Walking Together for Education

The following Welcome and Introduction was delivered at the 'Walking Together for Education' summit organised by the Citizens Movement for Social Change, at St John's College, Houghton, Johannesburg, on 6 June 2012.

Dr Ramphele – or shall I say, dear friend, Mamphela! – Educators, Ladies and Gentlemen, friends, it is a great pleasure, and considerable privilege to welcome you all here this morning, and to share some opening reflections on the day before us.

Let me begin with some words of thanks. First, on behalf of us all, let me thank Roger Cameron, and everyone at St John’s College, for hosting us today. St John’s, I am glad to underline, is of course an Anglican School, founded in 1898. While honouring the heritage it received from England, it is firmly rooted in the soil of this land, defined by its African identity. It is committed to producing leaders who are ‘rightly trained in body, mind and character’, and ready ‘to serve God in Church and State’. Roger, thank you for providing such a context in which we can meet.

I also want to thank Roger for the wider role he plays in heading the organisation that brings together the Principals of Anglican Schools across South Africa. Last September, I met with this network, and offered a challenge: the challenge to consider how they – with all their expertise, experience and resources – could best ‘walk together’ with the Government education sector. I asked them to look at ways they could constructively engage with National and Provincial education departments. And I asked for their advice on how I personally could use the opportunities that come my way; and how the Anglican Church in this country, from national to local level, could also realistically, and practically, become more fully ‘part of the solution’ that we need in education.

So I am glad to tell you all today, that I am able to thank Roger for taking up this challenge, and beginning this process, with further serious discussion planned for the meeting in KwaZulu Natal later this year. I am sure we send you there, Roger, with our wholehearted encouragement.

But now that these wheels are in motion, let me offer you a further challenge! I would love to see an ‘alumni society’ of retired Principals and Heads of Anglican Schools – and perhaps other senior teachers too – who can come together to ‘give back’ to our nation. We know the needs are great – but we also know that the freshly retired are still so often full of energy, enthusiasm and ideas! So let us release and channel at least some of this potential towards strengthening the educational capabilities of South Africa!

Well, after this, Roger, my friend, you may well be wondering whether being thanked by me is something of a double-edged sword since it comes with so many requests attached! But never fear, because now I shall focus my thanks on Mamphela! Thank you, my friend, for your great energies at a time when others might be beginning to look longingly to the retirement I seem so keen to deny them! I’m am sure I speak for a great many, here today and across our nation, when I voice my gratitude to you for your persistent commitment to promoting a better future for us all; and especially for your initiative in launching the Citizens’ Movement for Social Change.

From the perspective of the Anglican Church – of which I am glad to note you are such a faithful, longstanding, member! – and from the perspective of the Christian faith (as indeed many other faith traditions), it is clear that we can only flourish as individuals, if we are committed to the flourishing of all our neighbours. Jesus’ call to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ is, to a very considerable degree, a charter for active, constructive, engaged, citizenship!

My hope and prayer is that the Citizens’ Movement will be able to make a significant contribution at the cutting edge of change in South Africa. I hope also that this contribution will cut across all the political, religious, cultural, linguistic, class, and other lines that we are too often tempted to draw between us in our rich and diverse nation. In contrast to such lines that can divide, our common citizenship should be a powerful tie that binds us to one another. We should not be afraid to acknowledge, and indeed joyfully affirm, that we share together one over-riding common interest: to bring about a flourishing future for us all, through the flourishing of all the promises our constitutional democracy offers to us.

All of us yearn for a South Africa of which we can be proud: a place in which – to borrow your own words, Mamphela – we ‘lay to rest the ghosts’ of our past! Above all else, we do not want the pressure of these ghosts to fall upon those too young to have any personal experience of those difficult and divisive years. We want them to be free of the heavy and dehumanising hand that lay upon us all, and which demeaned and diminished so many. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that education must be one of our highest priorities. Thank you, Mamphela, for making it so within the Citizens’ Movement.

