslims and Religious Pluralism in Post-Apartheid South Africa.
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 22 (1):1-6.
PARI, Emerging Communities in South Africa, Public Affairs Research Institute, forthcoming
in 2011.
Udesh Pillay, Benjamin Roberts, and Stephen Rule. 2006. South African Social Attitudes:
Changing Times, Diverse Voices. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Roberts, B., Kivilu, M. wa & Davids, Y.D. (eds). 2010. South African Social Attitudes: 2nd
report: reflections on the age of hope. (South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS)).
Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Taylor, Charles. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: The Bellknap Press of Harvard
University Press.
Villa-Vicencio, Charles, and Wilhelm Verwoerd, eds. 2000. Looking Back, Looking Forward:
Reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. Cape Town:
University of Cape Town Press.
West, Gerald. 2010. Jesus, Jacob and the New Jerusalem: Religion in the public realm
between Polekwane and the Presidency. Journal for the Study of Religion 23 (1).

46
Pentecostal Charismatic
Christianity and the Making
of Female Managers
On a bright cold Sunday morning in June 2004, I drove past the Chris
Hani Baragwanath Hospital and headed down the main road leading
towards the centre of Soweto. I was filled with trepidation and excite-
ment – I was going to my first service at Grace Bible Church and I wasn’t
quite sure how to get there. As I passed the iconic Soweto Towers, I sud-
denly came to a stand-still. There seemed to be an accident or some kind
of traffic-jam ahead and I began to worry about getting to the church in
time for the 9 o’clock service. The traffic crawled slowly forward and I
Dr Maria Frahm- noticed many young adults getting out of taxis ahead of me and all walk-
Arp is a senior lecturer ing in the same direction on the same side of the street. They all looked
at St Augustine College well dressed and many of them were carrying bibles. I assumed that there
of South Africa in
were many churches in the area, but was wrong. As the traffic shuffled
Johannesburg where she
teaches the Sociology forward I passed a small sign saying ‘Grace Bible Church’ and soon saw
of Religion and Biblical that all the cars and pedestrians were turning off to the left down a small
Studies both in the side street. After another twenty minutes I found myself edging into the
Bachelor of Theology
programme and the enormous car park at Grace Bible Church, where friendly attendants
Master’s programme at showed me where I could park my car – at the far end of the sea of luxury
this private university. 4 x 4’s, dark sedans and trendy little city cars. Together with hundreds
She is the author of
Professional Women
of people I made my way into the huge church complex and received a
in South African warm welcome by the ushers who showed me to a seat amongst 4500 oth-
Pentecostal Charismatic er worshipers. As we were arriving the 4000 people who had been at the
Churches (Brill 2010) and
7 o’clock service were leaving. The 9 o’clock service started punctually and
the co-editor Religion,
Development and Politics was a slick performance that ended in time for the 11 o’ clock service.
from Below (Palgrave
2010). Entering the foyer of the church I noticed the word “Dream” above the door. It struck
me as unusual for a church, but over the next few months I came to understand the
word’s layered meaning. The church was a place that encouraged people to dream, to
reach out for a purpose and to develop their potential with the belief and trust that
their life situation could change. This was a church that not only taught salvation in
Jesus Christ but gave people the tools, teaching and support to become successful in
their places of work. It helped people whose parents had been unemployed or semi-
skilled labourers rise to management positions and realise their dreams of financial
liberation and career success.

47
m ari a frahm-arp

But why was a church playing this sort of role in South Africa and having a
significant impact on the career opportunities of young men and women? In this
article I will look specifically at young, black, professional women who attend one
of two large Pentecostal Charismatic Christian (PCC) Churches – His People in
the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg and Grace Bible Church in Soweto – and
explain how these churches are central in their career success. Firstly, both churches
teach that every person has potential and that God has a unique plan for your life.
Secondly, they give young women the cultural and social capital they lacked because
their parents were unable to give it to them, but which they need to succeed in the
world of work. Thirdly, the churches offer these women a variety of mentoring and
support groups to help them deal with the high level of emotional stress they feel
about their work and career success.

‘You have Potential’

The central mission of both churches is to make South Africa a Christian country
in which everyone is a Christian, and all positions of authority throughout business,
education, health care and politics are filled by Christians, who impose their
Christian principles. These churches therefore devote
a lot of attention to helping people develop the social
In both churches, worldly success is viewed in and cultural skills they need in order to flourish in the
world of work. There are business support groups in
positive terms as a symbol of God’s goodness which they help people with everything from writing
and grace to his people. Christians should a CV to putting together a multi-million rand business
be successful because poverty is the work of plan. They give advice on getting loans for a business,
the devil and the high levels of poverty and negotiating a salary increase, improving a business
that is struggling, buying a car or managing your staff
unemployment in South Africa are explained at work. The advisory teams are made up of members
both as the legacy of the devil’s work under of the churches who themselves have become highly
apartheid and as the evil hold the devil successful millionaires, most of whom run their own
continues to have on this country and many businesses. In both churches, worldly success is viewed
in positive terms as a symbol of God’s goodness and
of those in authority. grace to his people. Christians should be successful
because poverty is the work of the devil and the high
levels of poverty and unemployment in South Africa
are explained both as the legacy of the devil’s work under apartheid and as the evil
hold the devil continues to have on this country and many of those in authority.
As Christians, people need to be freed from these shackles of evil so that they can
realise their full potential.

Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, Pentecostal Charismatic Churches are the fastest

growing religious organisations, attracting thousands of new converts every year1.
Most of these churches are particularly influenced by Pentecostal Charismatic
Christianity in North America and they, like the two churches in this study, use a
diverse range of modern technologies such as sound systems, high-end TV screens
and projectors to enhance their services, and the internet, facebook, and mobile
phone technologies to communicate with their congregations. Through a variety
of media, such as tapes of sermons, DVDs of church services and books, they are
particularly well linked into global American PCC networks and the latest trends
in PCC teaching. With their global connections, multi-media approaches and
focus on the importance of personal success for the individual, these churches have
been helping many people throughout Sub-Saharan Africa negotiate the moves
towards modernity and individuality2. Much of the popularity of these churches

48
 Pentec os ta l C h a r is m at i c C h r i s t i a n i t y a n d t h e M a k i n g o f Fe m a le M a n a g e r s

stems from their message of prosperity theology, which promises that God will
provide financially for all his people. In America and Sub-Saharan Africa a belief
in God’s mysterious ways is promoted. This leads to a trust that God will provide –
not necessarily by ensuring that people get work, but through mysterious donations
of money through the post and over the internet, or random acts of kindness from
neighbours and strangers.

In South Africa the key message of His People and Grace Bible Church is not
magical prosperity through the grace of God. They emphasise the potential in each
person and encourage their members to realise the potential that God has given
his people. They are encouraged to discern the life purpose or calling which he
gives to each person. ‘God has a plan for your life’ is one of the most repeated
phrases in both churches, followed quickly by ‘You have God given potential’ or
‘realise your potential’ or ‘don’t let poverty hold you from you potential’. The power
of these statements in the imaginations of the 60 young women I interviewed and
spent a year getting to know in home cell groups, at church services, at business
workshops and chatting with them in their homes, at parties and over many cups of
coffee, highlights the profound challenges the twenty- and thirty-something adults
in South Africa face today.

This group of people can be divided loosely into two

groups – those who went to school under apartheid … for the young men and women who were
and those who experienced their high school years as
part of the ‘New South Africa’. One of the dominant
starting to think about their futures and
messages of apartheid that pervaded the worldview of shape their senses of self during this time,
the women I met was that as black people they had growing levels of unemployment and HIV/
no potential and would never amount to anything Aids meant that many began to see their lives
much. The ‘proof ’, they said, was in all the people they
saw around them in townships like Soweto, where
as having little potential and being short-
hundreds of able-bodied men and women walk the lived. The promises of the government were
streets on any given day with no work and nothing to just too far away, removed from their reality.
do. Why would they be any different? Under Mandela
and Mbeki, strong public messages of the value of black
people, their potential and their abilities were promoted. But for the young men and
women who were starting to think about their futures and shape their senses of self
during this time, growing levels of unemployment and HIV/Aids meant that many
began to see their lives as having little potential and being short-lived. The promises
of the government were just too far away, removed from their reality. One young
woman, Norma, explained to me that it was all related to apartheid:

You have been degraded so much through apartheid as an individual, you have
been told that you are not intelligent. Then you’re told that you are dirty. You
are always on the receiving end of negativity. It breaks you down. It’s almost as
if there is a lack of emotional intelligence, but this is not a good word. You have
no faith that you can actually do something. That lack of aggression towards life,
lack of faith, life can get me down. Not feeling that I can achieve. People are
living with this lie (Norma, 32, S, corporate consultant, H.P.).

Into this context come the churches. His People draw at least a third of their
congregation from the university campuses in Johannesburg, while Grace Bible
Church attracts people of all age groups living in Soweto. They encourage both
young and old people to dream and to find ways to make their dreams of a better

49
m ari a frahm-arp

future come true – because God is a God who sees the potential in all people and
has a plan for everyone’s life.

Much work has been done on understanding the power of the imaged-self and the
way in which our sense of agency, and ability to live out this agency, are affected by
our perceptions of self – our imaged life-worlds3. What both the churches in this
study do is to re-shape the imaged-self of members
on a weekly basis through their sermons, which
His research showed that cultural etiquette, are 45 minute long, inspiring, moving, professional
correct and polite forms of social engagement, performances which feel more like motivational
manners, mannerisms and accents all played seminars than traditional sermons. Against the
doubts of an apartheid-based upbringing, women in
a vital role in how people were perceived.
their thirties have come to see themselves as valuable
He showed that, with education alone, people who can realise their potential. For the twenty-
people from a working class background something group who attend more funerals than they
were not accepted into the higher levels of do weddings, and who believe that only half the people
in their class at college or university will get the job
French society – and without this social
they want, this message is encouraging and often life-
acceptance they were not able to gain access changing. But no amount of positive hope, agency and
to high-powered jobs or other forms of social healthy sense of your own abilities is enough to ensure
advancement. that a young person gets a job or is able to become
successful.

Cultural Capital in an Age of Change

In his work on culture and class in France, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu4, argued
that there are four types of capital – economic, social (the networks of people we are
linked into), cultural (knowledge, social understanding, skills) and symbolic – and
that, to different degrees, these can be traded in order to acquire other types of
capital. For example, we use economic capital to pay for our education and thereby
gain cultural capital, which in turn is ‘traded’ to gain a job and further economic
capital. Bourdieu’s work highlighted the importance of cultural capital in the lives
of people who were successful in France. His research showed that cultural etiquette,
correct and polite forms of social engagement, manners, mannerisms and accents all
played a vital role in how people were perceived. He showed that, with education
alone, people from a working class background were not accepted into the higher
levels of French society – and without this social acceptance they were not able
to gain access to high-powered jobs or other forms of social advancement. While
French and South African societies are very different, and Bourdieu’s work does
not engage seriously with social mobility, his understanding of the importance of
cultural capital nonetheless opens up the ground to appreciate some of the struggles
which young, black women who are moving into the largely white, male, English-
dominated world of corporate South Africa have to face. They may have all the
knowledge of law and be excellent lawyers, but without the correct cultural capital
they will not easily be accepted and respected.

