Note: This commentary by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba was published in this form by City Press, Johannesburg on September 17, 2017. It is posted here for the record:
The controversy surrounding the private life of Deputy President Cyril
Ramaphosa, who has confessed to an extra-marital affair in the past, and
the response of an Eastern Cape student to receiving an erroneous
payment of R14 million, highlight the divisions in our nation in
addressing public and personal morality in our society.
When Nelson Mandela's administration developed its Reconstructon and
Development Programme to combat poverty and inequality, Madiba also
called for an “RDP of the soul” to address the nation's spiritual
brokenness. Twenty-three years later, we have to ask whether this
objective has received adequate attention.
Comments in the media indicate a worrying consensus in the political
class that personal moral uprightness is no longer a criterion for
leadership in our society. Such tacit acceptance is very worrying, and
challenges religious leaders to do more to instil high moral values in
current and future generations.
It is heartening that leaders such as the Deputy President and Minister
in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, who was recently caught up in an alleged
“sexting” scandal, have admitted their wrongdoing. But just as the
church has in the past criticised President Zuma's extra-marital
affairs, we must be consistent and require other leaders to respect the
sanctity of marriage and practise sexual fidelity.
The young student who received money in error seemed to see nothing
wrong with spending the money extragavantly and on luxuries at the same
time as other students were being expelled from university for financial
reasons. There was far too little outrage at her behaviour in spending
money that was patently not hers to spend. Worse, many on social media
made light of the matter.
Along with this decline in standards of personal morality, there is a
collapse in standards of public morality. Over recent years there has
been a catalogue of court cases and decisions that are indicative of our
moral collapse: the Nkandla judgement, the State of Capture report, the
denial of a visa to the Dalai Lama and allowing Omar al-Bashir and Grace
Mugabe to escape justice. The levels of misappropriation of public funds
being perpetrated or tolerated by other leaders at the highest levels in
government are shocking. We may justifiably call such leaders disciples
of corruption and inequality.
We have slowly lost our sense of moral outrage and shame – we should
therefore not be surprised when there is no condemnation of glaring
examples of what is a departure from values that Mandela had in mind
when he advocated the RDP of the soul.
Respect for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the rule of law
must be linked to the personal values that leaders are expected to
display. The restoration of morality as the basis on which South
Africans aspire to live is part of the new struggle for a better, more
equal society – it is inextricably linked to the economic emancipation
of our people. We should be deploying resources that are currently being
stolen in institutionalised theft to fight poverty.
It is time to take moral regeneration to the next level – fully
recognising that for many of us, our own houses need to be cleaned—for
example, as a result of a recent elective assembly in the Anglican
Church, disciplinary steps are being taken against a candidate who is
alleged to have falsified his qualifications.
We need to do the following:
• The charter of positive values adopted by the Moral Regeneration
Campaign is perhaps a good starting point for reflection. Respect for
human dignity has been destroyed across all sectors of society, and
these positive values can help us reclaim our basic goodness.
• All branches of the State need to re-commit to moral and ethical
values. We must encourage a culture in which people take responsibility
to the consequences of their action. Without this no one will think it
matters to pursue a righteous life that is focused less on
self-preservation and more on servant leadership focused on the needs of
our people.
• We need to revive the values of Ubuntu in pursuance of the
spiritual reconstruction of all sectors of society and in the individual
lives of our citizens.
• We need to support and strengthen the Chapter Nine institutions
that seek to instil a sense of order in the stewardship of resources
meant to combat unemployment, poverty and inequality.
• We need to teach morality and ethics throughout our education
system, from primary to tertiary level, and make it compulsory in
training for professional careers.
If we are serious about restoring private and public morality, we have
to agree on the fundamentals of setting higher standards for our leaders
as a way of focusing the minds of our people to achieve the
reconstruction and development of our society and of our souls.
