Religious Peace-building in South Africa: From Potential to Practice

Abstract

While post-conflict peace-building is a much-researched topic, the potential of religious actors to contribute to the process remains underexplored. This article examines this neglected dimension of peace-building through a particular focus on South Africa and its Christian churches. Emphasizing the ‘ambivalence of the sacred’, it contrasts the negative role that many churches played during the apartheid years with some of the very valuable peace-building work that is taking place today—particularly the empowering of communities, the development of antiviolence strategies and psycho-social healing. Arguing, however, that much of this work is often undertaken in a very compartmentalized way, it advocates a more holistic approach to peace-building that reaches across racial and class divides. It also emphasizes that for religious peace-building to achieve its full potential, South African society must address pervasive structural violence; there can be no reconciliation in the face of massive economic injustice and inequality. This research is based on 6 weeks of fieldwork in South Africa and semistructured interviews with various religious actors.

Notes

This author's existing work has sought to test empirically—and ultimately challenge—the notion that criminal courts contribute to reconciliation (see, e.g. Clark 2009a, 2009b, 2010b, 2011).

Ramsbotham et al. (2005, p. 22) explain that ‘… whereas normally people within the conflict are seen as the problem, with outsiders providing the solution to the conflict, in the perspective of peace-building from below, solutions are derived and built from local resources’.

The word ‘blacks’ is employed in this paper to refer to South Africa's non-white population in general rather than specifically to the black population per se.

Terre'Blanche, the leader of the far-right Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement, was killed by two of his black farm workers in Ventersdorp, in North West province, in April 2010. His funeral was held in the Afrikaner Protestant Church and drew far-right extremists from across the country. According to a local journalist, ‘This town is dominated by white Afrikaners. The black people here are scared. In the next two months it won't settle down. Anything could happen’ (cited in Smith, 2010, p. 22).

In 2009, a group of white students at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein humiliated and abused five black cleaners, as a protest against the integration of black students into the university. The incident was filmed and subsequently put on YouTube (as an act of revenge by one of the student's former girlfriends). While this scandal made headline news, it is symptomatic of a more widespread problem. For example, ‘A recent ANC [African National Congress]-backed report found that racism is still rife in South African universities’ (McDougall, 2009).

During a wave of xenophobic attacks in May 2008, more than 60 people were killed and thousands were displaced from their homes. One commentator notes, however, that even before this, ‘… refugees and foreign nationals were regular targets of violent crime as a long-standing and increasingly prominent feature of post-apartheid South Africa’ (Ramjathan-Keough, 2009, p. 8). More recently, in July 2010, violence against non-nationals erupted in the Western Cape. Foreign shopkeepers were threatened and forced from their stores, which were subsequently looted (Dolley, 2010).

This term is borrowed from Appleby (2000, p. 9), for whom it denotes ‘people who have been formed by a religious community and who are acting with the intent to uphold, extend or defend its values and precepts’.

Nelson (2003, p. 63) observes that ‘According to a 1996 census, approximately 75 percent of a population of more than 42 million South Africans adheres to the Christian faith’.

This is an example of what the TRC Report terms ‘ecclesial apartheid’ (TRC, 1998, p. 91).

Botman (2004b, p. 244) argues that formal church apartheid within the DRC began during the nineteenth century. This meant that within the DRC there were in fact three churches—the white, the black and the coloured. In 1994, however, the black and coloured branches of the DRC united to form the Uniting Reformed Church.

Chapman (2003a, p. 3) notes that ‘Some of the earliest colonizers were missionaries, and the Christian faith was sometimes used as a rationale to defend colonial rule’.

According to Du Toit (1983, p. 927), ‘A central thesis of the Calvinist paradigm of Afrikaner history is that the ideology of a Chosen People functioned to legitimate racial inequality and oppression. The early Afrikaners’ rejection of any form of gelijkstelling (“leveling”) of blacks and whites must be understood in terms of the underlying Calvinist dichotomy between the elect and the nonelect'.

On 19 November 1997, the then DRC leader came before the TRC and apologized to ‘the people’. Reverend Swanepoel revealed that ‘Our hearts ache and we confess that great wrongs have been done’ (Independent, 1997). Tutu (1999, p. 145), moreover, maintains that, ‘Very few churches have been as forthright [as the DRC] in acknowledging the error of their ways’.

Apropos of Zionist communities, one authority remarks that ‘These gentle, peace-loving people are not engaged in a crusade of social reform. They are not intent on moving the earth by social upheaval … Zionists have never espoused any political cause’ (J.P. Kiernan, cited in Adam & Moodley 1986, p. 201).

A report by the Research Institute on Christianity in South Africa (RICSA) (1999, p. 19) underlined ‘the heterogeneous nature of faith communities in South Africa’ and thereby observed that ‘… it is difficult to locate a single norm that all would share and that could function as an evaluative yardstick for their behaviour within society during the period with which the Commission [TRC] is concerned’.

Every black person aged 16 and over was required to carry a pass. Failure to produce this document on request could result in arrest.

A copy of the Cottesloe Declaration is available online at: http://www.ngkerk.org.za/abid/dokumente/amptelikkestukke/Cottesloe%20declaration%201960.pdf

The Kairos Document is available online at: http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/library-resources/official%20docs/kairos-document.htm

What is interesting is that South Africa's TRC process arguably traded justice for peace and reconciliation. Tutu (1999, p. 27), for example, explains that ‘We have had to balance the requirements of justice, accountability, stability, peace and reconciliation. We could very well have had retributive justice, and had a South Africa lying in ashes—a truly Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one’. For one commentator, therefore, ‘… the TRC was destined to wear the grubby clothes of compromise’ (Bell with Ntsebeza, 2003, p. 18).