Most young, black women who work in professional careers in South Africa have
far surpassed the job experiences of their parents. Their parents have not been in
management positions and can give them little advice on how to deal with the
politics of the business world. But at both His People and Grace Bible Church
there are comprehensive mentoring programmes where more mature people mentor
the younger generation, focusing their guidance particularly on the social aspects
of work.

50
 Pentec os ta l C h a r is m at i c C h r i s t i a n i t y a n d t h e M a k i n g o f Fe m a le M a n a g e r s

Leti, a 29 year old legal advisor at a large mining company says of these
programmes,

It’s not the actual work that is difficult. I know the law and I can read up on what
I am not sure about, but what I found most difficult in my job was learning what
is the ‘correct behaviour’. How do I speak out as a woman in a meeting, and not
sound aggressive or disrespectful? How do I know what all the innuendos mean,
the subtle jokes, the right clothes to wear and the right way to speak? It’s the
Sunday services that have saved me. Pastor Sono just gives so much guidance on
how to deal with people and situations.

Leti’s story picks up on another important aspect –

the young, black women I met did not generally lack the churches have opened up a whole new
cultural capital per se. They know how to be polite in language and demystified the work space.
society and speak respectfully to their elders, but this
This business language also makes the world
type of cultural capital has little value in the work space,
where they are often managing men and women who of work seem closer and more attainable
are older than themselves. They need to learn a new to members generally, and gives them the
type of cultural register and disregard many of the sense that their church is modern, successful,
African cultural norms they have learnt; yet when they
relevant and in touch with society.
go back home they have to re-engage with an African
cultural register – albeit a modern, trendy, township
register. At both churches there are annual leadership conferences and women’s
conferences, which emphasise how to be an effective leader in the work space: how
to communicate with people, manage people, motivate people, organise your time,
and speak in the appropriate way in meetings. A lot of general business language is
commonplace in the sermons of the pastors. They talk, for example, about having a
‘personal vision’, ‘life goals’ and ‘meeting your targets’. For the young women I have
met, whose parents never spoke like this, the churches have opened up a whole
new language and demystified the work space. This business language also makes
the world of work seem closer and more attainable to members generally, and gives
them the sense that their church is modern, successful, relevant and in touch with
society.

Being ‘in touch’ at these churches goes further than just the language of the sermons:
it also encompasses social networks, which in many ways are the backbone of both
church communities. Through the bible study groups and prayer groups held in
people’s homes, the conferences, the leadership training programmes and the
mentoring programmes, various different social networks are formed. These are
particularly important for the members. Via these networks, and in notices given
out at the churches, jobs are advertised or people are invited to interview. People
hear about business opportunities and network with other people in their chosen
careers. Several women have commented to me that by coming to church they feel
‘linked in’ to a network that they can trust and which will help them in their careers.
About a fifth of the women I met had found their current employment through
members of their churches. Once again, for young people whose parents are not
linked in to social networks of people in management positions, the churches have
become the only social network through which they can access the world of work
which many middle and upper class young adults would instead access through the
social networks of their parents.

51
m ari a frahm-arp

The Stress of Success

Carmen, a 30 year old physiotherapist at His People, believes that success has caused
many of her peers not only to experience stress at work, but also to feel alienation
from their communities.

We are creating a society of young highly successful but over stressed black
professional women who only excel in one area and become alienated in their
own communities. They are like lost souls. Alienation is very difficult emotionally,
never belonging.

The dislocation is more than not fitting into their communities. For many of the
young women the most difficult thing is that their career success comes at such a
high price. They are dislocated from their wider communities but are also, more
immediately, struggling to find husbands and settle down to create their own families.
Zanele, a beautifully groomed, soft-spoken woman of 28, and branch manager at a
bank, captured much of the pain of these women:

You have to work more than twice as hard, because you are black and young and
a woman. And you put in such a lot of effort and then when you think you have
nearly arrived it has taken such a toll on you. I have been asking what is all this
for? I have all this money but I can’t meet anyone because the men are all too
scared of me and think I don’t need them. All we want is someone to love us, a
family to come home to. You want to take advantage of all the opportunities in
SA but that is also demanding. So now I could give my children a better life but
how do I get a family?

At both churches 80% of the women I interviewed

For the women in my study, the stress they were in management positions and 65% of them
experienced at work was linked to their said that the greatest emotional stress in their lives
ambition and the family expectations on was their work. This was in contrast with Beatty5, and
Sears and Galambos6 who found that managerial and
them, but was also largely driven by their age. professional women in America experienced their jobs
Most of these women achieved management as emotionally stressful at times, but did not see it as
positions before the age of thirty… the largest emotional stress in their lives. This is also
in contrast to women in traditional ‘female’ jobs, who
have far less control over their jobs and the methods
used to complete tasks and perform the work. For the women in my study, the stress
they experienced at work was linked to their ambition and the family expectations
on them, but was also largely driven by their age. Most of these women achieved
management positions before the age of thirty – but, as I have already shown, they do
not come from homes that are able to help them cope with the emotional demands
of these positions and the daily social decisions a manager is required to make. This
too is a legacy of apartheid. Amongst the women I met, 30% were in counselling,
had been for counselling, or had stress related illnesses.

As these women worked through their stress,sense of vulnerability and disappointment

at not marrying, many of them have begun to see these difficulties as opportunities
for them to grow closer to God. Through the teaching and support of their churches
they have begun to see themselves learning to depend on God, although materially
and financially they have all the resources. As McGuire7 suggests, making sense of
the past and motivating future actions are key ways in which religion helps people
to make sense of their experiences, particularly experiences which are distressing.

52
 Pentec os ta l C h a r is m at i c C h r i s t i a n i t y a n d t h e M a k i n g o f Fe m a le M a n a g e r s

Conclusion
Throughout this article I have shown that young, black women in management
positions, women who are now enjoying more opportunities than their parents had
under the apartheid system, are finding themselves making up for their families’
lack of social and cultural capital through the teaching and opportunities the PCC
churches offer them. For the vast majority of women I met it was not the actual
job they found difficult, or the studying at university which they had struggled
with, but it was the multiple networks of social and cultural power dynamics which
they needed to negotiate on a daily basis in order to be accepted both at university
and then in the corporate world. These issues were things they found very stressful
and accounted for the high levels of emotional stress they reported feeling at
work. These women, through their success, have all outgrown or outstripped the
experiences of their parents, friends and communities, but in the workplace they
are also often at sea in a new cultural world that they find difficult to negotiate and
master. In place of this void, the PCC churches offer these women real and practical
advice, counselling and mentoring, from the teaching in the sermons, through
all the leadership training programmes, to the one-on-one interaction with older
people who guide and encourage them. Both churches are building up in women
a strong sense of their own self-worth, personal feelings of potential and an image
of themselves as people who have calling, a life purpose and a vision. This, together
with the cultural and social capital which the churches offer their members, makes
them both attractive to young people seeking meaning in life and gives these young
people a renewed sense of themselves as valuable individuals.

Collectively these PCC churches highlight the need for young women to be trained
and counselled so that they can flourish in their chosen careers. But should these
churches really be primary places in which young South Africans are being given
the skills and capital they need to realise their potential? Should we not be thinking
differently about what it means to be a university in South Africa and be offering not
just knowledge in academic fields but also be giving our graduates mentoring, life
skills and the capital they need to succeed? In the corporate world, do the existing
leadership training courses, which so many staff attend, really address the needs of
the young professional workforce? Should we not be offering ‘soft skills’ training in
the work space that address the actual needs of our gifted young men and women,
training based on research done in South Africa and which enables people from all
backgrounds to feel excited about their work, stretched by the challenges but not
emotionally drained by a cultural system they feel unsure of?

NOTES
1 Martin 2002; Gifford 1998; Anderson 2000
2 Martin 1990; van Dijk 1992, 1999
3 Archer 2004; Bozzoli 1991
4 1986
5 1996: 246
6 1992: 796
7 2002: 31

REFERENCES
Anderson, A.H. 2000. Zion and Pentecost. Pretoria: University of Pretoria Press.
Archer, M.S. 2004. Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beatty, C. 1996. ‘The Stress of Managerial and Professional Women: Is the Price too High?’ Journal of Organizational Behaviour 17: 233-51.
Bourdieu, P. 1986. ‘The Forms of Capital’ in Richardson, J.G. (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood.
Bozzoli, B. 1991. Women of Phokeng. Consciousness, Life Strategy and Migrancy in South Africa, 1900-1983. London: James Currey.
Gifford, P. 1998. African Christianity: Its Public Role. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Martin, D. 1990. Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Martin, D. 2002. Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish. Oxford: Blackwell.
McGuire, M. 2002. Religion: The Social Context. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Sears, H. and Galambos, N. 1992. ‘Women’s Work Conditions and Marital Adjustment in Two-Earner Couples: A Structural Model’. Journal of Marriage and Family 54: 789-97.
van Dijk, R.A. 1992. ‘Young Puritan Preachers in Post-Independent Malawi’. Africa 62: 152-181.
van Dijk, R. 1999. ‘Pentecostalism, Genontocratic Rule and Democratization in Malawi: The Challenging Position of the Young in Political Culture’ in Haynes, J. (ed.) Religion, Globalisation and
Political Culture in the Third World. London: Macmillian.

53
“Doing God” and Policy:
In Search of Social Capital
and Innovation
For a comparatively new democracy such as South Africa, discussions of
the ideas, role and potential of religious institutions and communities can
provoke very particular emotion: looking to the past those now in govern-
ment may recall the role of some religious groups in helping to sustain ‘the
struggle’ and protect the truth and reconciliation process. Others might
think of explosions on the Cape waterfront. Others still may react with
scepticism as they remember the manner in which President Frederick
Chiluba sought to legitimate his position internally, and secure resources
Francis Davis and political cover globally, by presenting himself as a ‘Christianiser’ of
is a Research Fellow the Zambian constitution and society. Reaching further still across the
at the Helen Suzman South they may perceive a reactionary role of religious organisations in
Foundation. Formerly
the formation of South American elites and in diluting women’s’ rights.
senior Policy Advisor
on Faith Communities Concurrently, others still might judge that the privatisation or seculari-
and Cohesion to the sation of religious convictions ought to be an administration’s priority not
UK Secretary of State least if it secures advances for minorities.
for Communities and
Local Government In a short article such as the present one, it would not be appropriate to attempt to
from 2007-10 he address this wide range of questions in detail. It is my contention however, that a
lectured in international tendency in bureaucracies to treat policy challenges, in general, in ‘silos’ and to deal
social enterprise and with religious questions with patchy regard to social evidence, in particular, can
community development mean that- especially in times of economic scarcity and social risk- unnecessarily
at the University of time-consuming policy problems can be created for decision makers, on the one
Cambridge. hand, while significant opportunities for public and civic innovation are lost on the
other.

