Religion and Politics in South Africa1. Brief Introduction 1. Brief Introduction to Religion and Politics in South Africa South Africa has a population of over 49.1 million, with a growth rate of -.05% (July 2010 est., low for Africa due to high HIV/AIDS impact). The 2001 Census reported a population of 79% black Africans, 9.6% white, 8.9% colored, and 2.5% Indian/Asian. The 2001 Census listed South Africa as 11.1% Zion Christian, 8.2% Pentecostal/Charismatic, 7.1% Catholic, 6.8% Methodist, 6.7% Dutch Reformed, 3.8% Anglican, 36% other Christian, 1.5% Muslim, 2.3% other, 1.4% unspecified, 15.1% none. South Africa's 2009 HDI ranking is #129, and 2009 CPI rating is 4.7. South Africa has been one of the continent's success stories in aggregate growth, but very high unemployment remains. The British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, and many of the Boers (Dutch settlers) went north. The Boers later resisted the British, but lost the Boer War (1899-1902). When the founding of the Republic in 1948, power passed from the British to the Nationalist Party, which was heavily influenced by the Afrikaner Church. This Dutch Reformed Church had traditionally provided the biblical justification for government racial policies, referring to the Africkaners as “God’s chosen people.” While in 1974 the Church did reject the idea that blacks must remain in permanent servitude, it did find continued biblical support for “separate development.” Questioning of apartheid within the church came from the Christian Institute, founded in 1963 by Dr. C.F. Beyers Naudé, then moderator of the Southern Transvaal Synod. Mainline British-based Protestant churches like the Anglicans and the Methodists tended to buttress white support for more racial equality. Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, head of the South African Council of Churches, became the great religious spokesperson against apartheid. The immigrant Catholic Church was weaker socially, but Archbishop Denis Hurley supported the stands of the SACC and the Christian Institute from the 1960s. For example, the South African Catholic bishops condemned apartheid in 1957, 1960, and 1962, but they did not integrate their seminaries until 1963. The United Christian Movement (UCM) was founded in 1967 and the South African Student Organization (SASO) in 1968. But the Catholic bishops only defied the government to integrate all parochial schools in 1976. Student demonstrations in the black township Soweto erupted in that year, changing South African race relations forever. See Hanson (below) for Catholic issues from the 1960s to 1980s. Berkeley (below) narrates the brutality of government security forces as they encouraged black-on-black violence, especially after 1986, between Buthelezi’s Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress and United Democratic Front (surrogate for banned ANC founded in 1984) of Nelson Mandela. The ruling Nationalist Party presented its struggle as part of the Cold War resistance to Soviet encroachment in Africa, also supporting UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique. Chief Buthelezi presented his struggle with the UDF as the defense of the Zulus against their traditional enemies, the Xhosa. In the end, states Berkeley (p. 190), “South Africa thus far has avoided the (violent and chaotic) fate of its neighbors in part because of the wisdom of its leaders, most notably Mandela and the former president F.W. de Klerk, and because of the vigor of its independent civil society: human rights groups, church organizations, a vigilant press.” Mandela and de Klerk received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. The Nationalist Party began to dismantle apartheid in 1990 and released Mandela in 1990. Mandela won the presidential election of 1994. However, violence continued in Kwazulu-Natal until the late 1990s and organized crime, always on the fringes of political violence during the 1980s and 1990s, remains a problem to this day. The South African economy, however, became the largest and most developed on the continent, but growing social stratification, e.g. official unemployment at 23 percent, makes life very difficult for the poor and the estimated five million refugees in the country. South Africa will be the host nation for the 2010 World Cup, the first time an African nation has so hosted the event. Thabo Mbeki succeeded Mandela, both as president of the ANC and of the country (1999, reelected in 2004). In December 2007 the ANC elected his rival Jacob Zuma as its president. Zuma represented labor, the unemployed, and others who had not benefited from economic growth. For analysis, see Gevisser op-ed below. Mbecki was forced to resign and the country's president in September 2008. In the national lower-house elections for the National Assembly of April 2009, the ANC won 65.9% of the vote and 264 of the 400 seats. The National Assembly then elected Zuma as president. The country basked in the global limelight during the 19th World Cup of soccer June11-July 11, 2010. Spain won, which pleased Africans if an African team did not. Hanson (2006) discusses Desmond Tutu versus Alan Boesak on political violence (p. 64); and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) (p. 316). 2. A Short Introductory Course to Religion and Politics in South Africa Reader presents the narrative of the white settling of South Africa in his Part 6: "Settlers." Johnston narrates the story of the role of the churches in the struggle over apartheid. “The Collaborator” describes the 1996 Durban trial of thirteen white generals and seven Zulus from the Inkatha Freedom Party for complicity in the massacre of thirteen people ten years before. Berkeley’s chapter thus describes the actions of the then defense minister Magnus Malan, twelve other retired white generals, and seven Zulu partisans of the government-allied Inkatha Freedom Party of Chief Buthelezi for a mid-1980s massacre in a remote village of Kwa Makhutha, focusing on apartheid as the ultimate tribalism. Tutu tells the story of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and demonstrates the role of religion in reconciliation. Reader, John. A Biography of the Continent: Africa (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 449-524. Johnston, Douglas, “The Churches and Apartheid in South Africa,” in Johnston, Douglas, and Sampson, Cynthia, eds. Religion, The Missing Dimension of Statecraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 177-207. Berkeley, Bill, “The Collaborator” in The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 143-93. Tutu, Desmond. No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Image Book, 1999). 