Chapman (2003a, p. 3) observes that ‘As the political transition became more likely, some religious actors sought to prepare for and encourage a democratic future … When political compromise seemed elusive, members of the religious community helped to bring politicians back to the negotiating table’. As one example of this, Bam—speaking on behalf of the Methodist Church—underscores that ‘You must not forget our running around in the negotiation process and our running around, which is not documented, on the Peace Accord. All the mediation and persuasion was behind closed doors, and so most people do not realize the part the church played in those things. In fact we gave birth to the Peace Accord, not the politicians or business people’ (cited in Chapman & Spong 2003, p. 28). Bam is referring here to the National Peace Accord, which, with the support of the South African Council of Churches, was launched in September 1991 to help facilitate the country's democratic transition.

According to Chapman (2008, p. 66), ‘One of the several unique features of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was its emphasis on forgiveness … Sometimes, but not always, commissioners’ efforts to encourage forgiveness had religious overtones'.

Shore & Kline (2006, p. 310), for example, point out that ‘… some observers have criticized the TRC leadership for adopting a religious-redemptive understanding of their mandate’.

The interviewee explained, for example, that if a victim ran into difficulties while giving testimony and became too distressed to continue, the audience—or what in his view could be more accurately described as ‘a congregation’—would sing hymns in order to give the victim moral strength and support. Author interview, Cape Town, 6 August 2010.

This nexus between reconciliation and forgiveness, however, is much debated in the literature. Villa-Vicencio (2009, p. 171), for example, maintains that, ‘Reconciliation does not necessarily involve forgiveness. Antagonists need not forgive one another or love one another in order to explore the beginning of new relationships’ (see also Bloomfield, 2006, p. 25).

The Reconciliation Barometer Survey focuses on six key areas, namely human security, political culture, cross-cutting political relationships, dialogue, historical confrontation and race relations.

When the author visited Unit 14, there was only one man in the congregation. According to a member of the Manyano, it is very rare for men from the community to attend church (focus group, Edendale, 1 August 2010).

In Edendale township, for example, ‘The local murder rate is roughly double the national average—and nearly one hundred times that of the UK …’ (Garner, 2000, p. 317). Similarly in Mpophomeni, also in KwaZulu-Natal, ‘The level of violence is … so high that no ambulance will go into the township, whatever day or time of the week, without a police escort’ (Roalkvam, 2009, p. 3). Moreover, these particular townships are far from unique. According to a 2008 National Youth Lifestyle Study by the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention (CJCP) in Cape Town, involving 4,409 young people between the ages of 12 and 24 throughout South Africa, 50.5% of respondents had watched people in their community deliberately harming each other (Leoschut, 2009, p. 28).

Of South Africa's nine provinces, KwaZulu-Natal is the worst affected by AIDS, a fact that has ‘led some to call it “the AIDS capital of the world”’ (Richardson, 2009, p. viii).

In Appleby's (2000, p. 203) words, ‘More than a cessation of violence, reconciliation involves a fundamental restoration of the human spirit’.

In 2009, South Africa's Gini coefficient stood at 0.70 per capita income (Woolard et al., 2009, p. 99). The Gini coefficient measures inequality within a country, with zero representing perfect equality and unity representing perfect inequality.

Research by the IJR, moreover, has revealed that, ‘In 2007, the earnings of the poorest 10% of South Africans constituted only 0.6% of the GDP, whereas the top 10% earned an astounding 72.5%’ (Du Toit, 2009, p. 5).

Owing to gender inequalities and the fact that African women have far less control over their bodies than men, ‘Sub-Saharan Africa is the only place in the world where HIV infection is greater among women than among men’ (Snyman, 2009, p. 202).

In the 4 years following Mandela's release from prison on 11 February 1990, for example, more than 15,000 people were killed, mainly due to fierce fighting in KwaZulu-Natal between Mandela's ANC and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's IFP. According to Welsh (2000, pp. 508–509), ‘In July 1990 what was in effect a civil war broke out there between Inkatha and the ANC/UDF [United Democratic Front]. Hundreds of people were killed within weeks, as armed men ravaged commuter trains, shooting passengers, and mine-hostel dwellers sallied forth to beat and kill any ANC/UDF supporters they could find’. In Mandela's words (1995, p. 701), ‘Our country was bleeding to death …’

According to the CJCP, ‘The country's levels of violence (as reflected in the official murder statistics) are unquestionably among the highest in the world, with a murder rate of 38.6 per 100,000 people’ (Leoschut, 2009, p. 1).

A National Youth Lifestyle Survey conducted by the CJCP in 2008 revealed that 51.7% of the 4,391 respondents had been hit, caned or spanked by educators or the principal (Leoschut, 2009, p. 3).

There is still, for example, considerable stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS (Ward, 2009, p. 158), as a result of which those infected with the disease may be shunned by their own community. The Institute's aim is thus to provide sufferers with a forum in which they can express their emotions, how they are feeling, what they are experiencing, and so on.

Diakonia itself runs stress and trauma healing workshops.

Halpern & Weinstein (2004, p. 306) argue that for reconciliation, ‘an empathic connection must occur’.

Moghalu (2009, p. 90), for example, remarks that ‘There is no empirical proof of any situation … where trials have in and of themselves created reconciliation’. It has been suggested, therefore, that ‘The expectations of the international community for trials should be limited to an agreement that retributive punishment is appropriate and sufficient in and of itself; that reconciliation processes may be of another order entirely, and that the relationship between justice and reconciliation remains unclear’ (Weinstein et al., 2010, p. 31).