When Archbishops ponder education, it is not long before their thoughts are drawn, as they were with citizenship, to Jesus! For it is crystal clear that he was a remarkable teacher:
• a teacher who cared for everyone;
• a teacher who educated by walking with humanity in the ups and downs of our lives; and by walking with each individual he encountered, in their own uniqueness;
• a teacher who encourages and delights, with his vivid, thought-provoking parables; and
• a teacher who models by the example of his own life.
And he is a teacher who calls us all to follow in his steps. So I am doubly grateful, Mamphela, that education is one of the key areas on which the Citizens’ Movement for Social Change has chosen to focus.

So let me now, briefly, make some comments about education, as a means of helping set the context of today’s Summit. What is the task of education?

A rather simplistic response is that its role is to disseminate learning. But, more than just communicating information – facts and figures, opinions and arguments, practices and procedures – it must equip us for living in today’s world. And today’s world is complex, pluralist, and multicultural world. For many of the questions that we face, there are no neutral answers to the moral and ethical challenges to which all our contexts give rise. This is true of all of us, young people included: from the choices we make within our families and closest relationships, to the careers young people aspire to pursue, and the influences that all have, in big ways and small, in shaping our nation.

Education must therefore include enabling individuals to become competent and skilled in engaging well with life. It must prepare young people to tackle wisely and well the ethical and moral questions that endlessly arise in every area of human activity; and so to play a constructive role in wider society. Education must help us all become committed, constructively engaged citizens, who understand what it means to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, in South Africa and the wider world.

Questions of good judgement face us at every turn: from how we utilise the finite resources of our planet through to the way we live as spouses, parents, neighbours, colleagues, employers, employees – every choice has consequences, for ourselves, for others. And it is not enough merely to speak broadly of seeking a world of justice and fairness for all, which moves towards overcoming inequalities, and strives to promote conditions in which all may have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. We also need to have sharp mental tools that help us analyse more specifically what it means in practice, so we may discern what is tangibly possible and how we can achieve it.

The task before us is great. Alongside the legacies of the past are new challenges, not least increasing economic disparities and the inequalities that flow from these. Further, as we have seen in vivid ways in the last two weeks, we have not yet learnt enough about how to live with one another’s different and distinctive cultural norms, in ways that affirm all that is good, and that express mutual respect and uphold the dignity of everyone. We do not do ourselves any favours if we pretend these challenges are less significant, less serious, than they are; or that there are simple and easy solutions. But to name the challenges is the first step in facing them, and overcoming them.

Jesus said ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free’. And above all else, education is in the business of helping us know what the truth is, and responding with honesty, and justice, and all that is good and right and true. So may God bless you all, richly, in today’s meeting – so that you, and all with whom you engage, through the Citizen’s Movement, and through your hopes for education: so that you may be a blessing to others and to this nation. Thank you.

To the Laos - To The People of God, October 2010

Dear People of God

At the end of September over two hundred Anglicans gathered in the spring sunshine in Benoni for our triennial Provincial Synod. The shortened mid-term school break meant finding a new venue for our gathering, and we were certainly not disappointed by the generous hospitality (though well within budget, which pleased our Treasurer!) offered by the Kopanong Conference Centre. Its name means ‘place of meeting’ in seSotho, and it lived up to its billing as a wonderful spot to ‘come away together’ to seek the Lord’s will for our Church.

The tone was set for our meeting with our first reading at the opening Eucharist. This was taken from Habakkuk, 2:1-4, and included these words:

I will keep watch to see what the Lord will say to me … Then the LORD answered and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets ... for there is still a vision for the appointed time.

Thanks be to God, who indeed gave us a strong sense that the time had come to take forward the Vision towards which we have been working, during the last two years. After discussions in Conference working groups and debate in Synod plenary, the Vision and Mission Statement were endorsed, together with outline strategies for the eight priority themes (liturgical renewal; theological education; leadership formation; health, including HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria; the environment; women and gender; protection and nurture of children and young people; public advocacy). As we take these forward, one key tasks is to ‘make it plain’, communicating clearly how initiatives by the Province can support and encourage the priorities of Dioceses and Parishes. Synod invited us to give particular focus to the Vision on 30 November, the Feast of St Andrew, Patron Saint of Mission. Watch this space!

