Acceptance note by Thabo
Makgoba
All Africa Conference of Churches
November 20, 2023
The award was made in Abuja, Nigeria, during the 12th General Assembly of the AACC. The citation for the award can be found here >>
To God be the glory! Thank you
so much, I am humbled and deeply touched by the affirmation and
honour of being the recipient of this prestigious AACC Human Rights
Award.
Congratulations to the AACC on
your 60th anniversary, on this 12th Assembly and on establishing this
award. Thanks to the President, the Secretary General, the Awards
Committee in particular and for those who nominated me and
interviewed me. I receive this honour and award on behalf of the many
whose rights are trampled and the many in our churches across this
great continent who work tirelessly to ensure democracy, governance,
human rights and the rule of law are upheld.
In one of my responses to the
interviewers, I said that “At the heart of the church's advocacy of
Democracy, Human Rights, Good Governance and the Rule of Law is our
care for God's people, for their welfare, their safety and their
inclusion in the kind of economic and social development which will
ensure the abundant life which our Saviour promises them.”
For me, my public ministry
over the years has centred on carrying out walks of witness, and
working within a prophetic theological framework which I call the new
struggle.
Walks of witness entail
literally walking together with my fellow pastors through places
where people live in squalor – amongst the excluded, those on the
periphery of society. In the latest example, I joined other church
leaders in Johannesburg on a walk of witness to the scene of a
devastating building fire which killed more than 70 people. The
people in that overcrowded five-storey home lived in a so-called
“Mnyama ndawo”, a “dark place”, an abandoned, dilapidated
building without running water, electricity or sanitation, where
rubbish piled up and rats ran through stagnant water. Many of those
affected were migrants from other parts of our continent, drawn to
the so-called “City of Gold” by dreams of a better future. Their
plight highlighted the sin of xenophobia in South Africa, where
foreigners are often forced to live in run-down ghettos because they
are not welcome in our communities. The church should be a safe space
for all the nations, yet we often find that people of other nations
are not welcomed.
Then, in the spirit of the old
church struggle against apartheid, we have adopted the concept of the
new struggle to call upon political elites to be accountable to
voters and, instead of pocketing the wealth of their countries, to
govern in the interests of the poorest of the poor. In South Africa,
we say that the new struggle is a new struggle for a new era, a new
struggle for a new generation, a struggle to regain our moral compass
in the face of the corruption that now plagues our country, a
struggle to end the economic inequality we inherited from colonialism
and apartheid, and a struggle to ensure that the promises of our
Constitution are kept. And I am hopeful that if the churches, other
religious bodies and civil society join this struggle, we can succeed
in turning South Africa around and putting us back on the path on
which Nelson Mandela set us.
My concern is not limited to
shouting from the rooftops. I also urge those who hold economic power
to conduct their business in the interests of the communities in
which they work, for example by getting mining houses to build
toilets in schools without sanitation.
In a number of cases, my
advocacy has concerned situations outside South Africa. Just before
last Christmas I visited Ukraine to express our solidarity with that
country in the face of an external invasion. In the last few weeks,
in my own Diocese of Cape Town, where we also have large Muslim and
Jewish communities, we have seen a number of protests over the war in
Gaza. I have condemned all violence against civilians, whether it is
in Gaza, the West Bank of the Jordan or Israel, and called for a
solution in the Holy Land which will bring justice to the
Palestinians and security for all who live in the region. I have also
advocated boycotts of those who supply arms to the Middle East,
including those in the West.
But it is also important that
we speak out on issues in other countries on our own continent.
Analysts tell us that people are in armed conflict with one another
in more than 40 countries in the world, and – as a number of those
attending this assembly can tell us – a number of those are in
Africa. Right now, as the Global North focuses on conflict in the
Middle East, the world is not giving enough attention to Sudan, where
fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary RSF is
devastating the country. The United Nations tells us that this war
has killed more than 9,000 people since April, and has forced more
than five-and-a-half million to flee their homes. We have also seen
the re-emergence of military coups, especially in West Africa,
starting in Mali three years ago, and spreading since to Chad,
Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon. Sadly, some of those countries
have been subjected to multiple coups, and even more sadly, we are
told that some of the coups are a result of the failure of civilian
governments.
To conclude: As pastors
concerned for the welfare of God's people, the new struggle, our
neighbours far and near, we are constantly challenged to ask: Where
is the body of Christ when our sisters and brothers are in pain?
It is my hope that as
recipient of this Award, I will continue to play my part, and that
the existence of the Award will ensure that we all continue to give a
high priority to working to ensure that the God-given rights of all
God's children, in Africa and beyond, are respected by governments
and other actors in society.
Africa, my home and my future,
I thank you.