3. Other Key Resource Materials for Religion and Politics in South Africa Appiah-Kubi, Kofi. African Theology En Route (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1979). Bediako, Kwame. Jesus and the Gospel in Africa: History and Experience (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2004). Berkeley, Bill. The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (New York: Basic Books, 2002). This book has chapters on Liberia, U.S. Assistant Secretary Crocker, the Congo, South Africa, Sudan, and Rwanda. Catholic Institute for International Relations and Pax Christi, War and Conscience in South Africa: The Churches and Conscientious Objection (London: CIIR, 1982). Material for those faced with service in the SADF. Ellis, Stephen, and ter Haar, Gerrie. Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa (New York: Oxford, 2004). Hanson, Eric O., The Catholic Church in World Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 260-65, narrates the Catholic aspects to the battle against apartheid from the 1960s to the 1980s. Jenkins, Philip. The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Sanneh, Lamin. Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2003). Sannah, Lamin, and Carpenter, Joel A., eds. The Changing Face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the World (New York: Oxford, 2005). Sanneh, Lamin. “Why is Christianity, the Religion of the Colonizer, Growing so Fast in Africa?” Santa Clara Lecture, Santa Clara University, May 11, 2005. The official website of the South African Council of Churches, which brings together 26 member churches. 4. Recent News Articles on South Africa “What to Make of Thabo Mbeki?” New York Times editorial, June 27, 2001. Praise for Mbeki’s economic policy and diffusing of violence, criticism of his denial on AIDS. “Taxes Are Helping Right Some of Apartheid’s Old Wrongs,” New York Times, September 15, 2002. Successes and failures of the South African Revenue Service and trying to build a culture of expecting to pay. “South African Commission Ends Its Work,” New York Times, March 22, 2003. TRC ends its work with recommendations to Mbeki. “Low Labor Standard Leads South Africans to Export Jobs,” New York Times, March 13, 2004. Sound economic policies have not compensated for unskilled workers, high labor costs, crime, AIDS, a collapsing Zimbabwe, and the fact that Africa remains a bad business address. Unemployment to 40% from 31% ten years ago, great rich-poor gap. Chart comparing economic growth per quarter with China, Chile, and Malaysia. Competition with Polish workers, education, crime, and AIDS. "A Stormy Test For Democracy in South Africa," New York Times, September 23, 2006. Tension between President Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, ANC deputy president, Mbeki's heir apparent until mired in bribery scandal. Populist Zuma has support from socialist labor unions, and criticizes Mbeki's economic policies as too business oriented. "Inviting Africa's Anglicans to Gather Under a Bigger Tent," New York Times, February 10, 2007. Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, Anglican Archbishop for southern Africa, pleads for the acceptance of all, and against dividing the global Anglican communion. "Influx From Zimbabwe to South Africa Tests Both," New York Times, June 23, 2007. Zimbabwe's political crisis driving refugees to South Africa, which is deporting 3,900 illegals per week. South African government seeking to play mediator's role in Zimbabwe, which limits its scope to criticize Mugabe. "South Africa Grows Up," New York Times, December 12, 2007, op-ed by Mark Gevisser. Analysis of struggle between Mbeki and Zuma. Gevisser says the Mbeki-Zuma alliance (until 2005) can share credit for political stability and a stable market economy. They share blame for an inability to separate party and state, thus leading to patronage and corruption. The leftist Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party have been the primary support for Zuma. South Africa's economic growth has not benefited the poor sufficiently. Gevisser calls for a new true two-party system. "Survivor Is Poised to Lead South Africa," New York Times, December 20, 2007. Background of Jacob Zuma, who spent 10 years on Robben Island, elected new party leader by majority of 3,900 ANC delegates on December 18. Represents interests of Zulus and those who have not benefited from Mbeki's economic growth. Still threatened by outstanding charges of corruption. "Immigrants Flee Fury of South African Mobs," New York Times, May 23, 2008. Economic competition between poor and immigrants leads to xenophobia. 42 killed and 18-20 thousand refugees displaced. Largest group of immigrants from Zimbabwe economic and political collapse, better educated but taking any job. Desmond Tutu,"We human beings, ever since the Garden of Eden, are looking for scapegoats." Churches minister to homeless refugees. "South Africa's President to Quit Under Pressure From His Party," New York Times, September 21, 2008. Mbecki resigns as president at the request of his party. "New South African Party Picks Ex-Official as Chief," New York Times, December 17, 2008. ANC dissenters form new party, Congress of the People (COPE). "New South African Leader Emphasizes Continuity, not the Left, in Cabinet Lineup," New York Times, May 11, 2009. Zuma signals desire for continuity, especially on the economy. During the summer he visited Zimbabwe, demonstrating the continued concern that South Africa experiences for the future of its northern neighbor. See entry on sub-Saharan Africa. "Eager Students in South Africa Fall Prey to Apartheid's Legacy," New York Times, September 20, 2009. The great gap in educational experience and achievement between those blacks and whites who attend mostly formerly white schools and those blacks who attend all-black schools. July 29, 2010. |
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