Of course, many other issues were discussed and motions passed. Reports of these have been posted on the ACSA website, where you will also find the statement from the Synod of Bishops meeting that preceded Provincial Synod, the full text of my Charge, and also the sermons that the Revd Sarah Rowland Jones preached at our morning Eucharists, which helped set the tone for each day’s agenda (see www.anglicanchurchsa.org). The full motions will also shortly be posted there.

These ranged from long-standing concerns for greater equality for women in the Church (there was enthusiastic support when the hope was expressed that we might see our first women bishops by the time we next meet in three years time – and disappointment that this has not yet happened, though we passed enabling legislation in 1992), through to urgent issues, including political reform in Swaziland; the long border delays for people from Lesotho entering South Africa; and the housing situation and apparent excessive violence at Hangberg in Cape Town – where we called for a judicial commission of enquiry. We also called for members of the South African parliament to vote with their consciences, should the Protection of Information Bill be brought before them, noting that free access to information is a vital foundation of democracy.

One important decision was the initial adoption of the Anglican Covenant, though this will require ratification at our next Provincial Synod for the process to be completed. As I said in my Charge, this is not a perfect document, but it certainly offers a way of affirming our desire to live together as Provinces, within our global family; a means of getting the balance right through an autonomy that is neither imposed uniformity, nor unbounded independence. My prayer is that we will now be able to share our unique experiences of letting Christ hold us together in difference, within the life of the Covenant, and help it to work as well as possible.

Reflecting the ‘bonds of affection’ that bind Anglicans together, we offered our support and prayers to Anglicans in Zimbabwe, and sent congratulations to the Anglican Church in Nigeria on their country’s 50th anniversary of independence as well as expressing shock at the bomb blasts there.

It was a great joy to have Bishop Jean-Zaché Duracin of Haiti join us both for the meeting of the Synod of Bishops and Provincial Synod. I hope that we can build on our links with his Diocese in the long, long journey of reconstruction that lies ahead of them. I am glad to report that we are establishing partnership links between schools, and have agreed to train a Haitian cleric for 3 years at COTT and a further year at the Anglican House of Studies.

It was also my privilege to invest Dr Mamphela Ramphele as a Member of the Order of Simon of Cyrene. Addressing Synod, she spoke of the radical brokenness which still characterises much of South African society – words that resonated with my own Charge reference to the brutalising effect of apartheid, including on those who were conscripted. This led to a very moving debate and Synod motion on tackling the effects, and bringing healing, to all who were involved or impacted in any way by conscription. We shall be looking carefully at how we address the emotional scars of having to bear arms, which so many people of every background across our churches, across our Province, still carry.

While we were not afraid to tackle some of the taboos of today’s society, we also took time to relax and get to know one another better across the rich diversity of our Province. We did more than just ‘break bread’ together in the Moshate Restaurant – its name means ‘royal house’ in sePedi, and we dined like minor kings and queens at the excellent buffets. And after long days of work, almost equally long discussions into the night were held, by some at least, in the Imbizo Bar! It was a time of great joy and laughter, sharing in our common life.

Our heartfelt thanks go to Bishop David Bannerman and to the Diocese of the Highveld for their warm and generous hospitality; to all of the Administrative Team and everyone else who worked unstintingly behind the scenes; and especially to our Kopanong hosts.

Most of all, we thank God for his blessing upon us, and his promises to prosper our work, as we seek to follow his will in his world. To him be the praise and the glory!

Yours in the Service of Christ

+Thabo Cape Town

Church Gives Award to “Prophetic” Mamphela Ramphele

The Anglican Church of Southern Africa has given its highest award for lay members of the church to business leader, academic and social activist Dr Mamphela Ramphele, hailing her as “one of South Africa’s greatest prophetic voices.”

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town admitted Dr Ramphele to the order of Simon of Cyrene at a meeting of the church’s Provincial Synod in Benoni today.

In its citation for the award, the church said that after acting “with fierce determination to overcome the injustices of the apartheid regime at a time when it was at its most brutal,” Dr Ramphele still “continues in her campaign for justice and for the rights of women, the poor and marginalised.”

Citing Dr Ramphele’s role in convening the Dinokeng Scenarios, the church said her work was based on “an idealism and hope coming from her shrewd and independent analytical mind, making her one of South Africa’s greatest prophetic voices.”

Dr Ramphele is a former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town and a former director of the World Bank.