For the policy prize in seeking to engage with ‘faith’ is not only a question of legal
equality. Religious bodies have budgets, people, cash flows, assets and organisational
narratives with, usually, social responsibility at their core. From the World Bank to
micro-finance institutions in the Cape Townships, from central European social
enterprise banks founded on religious institutional branch structures, to schools,
hospitals, arts groups, community development and even co-op and firm formation
not to mention individual philanthropy from members of the Johannesburg, New
York and London Stock Exchanges, the world of religion is potentially, possibly, a
reservoir of social capital and a pool of models of social innovation which decision
makers need to read, understand and harness as appropriate.

Establishing a stronger framework by which to address policy making and politics

in this realm is a legitimate task in any democracy then, but perhaps especially

54
 ‘ doing g od’ a n d p o li c y: i n s e a r c h o f s o c i a l c a p i ta l a n d i n n o vat i o n

in those seeking to unlock civic assets to redress national historic disadvantages

in a straitened global economy. First I turn to the case of the recent UK Labour
government so as to elucidate the questions at hand before teasing out a tentative
framework for policy analysis and setting out my conclusions.

Blair, Brown and the ‘Personal Question’?

The former UK Premier Tony Blair once expounded that in government he did
not ‘do God’. For those closely watching his policy development however, this
comment was perplexing; for Blair (and his successor Gordon Brown) ‘not’ doing
God meant establishing an extensive post 9/11 programme to ‘prevent violent
extremism’ designed around a UK Muslim head count,
which included a civil service ‘theology team’ targeted
at ‘contextualising’ and diluting radical accounts of … not ‘doing God’ actually occurred in a
Islam. It also comprised the creation of a central ‘Faith context where relevant policy making was
Communities Consultative Council’ where Ministers meaningful in scale and included a raft of
could engage with the British manifestations of the
nine major world religious communities as equals, policies impacting across national security
notwithstanding huge variations in their demographic and policing, education, human rights law,
profile in the UK context. Other initiatives saw the public service innovation, legal reform
launch of a state funded ‘Faith Action’ network and foreign aid. Upon Blair’s retirement
to support religious NGO involvement in public
service reform and outsourcing; encouragement for from office he converted from one branch of
state funded Church schools; and the introduction Christianity to another, provoking comment
of an Equalities Act offering new legal protections that his denial of religious attitudes had been
to lesbian and gay people despite complaints from skin deep.
religious leaders. Fascinatingly, those involved in
designing many of these policies report that often
they did so without recourse to research evidence, by drawing on insights provided
from religious communities alone, and without any depth of inter-departmental
collaboration despite a very junior committee of officials debating ‘religious’
questions.

Meanwhile, Blair appointed a former senior Minister as his ‘Faith Envoy’, but
outside of any policy making department, to represent him to the faith communities.
Later, Brown appointed a Minister as Vice Chair of the Labour party for ‘Faith
Groups’ to affirm their contribution, while simultaneously appointing the said
Minister to departments with no related policy responsibilities.

Thus not ‘doing God’ actually occurred in a context where relevant policy making
was meaningful in scale and included a raft of policies impacting across national
security and policing, education, human rights law, public service innovation, legal
reform and foreign aid. Upon Blair’s retirement from office he converted from one
branch of Christianity to another, provoking comment that his denial of religious
attitudes had been skin deep. Conversely once back in Opposition Gordon Brown
gave a major speech at the headquarters of the Anglican Communion saying that his
religious principles had been omnipresent but that it would have been an excessive
political risk to articulate them in a predominantly secular culture. How might we
learn from this outline example?

Politics And Policy?

Perhaps a first observation might be to clearly distinguish personal convictions, the
influence of personal convictions and prior experiences on particular policy choices,

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and the potential (or otherwise) for politicians and policy makers to mobilise people
of faith, their networks and institutions for political – especially vote securing - and
social purposes.

Blair/Brown judged it politically risky to articulate

Religious language in parts of the US, personal religious language in a way that those in
other democracies – or localities within particular
Poland, Czech Republic, Nigeria and South democracies – may in turn judge politically misguided
America, for example, can often do candidates because of the political and social significance of
no harm. Notwithstanding this personal ‘values voters’. Religious language in parts of the US,
assessment of political risk, Blair and Brown Poland, Czech Republic, Nigeria and South America,
for example, can often do candidates no harm.
appointed key colleagues to reach out to Notwithstanding this personal assessment of political
religious networks seeking support for their risk, Blair and Brown appointed key colleagues to
party and government. reach out to religious networks seeking support for
their party and government. Crucially neither the
privatisation of personal beliefs nor the strategy of
political outreach, or any learning from it, fed into the quality of policy reflection,
design or engagement. In fact it can be argued that civil service outreach became
conditioned by a (controversial) ‘security’ and ideological emphasis on identifying
‘acceptable’ Muslim voices combined with extremely patchy encounters with other
communities. Without deep knowledge how could rich progress be made?

Is – Ought, Evidence, Structure And ‘Representative’

Interlocutors?
In the West departments of state charged with relating to industries and sectors
of the economy and rural trades often develop advanced skills in teasing out the
relevant importance, role, and contribution of varying sectors, industries and firms.
One industry association may claim to be ‘national’ while actually drawing on a
sector which has become fully clustered in a particular region or city. Another
would list only six members (representing 80% of, say, the sports industry) while its
competitor with thousands of affiliates represents tiny sports venues and only 20%
of the sector. A major multi-national may never see the need to act with any other
body or institution while others may be backed, for example, by the full force of
Chinese or US diplomacy. Indeed there is an increasing literature that suggests that
the rhetorical claims made by the leadership of industry bodies and sectors in their
relations with government can be as much to do with ordering their position and
membership ‘in the sector’, of addressing shareholder concerns, or as a consequence
of elite conflict on the association’s governing body, as it can be about empirical
factors ‘on the ground’. Discerning such patterns has knock-on effects for policy
priorities and impact, the assessment of political risk, government partners and
time.

The challenge in the religious case internationally is that some institutions and
communities have been ‘theologically’ or culturally resistant to social research. Yet
this has not stopped their ‘leadership’ from making extensive claims about the
views, behaviours and civic contribution of their members. Declining Christian
denominations may make outdated ideological claims based upon a previous
‘monopoly’ of cultural force which is now usurped by socially poorer but greater
numbers of members of, for example, Pentecostalist Churches or Islamic movements.
But as ‘members’ drop off, access to cashflows and international networks may
endure for longer than they would in a declining industry.

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Meanwhile, many civil servants have sensed that to expect standards of evidence
with regard to these kinds of entities as they would elsewhere – for example from the
aforementioned trade associations - is to enquire into the realm of ‘private beliefs’,
or to assess organisations that a ‘neutral’ state should avoid, or to make unrealistic
demands upon their ‘capacity’. The UK Faith Communities Consultative Council
treated each ‘idea’ of the nine major communities as equal but hardly any attention
was paid to their varying organisational structures, wealth reach, and impact. This
omission can leave both politicians and decision-makers walking in one direction
blindly while missing opportunities in another.

An example of this point: a member of the Clinton

administration informed me that they had met with Researching empirical structure, assets,
some leaders of a large US religious national community
who claimed that ‘their community’ held views X and Y
the quality of representation and roots to
on a certain matter (suggesting that the religious leader neighbourhoods should all influence state
had mass political support in opposition to the President). engagement with religious social capital more
As the religious leader made this case, the administration than rhetoric and the ‘idea’ of the relevant
member had in hand opinion polling showing the
community’s majority views were the direct opposite.
religious community.
What the administration wanted to discuss was the heavy
presence of that community among new migrant communities at risk notwithstanding
the religious community’s ‘embarrassment’ at its changing demographics.

In South Africa, the flexible and democratic structure of the South African Council
of Churches both enabled it to make the decision to resist apartheid earlier than
others, but also harder to maintain that line, especially when compared with, for
example, the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Researching empirical
structure, assets, the quality of representation and roots to neighbourhoods should
all influence state engagement with religious social capital more than rhetoric and
the ‘idea’ of the relevant religious community.

Two examples of this from the UK perhaps make the point: in the North West of
the country research from the regional economic development body showed faith
communities and institutions to be both significant economic contributors, and that
that economic activity was disproportionately concentrated in poorer communities.
This was very significant for those seeking to encourage capital formation and
accumulation at the bottom of the economic pyramid, but it also mistakenly, fuelled
the often repeated claim of Cabinet Ministers throughout the Labour years that
‘faith motivates voluntary action’. While the notion that a ‘belief ’ gives rise to
particular behaviours may seem instinctively correct, there is hardly any – and hotly
contested – evidence to suggest a correlation between ‘religious belief ’ in this context
and improved civic and economic behaviours. From his US research, Harvard
sociologist Robert Putnam has long suggested that it is ‘belonging’ to religious
congregations that shifts (and enhances) civic behaviours rather than ‘believing.’
This is mirrored in anecdotal evidence of successful loan servicing by Pentecost al
congregations in South African townships. Again now in Opposition, UK Labour
is taking this question seriously with a major theme of a research programme at the
think tank DEMOS centred on ‘faith and belonging’. But to have invested in the
entrepreneurial potential of ‘believers’ in the UK (an average of 75% in the North
West at the last census) based on their expressed ‘ belief ’ alone would have diluted
the significance of their economic activity in the poorer areas and the unique forms
of participation it sustained in those excluded localities.

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Shrewd local or national decision–makers seeking to make sense of religious

institutions and communities consequently need to know the regional profiles of
each community, their organisational strengths and economic contribution just as
they would in trade associations, universities, and other sectors. This will include a
rich ability to read, and discount, harmful religious social networks which, in larger,
communities may even co-exist alongside helpful ones. Moreover, such knowledge
must be based in social evidence rather than theological categories that they have
sometimes uncritically digested. This is an effort worth making for in some regions
(and countries) the potential will be huge.

A Word More About Social Capital And Innovation:

It will be clear by now that I am not making a religious argument for considering
the civic potential of religious communities. I am, instead, suggesting that in seeking
to do more with less, many policy makers may confine ‘religion’ to a private choice,
a legally recognised ‘belief ’, a source of votes, a form of schooling or to some other
silo, and so erase the skills, cash flows, assets and networks of religious communities,
institutions and agencies from their vision or social accounting.

It may well be that in some policy areas, and geographies, such social capital does not
exist. But when it does, it often goes unremarked and attracts huge leverage. Thus, the
pathways to international capital of a comparatively small scale religious initiative in
South Africa, or another country, may be shorter than
even a better or larger mainstream project in the same
Recognising the potential of faith locality. Additionally the innovation profile of some
communities as potential builders of social religious bodies may be very high (because achieved
in the face of some organisational conservatism), and
change requires a thorough knowledge of
their access to replicable models of social innovation
religious communities and institutions as from their community also comparatively high. Some
a basis to subsequently consider the of the funders of St Augustine’s Catholic College
appropriate structuring of relations in Johannesburg, for example, are among the most
innovative supporters of social enterprise education in
between them and the state.
inner city New York and India. This said management
skills may not as strong, or as open to measureable
‘success’ criteria as in equivalent mainstream schemes. Conversely, the ability to scale
social solutions, client bases and capital accumulation may be stronger because of
access to regional and national branch structures.

Structure, Access And Voice

Recognising the potential of faith communities as potential builders of social change
requires a thorough knowledge of religious communities and institutions as a basis
to subsequently consider the appropriate structuring of relations between them
and the state. It also enables decision-makers to move towards making prudential
judgments about which priority areas one might avoid political risk and harness
civic and economic opportunity by ‘doing God’ in relation to policy.

In Germany, the role of the major civic sector welfare federations – including the
huge Catholic Caritas Deutschland and Lutheran Diakonie Werke network - are
written into the heart of the social partnership model of the nation’s constitution.
In some Scandanavian countries and in Ireland, faith institutions are represented on
national social partnership councils alongside rural, small business and other sectors,
and are asked to feed directly into policy consultation. By contrast the French state
has created a national council of ‘acceptable’ religious bodies and even appoints the

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Imam of the Paris Mosque. Interviews with civil servants in those countries suggest
that a good deal of bureaucratic effort is invested in teasing out the relative capacity,
local reach and economic significance of each sectoral representative so as to inform
a weighting at the centre of the significance of the insights shared.

In this regard President Obama’s approach is revealing. Inheriting President George

W Bush’ s ’White House Office For Faith Based Initiatives’, Obama decided to
broaden the Office’s remit while focusing its role. First, the Office became one
for faith and community action initiatives sending a clear signal as to the locus of
the President’s interest. Second, mirror offices were opened in the in strategically
important department’s of state. Consequently four to five priority policy areas
were charged with making access and dialogue easier to enable religious bodies and
others to contribute to key reforms. Physically located alongside the head of each
relevant department, these Offices provide a bold experiment in moving beyond
‘talk’, ‘politics’ and ‘equality’ debates.

Conclusion
Engaging with any sector of society with deliberate
intent can leave any government open to accusations It needs to tease out clearly the private
of favouritism. But engagement with some sectors of
society becomes, in time, so clearly beneficial as to be
views of politicians, the currency of votes of
self evidently beyond contention. While in the limited interest to political parties and their envoys,
space I have not been able to touch on the full range of the beliefs that need to be protected and
questions I have suggested that a coherent approach challenged in law, and the social, economic
on the part of policy makers to faith communities
both carries these risks and contains this potential.
and capital formation that is driven by faith
communities, institutions and organisations.
In past decades South Africa’s historic religious
communities have been among both its most progressive
and conservative forces. As the social profile of those and other communities grows
and changes, the potential contribution of their talent, resources and assets will
change too. But for South Africa, as with any other democracy, approaches from
government to accelerate such a putative contribution needs to be handled with
both care and professonialism. It needs to tease out clearly the private views of
politicians, the currency of votes of interest to political parties and their envoys, the
beliefs that need to be protected and challenged in law, and the social, economic and
capital formation that is driven by faith communities, institutions and organisations.
Departments of state that make this effort and structure approaches so as to support
policy priorities may find themselves with access to welcome new resources. Those
that make that effort and decide not to partner those same communities will at least
have clear and accountable reasons for doing so.

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Review Article

Hugh Lewin: Stones

Against the Mirror
Stones Against the Mirror, Hugh Lewin’s already much-acclaimed
new book, is organised around his treatment of the devastating events
associated with the African Resistance Movement (ARM), of which
he was a key member, and set against the backdrop of his involvement
from 1996 to 1998 in the Human Rights Violation Committee of the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Presenting his personal
journey of truth and reconciliation internally achieved together with
his trenchant commentary on the TRC, Stones succeeds in nudging us
gently into a new, post-TRC moral realm.
Claudia B Braude
is an independent scholar
The TRC was personally vindicating for Lewin. Believing, post-Sharpeville,
and a Helen Suzman “something spectacular was needed to counter the tactics of a government that could
Foundation Research shoot down sixty-nine non-violent protestors in the name of a largely complicit
Fellow. white electorate”1, ARM members chose “protest sabotage”2 as their weapon of
opposition. Targeting victims “made of metal and concrete, not flesh and blood”3
(electricity pylons, railway lines) to “avoid any risk of injury to people”4, and thus
distinguishing their moral innocence from the illegal means used to pursue justice
and the rule of law5, ARM’s operations were “symbolic acts that would not harm”6.
“Our prime rationale … had always been that our operations were undertaken on the
basis of choosing targets that avoided any risk of injury to people,” says Lewin7. To
the limited extent these pre-1976 events were mentioned by TRC witnesses, it was
without recognition of their historical significance8, not “mak[ing]… a footnote”9 in
the TRC. In Stones, Lewin bears witness himself, testifying first-hand to this little-
known movement in anti apartheid political and moral history.

On 4 July 1964, in the ‘Fourth of July Raids’, the security police responded to ARM’s
series of explosions marking the 12 June conclusion of the Rivonia trial by detaining
anyone they still could, including senior Cape Town ARM operative Adrian
Leftwich, Lewin’s close friend responsible for his recruitment10. Leftwich broke
under interrogation, “talking,” said Cape Town ARM member Michael Schneider,
“like nobody’s talked before.”11 In 2002, Leftwich described his experience12.

Fleeing to Swaziland, Schneider met Lewin and others in Johannesburg, warning

them of Leftwich’s disclosures. Lewin declined their encouragement to overcome
his “Christian conscience”13 and join them as they fled the border that night.
With neither passport nor cash, his decision to “stay and see what happened”14,
“to see through the consequences”15, was, also, principled and courageous16. “I did
not consider leaving,” he says17. “Adrian needed support from someone inside the
country”18. “He was my friend… under threat, in police hands”19. “How could I help

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him?”20. Additionally, “someone needed to stay in Jo’burg to … warn the others”21.

“[Leaving] would surely be a betrayal”22. “I could not run away,” he says23.

Lewin went to warn John Harris, the friend he’d recruited for peripheral involvement
in ARM24 and for whose instructions he was responsible. Anticipating the Special
Branch’s attention, Lewin and fellow ARM member Ronnie Mutch had met
Harris earlier that day. “[A]s others were leaving the country, there was no plan
to be discussed, nothing to be ‘handed over’; it was merely a sharing of what little
information we had left between us – and to warn him to lie low, very low,” says
Lewin25. Lewin told Harris the name of the Wits contact who stored explosives26.
“I remember us chatting quietly, with no sense of any plan for further actions. There
was nothing more to do, I said, with the others now all gone. Nothing left to do,
except to keep very quiet,” he says27, repeatedly emphasising this aspect of their
discussion.

Shaping every moment of Lewin’s life since, the events that subsequently flowed
are Stone’s subject.

Lewin was detained several hours after meeting Harris. His interrogation was
exacerbated by Leftwich’s extensive cooperation with the Special Branch28.  More like
Lewin’s “twin brother”29 than fellow undergrounder, Leftwich had been responsible
for recruiting Lewin into ARM30. “He wasn’t just giving our names; now he was
playing their game for them. Writing their script,” says Lewin31, “setting me up …,
apparently manipulating the way the stories were to be squeezed out of me”32.

Lewin relies on others’ accounts to trace events unfolding simultaneously outside

prison. He couldn’t then know that Harris interpreted their last conversations as
having been “handed the baton” of ARM33, considering it his “duty”34, as ‘spear-
carrying’35 leader, “to demonstrate dramatically that there were still anti-apartheid
activists undetected by the Special Branch”36. He’d have been horrified to hear his
recruit arguing, according to ARM-member-turned-state-witness John Lloyd, that,
since “all white South Africans were guilty of violence against the black majority”37,
“counter-violence … could not be ruled out on moral grounds”38. Harris defended
“the loss of a few lives in the short term … if [it] led to the saving of many more
lives in the long term”39, and considered “any possible risk of life” as “a strategic
move” that would save more lives by preventing other violent political struggle, said
Lloyd40.

At 4pm on Friday, 24 July, Harris left a suitcase filled with explosives and petrol
at Park Station. “This is the African Resistance Movement. We have planted a
bomb … It is not our intention to harm anyone. This is a symbolic protest against
the inhumanity and injustice of apartheid,” the railway police and Rand Daily Mail
and the Transvaler newspapers were warned by phone41. The authorities ignored the
warnings, leaving the bomb’s explosion to seriously injure twenty-two people. Ethel
stones against the
Rhys, aged seventy-seven, died of her wounds.
mirror, by Hugh Lewin
ISBN: 9781415201480
“To plant that bomb on the station, at that time of day, required a mental shift we
Published by Umuzi
had all vehemently opposed. There’s a huge gap between the organisation’s long-
term agreed policy and what John did at the station,” states Lewin42. “The spear-
carrier left us all behind,” he says43.

Lewin believes Harris did not perceive himself as betraying ARM’s policy44,

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claudi a b braud e

“trust[ing] absolutely”45 that his warnings would be

“I could never have gone along with
John’s new plan” which “involved too
many imponderables, too much risk,”
says Lewin
heeded46 and the concourse cleared for the suitcase
to “explode dramatically”47 without causing injury. “I
could never have gone along with John’s new plan”48
which “involved too many imponderables, too much
risk,” says Lewin49, who considers Harris’s conviction
as “a delusion”50.

Why the police ignored the warnings remains questionable. Lewin suspects the
Special Branch already knew (from interrogating Lloyd the previous day51) of the
planned attack52. Declassified security documents further reveal police surveillance
of Harris53. Relying on undercover intelligence operative Gordon Winter’s account
of the station bomb, David Beresford holds South Africa’s security chiefs (and
former Ossewabrandwag members), Minister of Justice John Vorster and General
Hendrik Van den Bergh responsible for “rig[ging] the case against Harris”54:

“Winter claims that the bomb … was … allowed to go off …[,] the decision …
taken by … Van den Bergh and endorsed by … Vorster [who] … had a ‘hot line’
– a red telephone – for urgent communications with each other. Winter, who
claims that the story of the phone call was confided to him by Van den Bergh
himself, says the exchange was brief, the security force chief telling Vorster the
bomb was in position and Vorster replying ‘let it happen’. The implication was,
of course, that they had discussed the bomb previously and were prepared to let
it go off in a public place for the propaganda effect”55.

Beresford suggests the “depravity”56 subsequently characterising the apartheid

regime’s murderous covert ‘third force’ activities, unleashed to achieve political results,
was already operative in 1964. “The effect [of the station bomb] was sensational.
One blast … destroyed the Liberal Party [and] an underground revolutionary
organisation at what was no doubt to [the Security Police] the negligible price of
the life of a seventy-seven-year old woman,” says Beresford57. The police “[did] what
they accused Harris of doing; murdering ‘innocent’ people for political gain,” says
Beresford58.

The consequences of the explosion for Lewin were devastating. “[S]o much blood
on the floor as they battered every detainee in town,” says Lewin59 who, under
Van den Bergh’s direction60, was almost fatally tortured by his “two most dreaded
interrogators”61, including Johannes Viktor, “the lead actor [and] embodiment of all
that was terrifying and threatening in my nightmares”62:

“Van der Merwe [who accompanied Viktor] wasted no time with me: he tore off
my glasses and began thrashing at me, beating me with balled fists. I screamed
and cowered, down on the floor, then up again as he kicked me, then more fists,
around the eyes and the ears. I felt detached, as if it was happening to somebody
else, as if I was looking down a tunnel, at the end of which were his fists and
furious mouth, screaming at me. More names, he shouted, more names! Who
else is there? Who else! More fists and, through the pain and the fists and the
kicks, I knew he was going to kill me. Though not me – the person at the end of
the tunnel, waiting to die. Me”63.

The panic-filled, “hideous night”64 was only the beginning of Lewin’s torture and
torment, which assumed different forms as events continued to unfold.

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In solitary confinement65 and “horrified”66 at the possibilities of being tried and

facing the death sentence with Harris67, Lewin necessarily analysed his role: “Could
we really say that we were not involved with the bomb at the station,” he asks68.
“Ronnie and I gave [Harris] the keys, the baton, with no suggestions to do anything.
But, equally, no suggestion not to do anything. And I should have known that John
would not do nothing,” he says69.

In no way directly or objectively responsible for Harris’s bomb, Lewin subjectively

assumes moral responsibility both for enabling him and for having omitted to act
(“no suggestion not to do anything” ). Burdening himself with responsibility for the
harm caused by the bomb, Lewin’s voice segues, here, into that of a perpetrator:

“When John’s bomb went off, we were in solitary confinement … I did not plant
the bomb. I didn’t know about it. … But there’s something I cannot deny. Before
I was detained, I gave John the information he needed to continue our activities.
So I share his responsibility. I helped created the child’s battered body. As did John,
with his suitcase stuffed with TNT and petrol, which burst and burnt – harmed
most dreadfully”70.

More tortuous, still, was Harris’s execution on

1 April 196571. Given Lewin’s morally heightened In no way directly or objectively responsible
acceptance of responsibility even for acts of omission, for Harris’s bomb, Lewin subjectively
it’s unlikely he restrains from self-blame, also, for his
friend’s tragic fate. He intimates, rather than explicitly
assumes moral responsibility both for
states, his sense of responsibility for Harris whose enabling him and for having omitted to act
name he, tortured to the verge of death, had given his
interrogators: “Through the screams and the shouts
and the fists, through it all, I realised that, if they already had John Lloyd [who
Lewin had seen] next door, there was only one person I had not yet mentioned.
John Harris, with his plan for the luggage room”72. Lewin previously records that
Harris had proposed a target at ARM’s final planning meeting: “An incendiary
bomb, armed with the new timer, could be left [at Park Station’s luggage depository]
overnight in a suitcase, thus causing a considerable explosion and perhaps even a
fire in the middle of the night … harming no one, yet causing damage that could
not go unreported”73. “He could save my life. He could save all our lives,” ‘reasoned’
Lewin mid-torture74:

“If he told them about the luggage plan for the middle of the night, he could
explain that it couldn’t have been him who left the bomb at the platform
entrance, not with rush-hour commuters who might be harmed. I said: ‘John
Harris.’ The fists stopped. Viktor stepped forward and pulled Van der Merwe
away, nodding at him and at the ceiling above us, which was rumbling with the
sounds of scraping furniture and heavy thuds. ‘Ons het hom,’ said Viktor. John
Harris. We’ve got him”75.

While Lewin knows rationally that Harris was arrested for the station bomb before
he named him and that the apartheid state “wanted [Harris] dead”76, “as a prize
exhibition, to help beat into submission anyone opposing the great apartheid
dream”77, he is himself left with the guilt of the survivor.

Lewin was further tormented by Leftwich’s turn to state witness. Unforgivable for
Lewin was not that Leftwich broke under the pressures of interrogation (as he had

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himself ) but that he gave evidence in open court.  Deciding not to flee in part out
of loyalty towards Leftwich, Lewin watched as Leftwich “[bought] his freedom by
testifying against us”78, thus helping to secure Lewin’s seven-year prison sentence.
“I felt nothing as I stared back at him [in the witness box]…, as if my heart was
dead. He had killed our friendship… It was like murder. Terminal. Something that
could not be reversed … That was the irredeemable moment, when he took the oath
and started performing as a state witness”79. “[I]t was simple,” says Lewin, “he had
made his choice and I could see no way of there being any reconciliation between
us”80. “Whatever the circumstances I was nevertheless
an agent, not a victim. I had chosen, I had acted,”81
More deeply concerned with abandoning the Leftwich acknowledges. “I learned what was, for
corrosive feelings associated with Leftwich me, a simple lesson of immense importance: to take
than with their actual re-encounter (only responsibility for what I’d done. Not why I had done
it, nor the circumstances of my doing it, but that I had
scantly described in the book), Lewin’s done it. That I had betrayed my colleagues,” he says82,
journey of reconciliation became possible in arriving, however belatedly, at an approximation of
the wake of his TRC experience. the acceptance of responsibility characterising Lewin’s
decisions throughout.

His thoughts of Leftwich filled “with bitterness and anger rolled together”83, and
clinging to him “like armour”84, Lewin’s identity was long defined by Leftwich’s
actions85. “I had grown used to clinging to Adrian’s guilt” he says86. Responding to
Leftwich’s account, Lewin began to transform his former friend’s “irredeemable
moment” of choice into the beginning of his own journey to reconciliation.

More deeply concerned with abandoning the corrosive feelings associated with
Leftwich than with their actual re-encounter (only scantly described in the book),
Lewin’s journey of reconciliation became possible in the wake of his TRC experience.
His “emotions and judgement”87 were ‘challenged’88 by survivor testimonies from
the outset of the TRC’s human rights violations hearings. The TRC “was an
important part of my journey from Park Station [where ARM’s project blew up and
fell apart] to York [Leftwich’s city of refuge], and there were several stops along the
way,” says Lewin89. Together, these TRC-related stops turn Stones into a meditation
on violence and terror generally and, particularly, on other bomb blasts in apartheid
history (Church Street, 1983; Amanzimtoti, 1985; Magoo’s Bar; the 1982 bomb
attack on the ANC’s London headquarters; the parcel bombs that killed Ruth First,
in Mozambique in 1982, and Jenny and Katryn Schoon, in Angola in 1984).

Drawing on his own notes90 of TRC testimonies, Lewin describes his response to
the “clarity of mind”91, “rare compassion”92 and “extraordinary belief in the need to
find his own path to reconciliation”93 that characterised the testimony of Hennie
Smit, father of Cornio who was killed in Amanzimtoti. “After Cornio’s death, and
after nineteen year old Andrew Zondo had been sentenced and executed for the
attack, Smit sought out Zondo’s parents and commiserated with them …. Ask[ing
them]: what is it about apartheid that it kills our children, whichever side they’re
on?”94 records Lewin. “Why, if [he] could make such momentous decisions involving
such devastating events, could I not make similar judgements involving my own
friends? Indeed, was there any comparison at all between the gravity of their cases
and mine?” he asks95. Lewin highlights, also, “the extraordinary meeting”96 between
Aboobaker Ismail, who planned the Church Street bomb, and Neville Clarence
who was blinded in the attack. “I wanted to say [to Ismail] I have never felt any
bitterness towards him97. Reconciliation does not just come from one side. We were

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on opposite sides, and, in this instance, I came off second best,” said Clarence98.
“[T]his is very difficult. I am sorry about what happened to you,” Ismail replied99.
“Clarence said he bore no grudges. That’s reconciliation made of steel”, says Lewin100,
glimpsing the imaginative possibility of replacing his own armour of bitterness with
this steel of reconciliation. Premised on sustained recognition of the experience of
the ‘other side’, Lewin’s representation of Smit and Clarence represents TRC logic
of reconciliation at its most meaningful.

Particularly “poignant”101 for Lewin was the hearing into the role of the prisons
under apartheid102, held “symbolically”103 “in a marquee in the yard outside the
punishment block”104 of the Johannesburg Fort from where Lewin had been
released at the end of his sentence105. Death row survivor Duma Khumalo’s evidence
evoked memories of Harris, “my friend who died by hanging”106; Magoo’s Bar bomb
accomplice Zahra Narkedien’s ‘graphic’ testimony of detention at the Fort evoked
Leftwich and Lloyd:

“[O]ne particular evening one [of the huge rats, the size of cats, that were in
the cells … all the time] was crawling on me and I didn’t quite mind until it
got to my neck, when I screamed the whole prison down. When [the guards]
eventually came, they found me in the corner and I was actually eating my
T-shirt. That’s how berserk I went,” testified Narkedien107.

“[D]etention and its berserkness … [T]he prison

hearing seemed to me the ideal setting for someone Lewin’s journey of reconciliation with
like Adrian, or John Lloyd, … to have come forward to Leftwich should not be misread as his wide
explain ... about some of the other effects of detention
– like testifying against one’s comrades,” comments
embrace of forgiveness or the TRC’s culture of
Lewin, reflecting on the psychological impact of impunity.
torture and detention”108.

Recording panellists’ question to witnesses, “What can the commission do for

you?”109, and the witnesses’ response: “Nothing … just bring us back their bones …
so that we know where they are”110, Lewin began to embark on his own metaphorical
search for his ‘bones’, overcoming his “aloof ” “proud silence”111 to contact Leftwich.
“By focusing on his guilt, I could avoid acknowledging my own lack of self-
understanding … If I forgave him, if I laid down my anger, what would define me?”
asks Lewin112, equally “curious”113 about himself as about Leftwich.

Lewin’s journey of reconciliation with Leftwich should not be misread as his wide
embrace of forgiveness or the TRC’s culture of impunity. While Lewin generalises
witnesses’ embrace of the healing offered by Tutu in exchange for forgiveness of
perpetrators (“there’s no point in seeking revenge. I forgive them because not
doing so will not help me in any way”114), the actual testimonies he represents tell a
different story. Margaret Madlana, testifying at the Alexandra township hearing in
October 1996, describes witnessing Bongani, her twelve-year old son, being “shot in
the yard and … being pulled out by the white police”115. “He is not yet dead. On the
road is a very big rock and when they arrive at the rock they pull him up and hit him
against the rock to kill him,” Lewin records116. “I will never forgive”, said Madlana117.
“How can she ever be expected to forgive?” Lewin asks118.

Lewin describes another woman’s testimony of “how her son and friends were
slaughtered by the police”119. They were, she said, “assaulted until they died because

65
claudi a b braud e

we couldn’t even identify him. … His eyes had been gouged out. He was never
shot … He was violated … mutilated. I only identified him through … a certain
mark on his thumb”120. “I want the people who killed my son to come forward
because this is a time for reconciliation. I want to forgive them,” the mother said
at the 1996 Empangeni hearing chaired by Tutu121. However, Lewin records how
she immediately wandered from the TRC’s prevailing discursive framework: “but I
want to speak to them before I forgive them. I want them to tell me who sent them
to come and kill my son”122. Lewin also records Tutu’s characteristic response:

“Our sympathy goes to you for all the hurt that you had
Absorbing the TRC’s lessons while to go through … We are going to find the truth and
medicine that will heal our country to make us one, so
retaining distance from its hegemonising
that we can have reconciliation. Thank you very much
forgiveness narrative, Lewin is able to for having sympathy for other people while you have
acknowledge the TRC’s limitations … your own problems and your own hurt. That is called
humanity. That is what we are trying to have now so
that everybody can stop being selfish,” said Tutu123.

While avoiding the troubling question of how Tutu hears sympathy for her son’s
murderers in the grieving mother’s traumatic testimony, by representing her critical
rejoinder Lewin implicitly distances himself from Tutu’s logic:

“But the mother insisted on adding: ‘Do not take me wrong, my Bishop. You
cannot make peace with someone who does not come to you and tell you what he
has done. … I do not want to lie to the house. I will not be able to forgive anyone
until I know who they are. Then I will shake their hands. Otherwise I will not be
able to forgive somebody that I do not know”124.

“Know them, then forgive them,” concludes Lewin125, listening differently to her
testimony. Absent from this statement is Tutu’s idealised theology, any unilateral
turning-the-other-check. Absorbing the TRC’s lessons while retaining distance
from its hegemonising forgiveness narrative, Lewin is able to acknowledge the
TRC’s limitations: Madlana’s request to track the policemen remains unsatisfied126;
“the Empangeni killers never came forward”127.

Lewin is similarly uninterested in ‘reconciliation’ with his own apartheid perpetrators.

At an amnesty hearing three decades after his detention, Viktor, now a retired
brigadier-general128 “living on a farm in the Hobhouse district”129, “stumbled130 back
into Lewin’s life. Lewin learns that in the mid-1980s, “the very worst of times”131,
Viktor had been in charge of security in Soweto and that, as head of counter-
insurgency in Pretoria, he’d established Vlakplaas. “Leave aside the well-known
hitmen: Eugene de Kock, Dirk Coetzee and Joe Mamasela. The real monster was
Viktor,” says Lewin132 who, watching him being cross-examined by the TRC, was
“pleased not to be in a room again being interrogated”133 by him. Cognisant that
“men like [Viktor] no longer had any power”134 in democratic South Africa, Lewin
knew also that he still retained “a special power”135 over him as he sat “sweating in
the audience”136. Challenging himself to “face him without being intimidated”137,
“to break [his] hold”138, Lewin encountered his torturer. “I took his outstretched
hand. We both squeezed hard and stared at each other,” says Lewin139. “I felt I
was standing again inside that chalk circle on the floor in the interrogation room
…, but I wasn’t moving,” he says140. This unexpected meeting between Lewin and
Viktor should not be confused with reconciliation between survivor and perpetrator.

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 R e v i e w A rt i c le : H u g h L e w i n , S t o n e s A g a i n s t t h e M i r r o r

“[H]ell, man, we gave these people a hard time”141, Viktor laughingly told his lawyer.
“I didn’t feel I wanted to ask him how he could laugh about it. I didn’t feel that I liked
him much,” says Lewin142, seeking healing from the sustained psychological damage
of the power relationships imposed by his torturer rather than reconciliation with
him. “Enough that we had stood together …, and I had not retreated. I’d broken out
of his web of fear. The terror was gone. He no longer had control. Now, down the
prison corridors of my memories, we were quits,” he says143.

Rejecting, for himself as for others, the facile forgiveness

of perpetrators sought by Tutu from survivors during Rejecting, for himself as for others, the
human rights violation hearings, Lewin explicitly facile forgiveness of perpetrators sought by
criticises the TRC’s granting of amnesty. Supporting
his former cellmate Marius Schoon144, Lewin attended Tutu from survivors during human rights
two sessions of the 1998 amnesty bid of Craig violation hearings, Lewin explicitly criticises
Williamson (“one of the most sinister characters to the TRC’s granting of amnesty.
emerge from the TRC process”145) for the bomb attack
on the ANC’s London headquarters, and the parcel
bomb assassinations of First and Schoon’s wife, Jenny, and four-year old daughter,
Katryn146. “These ‘enemies of the state’ had been targeted to be blown into oblivion
by letter bombs so powerful that – as Marius described it later in a poem – Jenn
and Katryn were splattered over the walls of their apartment,” says Lewin147. Lewin
described the legal right afforded perpetrators like Williamson to apply for amnesty
as “the cruellest provision of the TRC legislation”148, and the granting of indemnity
against prosecution as “one of the TRC’s most painful compromises”149. “[W]as that
justice?” he asks150.

Separating himself with these three words from the TRC cultural industry, Lewin
implicitly rejects Tutu’s theologically-driven promotion of the TRC (“forgiveness”)
as a post-Nuremberg (“revenge”) step forward in the progressive journey of
human civilisation. Instead, he trenchantly joins hands with other loyal South
Africans critical of the lack of justice delivered by the TRC. Thus, he describes “an
unexpected development”151 in the “bizarre”152 amnesty hearing when Williamson
“demonstrate[d] his appreciation of reconciliation by offering to share lunch”
with Schoon153, providing “a chance” for them “to discuss and reconcile [their]
differences”154. “‘Well, indeed,’ said the judge gaily, ‘and what is your response to
that suggestion, Mr Schoon?’,” Lewin records155. “‘It is, my lord, probably the most
obscene suggestion I have ever heard’,” Lewin records, sympathetic to his friend
who, after “the judge grumpily declared the session closed for lunch”156, left the
hearing closely followed by Williamson who “almost touch[ed] shoulders with the
man whose wife and daughter he had obliterated”157. Lewin also affirms Gillian
Slovo, an outspoken critic of forgiveness, who, together with her sisters, “objected …
on all grounds”158 to Williamson’s application for their mother, First’s, murder, and
who Lewin heard at the first Williamson hearing he attended.

Having himself grappled for nearly fifty years with the tragic consequences
and moral implications of what he subjectively and voluntarily considers his
responsibility for the station bomb, Lewin remains scandalised by the TRC
Amnesty Committee’s facile granting of amnesty to Williamson, overriding
Schoon’s and Slovos’ opposition159. “When I heard the news of the findings, I felt
no peace nor any sense of reconciling. Marius died feeling considerable anger at
the TRC amnesty process. It lacked justice, he felt, and had not sufficiently – if at
all – tested the principles of proportionality. I had to agree with him,” says Lewin160.

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“I realised I still had a long way to go before I could
feel the force of reconciliation, especially as Marius
… became terminally ill with lung cancer. He died
on 7 February 1999. Williamson, protected against
prosecution for his murders, became an import-export
businessman, occasionally spotted driving his 4x4
through Johannesburg’s wealthy northern suburbs,”
he says161. Lewin drives the same streets, still grieving
about the station bomb and Harris, cognisant from
his post-TRC vantage point that “at any other time
and in most other places, John would probably have
been found guilty of manslaughter”162 or, if convicted
of murder, would have received amnesty163.
A deep post-TRC reflection on the responsibility
for the other, Stones is continuous with Lewin’s
commitment to justice and decency (the product of his
Anglican priest father’s teachings of love, compassion,
faith and honesty, and his missionary nurse mother’s
compassion for the sick and lame) that underpinned
his involvement in anti-apartheid sabotage.
It is Lewin’s sustained acceptance of responsibility
that will, arguably, leave his most enduring and
explosive mark on the pursuit of South African
justice. With Stones, Lewin has brought us closer to
the moral universe elaborated by French philosopher
Emanuel Levinas, including in his discussion of the
biblical institution of the city of refuge164. Described
in Numbers 35, these cities are designated to provide
safe havens for the manslayer who is guilty of “an
‘objective’ murder” which, “committed as an unwitting
act of homicide”165, was “without intent to harm”166.
“[W]hen, for example – a biblical example – an axe-
head comes away from its handle during the work of
the woodcutter and deals a mortal blow to a passer-
by, this murder cannot be pursued before the court of
judgement,” says Levinas167. Deprived of recourse to
the court of judgement by the manslayer’s absence of
intent, the close relation of the victim, the “avenger
of blood”168 whose heart is justifiably “heated”169 by
the murder, still retains “the right to carry out an act
of vengeance”170. The city of refuge acknowledges the
legitimacy of the victim’s rage while simultaneously
providing the manslayer protection from it. “The
‘avenger of blood’ can no longer pursue the murderer
who has taken refuge in a city of refuge; but for the
manslayer, who is also a murderer through negligence,
68
the city of refuge is also an exile: a punishment,” says
Levinas171. “The city of refuge is the city of a civilization
or of a humanity which protects subjective innocence
and forgives objective guilt and all the denials that acts
inflict on intentions,” says Levinas172, recognising this
forgiveness for the social advance it is.
Troubled nonetheless by what he delineates as this
advanced civilization’s “hypocritical”173 acceptance
of the two “races”174 of intentional and accidental
murderers, he hears contained within this biblical
judicial double standard the intimations of a new mode
of “the spirituality of the spirit”175. Specifically, Levinas
envisages the possibility of a “great awakening”176
spiritually, a “more conscious consciousness”177 in
which attentiveness to the other excludes the “oversight
and absent-mindedness”178 that leads, best intentions
notwithstanding, to manslaughter. Imagining a
political civilization advanced beyond even the
forgiveness for the guilty innocent provided by the
city of refuge, Levinas anticipates a consciousness pre-
emptively accepting responsibility for the wellbeing
and safety of others; a civilization that, ensuring the
axehead is secure, prevents even unintentional damage.
In this new spirituality, responsibility for the other is
no longer limited by the negligence and lack of care
of the manslayer’s accident. Rendering the distinction
between murderers and manslayers redundant through
the replacement of the hypocritical split between
intent and accident with a “complete” and “absolute”
justice”, this spirituality obviates the necessity of cities
of refuge to provide forgiveness for the unwitting
perpetrator.
Lewin has himself long moved beyond an ethic of
responsibility limited by negligence. In accepting
responsibility as he does, even for harm caused indirectly
by his act of omission, harm for which he objectively
is innocent, Lewin intimates a newly awakened
spiritual consciousness. For Levinas, manslaughter, let
alone murder, cannot be forgotten by taking refuge
in spiritual life179; for Lewin harm caused to others
cannot be forgotten (amnesia) by giving amnesty, by
taking refuge in spiritual forgiveness. South Africans
and others concerned with justice, and a society truly
built on the rule of law, have long waited for Lewin’s
shift towards Levinas’s realm of justice.
 R e v i e w A rt i c le : H u g h L e w i n , S t o n e s A g a i n s t t h e M i r r o r

NOTES 63 Lewin, ibid, 110. 129 ibid, 166.

1 Lewin, 2011, 128. 64 ibid, 131. 130 ibid, 164.
2 ibid, 128. 65 ibid, 106. 131 ibid, 166.
3 ibid, 129. 66 ibid. 132 ibid.
4 ibid, 106. 67 ibid. 133 ibid.
5 ibid, 81. 68 ibid. 134 ibid.
6 ibid, 69. 69 ibid, 137. 135 ibid.
7 ibid, 106. 70 ibid, 17-18. My emphases. 136 ibid.
8 ibid, 144 71 ibid, 105. 137 ibid, 168.
9 ibid. 72 ibid, 110. 138 ibid.
10 ibid, 72. 73 ibid, 109. 139 ibid.
11 ibid, 92. 74 ibid, 110. 140 ibid, 169.
12 Adrian Leftwich, 2002. 75 ibid, 110-111. 141 ibid, 170.
13 Lewin, ibid 94. 76 ibid, 136. 142 ibid.
14 ibid, 95. 77 ibid. 143 ibid, 170-171.
15 ibid, 93. 78 ibid, 101. 144 ibid, 150.
16 Peter Brown’s biographer, Michael Cardo, notes that 79 ibid. 145 ibid.
while Brown “bore no grudges against those who had 80 ibid, 174. My emphasis. 146 ibid.
got out in time”, “he thought the ‘only people who come 81 Leftwich, 30. My emphasis. 147 ibid, 151.
out of it [the resulting tragedy] with any credit are those 82 ibid. 148 ibid.
in the dock, Hugh Lewin particularly, who refused to go 83 Lewin, ibid, 174. 149 ibid.
and leave others behind’”. Michael Cardo, 2010, p 194. 84 ibid, 102. 150 ibid.
17 Lewin, ibid, 90. 85 ibid, 174. 151 ibid, 152.
18 ibid, 93. 86 ibid, 182. 152 ibid.
19 ibid, p 90. 87 ibid, 145. 153 ibid.
20 ibid, 90. 88 ibid. 154 ibid.
21 ibid, 93. 89 ibid, 142. 155 ibid, 153.
22 ibid, 90. 90 Lewin is aware that the fast-paced TRC process 156 ibid.
23 ibid, 93. remains to be fully assimilated or represented. Interview 157 ibid.
24 ibid, 107. with Hugh Lewin, 30 June 2011. 158 ibid, 151.
25 ibid. 91 Lewin, 2011, 144. 159 http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2000/0006021255p
26 Lewin, ibid, 91. 92 ibid. 1001.htm
27 ibid, 107. 93 ibid, 145. 160 Lewin, ibid, 153.
28 ibid, 98. 94 ibid, 144. 161 ibid.
29 ibid, 55. 95 ibid, 145. 162 ibid, 136.
30 ibid, 72. 96 ibid, 146. 163 ibid.
31 ibid, 98. 97 ibid, 147. 164 Emanuel Levinas, 2007.
32 ibid. 98 ibid. 165 ibid, 39.
33 ibid, 111. 99 ibid. 166 ibid.
34 ibid, 137. 100 ibid. 167 ibid.
35 ibid, 114, 101 ibid, 148. 168 ibid.
36 ibid. 102 ibid. 169 ibid.
37 ibid. 103 ibid. 170 ibid.
38 ibid. 104 ibid, 121. 171 ibid.
39 ibid. 105 ibid, 148. 172 ibid, 51. My emphasis.
40 ibid, 136. 106 ibid, 150. 173 ibid.
41 David Beresford, 2010, 9-10. 107 ibid, 149. 174 ibid, 39.
42 Lewin, ibid, 111. 108 ibid. 175 ibid 47.
43 ibid, 116. 109 ibid, 177. 176 ibid, 46.
44 ibid. 110 ibid, 177. 177 ibid, 50.
45 ibid, 115. 111 ibid, 182. 178 ibid, 45.
46 ibid, 116. 112 ibid. 179 ibid 45.
47 ibid, 114. 113 ibid.
48 ibid, 112. 114 ibid, 177. Bibliography
49 ibid, 115. 115 ibid, 41-42. Beresford, David. Truth is a Strange Fruit: A Personal
50 ibid,116. 116 ibid, 42. Journey Through the Apartheid War, Jacana Media,
51 Interview with Hugh Lewin, 30 June 2011. 117 ibid, 43. Auckland Park, 2010.
52 Lewin, ibid, 116. 118 ibid, 43. Cardo, Michael. Opening Men’s Eyes: Peter Brown and
53 Beresford, 334. 119 ibid, 145. the Liberal Struggle for South Africa, Jonathan Ball
54 ibid, 332. 120 ibid. Publishers, Johannesburg, 2010.
55 ibid, 333-334. 121 ibid. Leftwich, Adrian. ‘I Gave The Names’, Granta, 78, Summer
56 ibid, 334. 122 ibid. 2002.
57 ibid. 123 ibid, 145-146. Levinas, Emanuel. “Cities of Refuge (Extract from the
58 ibid. 124 ibid, 146. Tractate Makkoth 10a)”, in Beyond the Verse,
59 Lewin, ibid, 111. 125 ibid. My emphasis. Continuum, London, 2007, pp 34-52.
60 ibid. 126 ibid, 43 Lewin, Hugh. Stones Against the Mirror: Friendship in the
61 ibid, 109. 127 ibid, 146. Time of the South African Struggle, Umuzi, Cape
62 ibid, 164. 128 ibid, 164. Town, 2011

69
Review
Lewis Mash
is a researcher for
the Helen Suzman
Foundation, where
he is running the
Youth Outreach and
Youth Leadership
programmes. His
primary research
interests are currently
in civic education
and minority rights.
Prior to joining the
Foundation, he
studied Philosophy
at the University of
Reading.
HELEN SUZMAN (THEY
FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM
SERIES), by Gillian Godsell
ISBN: 978 063 6098169
Published by Maskew
Miller Longman
Helen Suzman
(They Fought for
Freedom series)
The idea that our society’s values are in decline is increasingly gaining
wide acceptance. Whether criticism is levelled at the highest echelons
of the political elite, as with Zwelinzima Vavi’s damning accusations
of “crass materialism” within the ANC, or at the perceived crumbling
of ‘traditional’ values in poor urban communities afflicted by violence,
substance abuse and gangsterism, it can hardly be disputed that South
Africa faces a crisis of morality.
Whatever the origins of this perceived moral decay, South Africans are divided on
how to address it. A number of the articles in this edition of Focus propose a greater
emphasis on faith-based ethics as the cure to the rot. However, while such value
systems are often attractive for their simplicity and clarity, how to implement them
in a multi-religious society under secular governance is a far murkier issue. What
is, however, clear is that the present generation of young South Africans must cast
about widely to find living examples of moral leadership at any level of society.
Where, then, should these young
people of the present – and leaders
Maskew Miller Longman’s
of the future – look for guidance?
One answer, paradoxically enough, series, They Fought for Freedom
is to our dark past. This is the small … details the lives of those
counterbalance South Africa’s history individuals who played pivotal
offers against the monstrous injustices
roles in the struggle against
of apartheid – that those very injustices
brought forth from their ordinary lives apartheid. These men and women
a few extraordinary individuals who possessed such extraordinary
could not simply suffer in silence, or sit moral character that they were
back and watch the suffering of others.
prepared to risk life and freedom
Maskew Miller Longman’s series, They
Fought for Freedom (whose general for what they believed to be right.
editor is John Pampallis) details the What better role models for the
lives of those individuals who played South Africans of today?
pivotal roles in the struggle against
apartheid. These men and women
possessed such extraordinary moral character that they were prepared to risk life
and freedom for what they believed to be right. What better role models for the
South Africans of today?
The latest volume of They Fought for Freedom is Gillian Godsell’s biography of Helen
Suzman. It tells the famed Parliamentarian’s story – from the anti-Semitism her
father’s family faced in pre-revolutionary Russia, through all the decades of her
70
 h e le n s u z m a n b y g i lli a n g o d s e ll

struggle against apartheid, to the moment in April 1994 when she and her comrades
in that struggle helped to achieve the impossible. It does so in just 50 pages, and
in simple language. It’s easy to imagine learners for whom reading – and especially
reading in English – is still somewhat challenging getting through the text without
difficulty.

Despite its simplicity, the book succeeds in providing a detailed and sometimes
moving description of Helen’s life and work. Godsell has clearly drawn heavily on
Helen’s autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms, for the anecdotes she relates from
Helen’s life, but she has done so with the confident parsimony of an accomplished
writer. As a consequence, Helen Suzman is perhaps a more structured and more
readable introduction to the life of this great woman than her own autobiography.

Godsell details some of the historical and political context of Helen’s many years
in Parliament, in the form of boxed asides within the main text. Together with the
comprehension questions included at the end of the book, these give it potential as
an educational aid. But that is not where the real value of this book lies.

It is tempting for us, as adults, to dismiss literature intended for children, or to

think that it provides nothing more than entertainment, or practice for the more
significant, adult literature they will read later in life. But that attitude is wrong.
Godsell’s book is important, not because it brings particular rigour to bear, or because
it sheds new light on some aspect of Helen Suzman’s life – it doesn’t. Instead, it is
important precisely because of its intended audience. It is important because when
the young South Africans who read it face injustice in their own lives, as they surely
will, they need look no further for guidance than the story of Helen Suzman, who
led a public life grounded not in self-interest or materialism, but in a shrewd and
uncompromising sense of right and wrong.

In so lucidly and concisely bringing this remarkable woman to life, Gillian Godsell
has made accessible, to those who represent our near future, one of the great role
models of South Africa’s recent past. For that, she should be both commended and
congratulated.

71
Review Liberal Democracy and
Peace in South Africa
William Gumede
is Honorary Associate
Professor, Graduate
School of Public
and Development This book is an overview of the attitudes towards democratic values – the
Management,
authors use the term ‘liberal values’ - of both elites and the public in South
University of the
Witwatersrand,
Africa before and after formal apartheid. The authors based their analysis
Johannesburg. He on survey research of public attitudes and values in South Africa over
is co-editor of the the 1981 to 2006 period, and an elite research survey covering the period
recently released 1990 to 2007.
The Poverty of
Ideas – South For countries emerging from civil conflict, the spread and deepening of democratic
African Democracy values and attitudes are crucial to sustain post-conflict peace. The writers, Pierre du
and the Retreat of Toit and Hennie Kotze, based their analysis on the ‘theory of liberal democratic
the Intellectuals, peace’ to argue that peace between states, and domestically within states and their
published by Jacana. societies, is attainable through the democratisation of their regimes. They argue that
a “specific variant of liberal democracy” produces that peace dividend. This reviewer
disagrees with this view and would argue that genuine quality democracy, no matter
the variant, brings the peace dividend.

Two key aspects of democracy foster peace: one, the democratisation of ruling
regimes – the democratic nature of both formal and informal institutions; and two,
the democratisation of societies (the authors use the ‘liberalisation’ of societies) – the
embeddedness of democratic norms, values and attitudes in the ‘culture’. Both these
key critical ingredients are necessary to deepen democracy in South Africa – and
they appear to be under threat in South Africa.

What is clear is that persistent poverty, accompanied by growing inequality, is a key

obstacle to deepening democracy. Furthermore in the South African case, inequality
runs along racial lines – although since the end of apartheid in 1994 inequality has
also increased between a small black rich elite and their majority black cousins.

The social environment for black South Africans under apartheid was hostile.
Apartheid left black South Africans with massive ‘existential insecurity’: their
culture was under attack; they were physically dislocated, being moved to the
Bantustans or townships; they were deprived materially; they were deprived from
equitable access to public goods such as education and healthcare; and apartheid
broke interpersonal relationships, whether through migrant labour, or through
insecurity that humiliation caused to individual dignity.
Liberal Democracy
and Peace in South As du Toit and Kotze rightly argue, the effect of such ‘dislocation’ is the destruction
Africa, by Pierre du Toit of “familiar and trusted social benchmarks” that were there before colonialism
and Hennie Kotze, and apartheid. (Of course the processes of industrialisation add to the process of
ISBN: 978 023 018882 ‘dislocation’ – whether cultural, individual or social. Combined, these reinforce
Published by Palgrave ‘existential insecurity’. This leaves a void – sometimes filled by religious, spiritual
MacMillan, 2010 or cultural fundamentalism. Worse in post-apartheid South Africa, self-esteem,
identity and individual value are increasingly measured by how much an individual
possesses in material wealth.)

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 L i b e r a l D e m o c r a c y a n d P e a c e i n S o u t h Af r i c a

Democrats would want the void to be filled by new democratic values, mores
and cultures – and by the best (most democratic) elements of cultural, religious
and spiritual values. In the South African situation this ‘existential insecurity’ has
generated ‘illiberal attitudes’ in the wider citizenry: violent crime, low levels of
tolerance for differences, xenophobia, social conservatism, and so on.

Poor black South Africans expected, and still expect, that the predominantly
black ANC government would undo institutionalised poverty in the post-1994
era. However, failure to deliver on promises by the ANC government meant that
for the majority of poor black South Africans their material conditions remained
virtually the same. Furthermore, for the black majority that remains stuck in
poverty, the fact that ‘their’ government, who has ‘won’ against the former white
apartheid governments, and the fact that they (blacks) have victoriously fought
against the might of the apartheid government, yet remain stuck in poverty when
‘their’ government is in power, while the supposed political ‘losers’ (whites) still have
competitive advantage, has the potential to deep resentments.

Some black South Africans resent formerly privileged

whites doing well in the uneven post-apartheid playing
field, where education, social capital, access to finance,
(built-up under the apartheid era) matters.
Similarly, in the xenophobic violence against African
foreigners, who are mostly better educated than their
South African counterparts (and because they are
not expecting government to deliver for them, and
are thus more pro-actively looking for opportunities),
raised the ire of poor African South Africans, who are
competing for the same resources.
One fault line in South Africa’s politics is
that unscrupulous politicians can use the
‘existential insecurity’ of black South Africans
in the face of persisting inequality and
poverty to mobilise against whites
(the perceived material ‘winners’ of the
post-apartheid era) and the newcomers
(African immigrants).

The persistence of the historical “build-up of inequities in material wealth” between

black and white – as well as the persistence of racial “differences in abilities
of citizens” to compete in the economic arena, will make it difficult to build an
inclusive democracy in South Africa. One fault line in South Africa’s politics is that
unscrupulous politicians can use the ‘existential insecurity’ of black South Africans
in the face of persisting inequality and poverty to mobilise against whites (the
perceived material ‘winners’ of the post-apartheid era) and the newcomers (African
immigrants).

Recently, in the spontaneous public protests which have often ended up in violence,
local black communities, frustrated over indifference, corruption and mismanagement
by their elected local municipal councilors (mostly ANC councilors, and the
protesters mostly those who voted ANC), vented their anger against their elected
political leaders. These ANC leaders represent those from the black majority who
have through politics been able to become ‘winners’. It can also be argued that black
anger can also be seen in violent crimes – which contrary to popular media portrayal
are more likely to happen to other blacks who appear to have become ‘winners’. The
best scenario for democracy, of course, would be for impoverished black South
Africans to vent their anger in elections by not voting for the ANC government if
it does not deliver – no matter their historical affinity with the party.

73
wi l l i am gumed e

The authors put too much emphasis on what they call the dominance of the “African
spirit-world belief system” among Africans, which they claim make many black
South Africans to believe that misfortune, such as financial losses, unemployment,
AIDS, and so on, is brought about by someone (else) or is the “result of great
impersonal forces beyond the control of the individual or the community”. They
argue that the “African spirit-world belief system” has led to spiritual insecurity.
Of course, it is a fact that some black South Africans do adhere to the “African
spirit-world belief system”. However, one needs to restate that apartheid was such
a omnipotent destructive force that its legacy is still with us.

In addition, some dominant elements within the ANC government are steeped
in the undemocratic political traditions of Stalinism, militarism and underground
movements or, at least, have a very limited view of democracy, where those who win an
election believe they can virtually do what they like. If these undemocratic elements
are dominant, the democratising ability of ruling regimes may become blunt tools.
Attacks on the Public Protector for uncovering corruption, the introduction of laws
restricting the free flow of information, the statements by President Jacob Zuma
that the judiciary is not ‘bigger’ than the ANC or government, are red flags. If the
ruling regime – with the formal and informal institutions - is undemocratic itself,
it spills into the broader society also, undermining the embeddedness of democratic
norms, values and attitudes in ‘culture’ and society.

What, then, is to be done? Ultimately, by reducing poverty and inequality in South

Africa – which will help in reducing the ‘existential insecurity’ of blacks, and make
the black majority ‘winners’ also – is a core requirement of building a durable
democracy in South Africa.

This is a thoroughly engaging book, and an important examination of whether

democracy has been embedded in South Africa in both the ruling regime and the
society.

74
 tribute

Patrick Laurence
1937-2011
Defending liberalism in a tribute to Peter Brown, the former Chairman of the
Liberal Party, in Focus 35, Patrick Laurence observed that it was the duty of liberals
to monitor the activities and ideological inclinations of ruling parties. His own
long career in journalism was spent doing just that – scrutinising and analysing the
behaviour of the old apartheid government with as much diligence and dispassion
as he did the performance of the ANC-led alliance, post 1994.

Laurence was a rarity among journalists – a reporter and commentator who valued
factual accuracy and balance above all else – even if that often meant tempering the
forceful expression of his own views. He began working as a history teacher – at
Jeppe Boys High and St Stithians – but his studies for an MA in African politics at
the universities of Wits and Natal led to a career switch to journalism. He joined
The Star and worked for a brief spell in its London office before moving to the
political desk of the Rand Daily Mail, where an interview he did with PAC leader
Robert Sobukwe in 1973 and posted overseas for publication led to his arrest at the
hands of the security police for quoting a banned person, and a suspended sentence
of 18 months.

After the closure of the Mail in 1985, he returned to The Star, for which he worked
for a decade before moving unsuccessfully to New Zealand, where he found the
environment to be wholly unstimulating by comparison with South Africa’s.
Returning home after a few months, he worked for the Financial Mail as a political
writer before his retirement from full-time journalism.

For most of his career, Laurence also worked as a correspondent for foreign
publications, including the Guardian, the Irish Times, the Observer and the
Economist. In 2002 he responded to an invitation from the director of the Helen
Suzman Foundation, Professor Lawrie Schlemmer, to edit this quarterly journal,
which he did most diligently until Raenette Taljaard assumed the editorship upon
becoming director of the HSF in 2006. Until shortly before his death, he also
provided political commentary and analysis for Raymond Louw’s weekly briefing
paper, Southern African Report.

‘Laurence of Azania’, as he was dubbed by a graffito writer after his second and more
celebrated brush with the law, was a man who upheld that most sacred of journalistic
principles – the protection of a confidential source. In March 1991, he reported
the disappearance of a key witness in the trial of Winnie Mandela on a charge of
kidnapping. The police invoked Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act and
brought him before a magistrate in an attempt to force him to reveal his source.

75
ri ch ard s te yn

When he refused to do so, he was sentenced by the court to ten days in prison,
such period to be extended indefinitely until he co-operated with the prosecutors.
After being taken off to a cell in Diepkloof Prison, Laurence was released on bail at
midnight on the same day, after an urgent action was brought by The Star’s lawyers,
who eventually succeeded in having his conviction and sentence set aside by the
Supreme Court. He said afterwards that the most gratifying aspect of the case was
the unstinting support he received from his fellow journalists.

Laurence was also the author of several books on South African politics, of
which his summary of the SproCas report on South Africa’s political alternatives,
co written with Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, was perhaps the most influential. At
Nelson Mandela’s first media conference after his release from prison, he singled out
Laurence as a political writer whom he had read with appreciation for many years.
The former editor of Focus was also highly regarded by Helen Suzman, whom he
counted among his friends.

Besides his scholarly pursuits, Laurence was an athlete of note in his younger days,
winning his Springbok colours as a miler. He was also a good cricketer and tennis
player and ran the Comrades Marathon several times. Until his death he exercised
regularly, becoming a familiar sight to motorists as he strode along the roads around
his Parktown, Johannesburg home.

Gentlemanly in manner, with the abstracted air of an academic, Patrick Laurence

was unfailingly courteous in his dealings with people. He was well respected within
the journalistic and political fraternities, where his fair-mindedness was highly
regarded. He is survived by his wife Sandra and daughters Sarah and Emma, to
whom the Helen Suzman Foundation extends sincere condolences.

Richard Steyn

The family has established a scholarship in memory of Patrick

Laurence. The scholarship will be used to help journalists further their
studies at the University of Witwatersrand.

The banking details are given below for those wishing to make a
donation

ABSA
Cheque Account 4071128128
Branch Code: 632005

Please use your name as a reference

76
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