Religion continues to be the glue that binds SA together

• Published date: 30 June 2023
• Publication title: Mercury

More importantly, it symbolises the willingness of the Prophet Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, when God ordered him to do so in a dream as an act of obedience. As a reward to his resolute faith, God instead sent a lamb to be sacrificed

No doubt the traditional message of Eid Mubarak (Blessed Festival) will echo all over, including from President Cyril Ramaphosa and other dignitaries.

While race understandably still dominates the South African psyche, it is religion, especially the adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – warts and all, that has featured prominently both in the struggle against colonialism and apartheid, and in their justification and therefore proliferation.

Who can forget the racist intellectualisation of the then Dutch Reformed Church (Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk or NGK), and its neo-facist Calvinist extreme which underpinned the breakaway Herstigte Nasionale Party, led by the arch verkramptes, Albert Hertzog and Jaap Marais, who eagerly espoused the moral justification of apartheid and the utterly discredited “divine right” of the Whites to rule South Africa.

In contrast, the founders of the ANC in general were well rooted in God-fearing social Christian conservatism, largely perpetuated by the missionary school ethos.

A quirk of history saw the brutal Dutch colonialists exile a “troublesome” anti-colonialist Muslim activist, Prince Yusuf of Batavia, part of the Malay Archipelago, to the Cape of Good Hope in 1693 complete with an extensive entourage and thousands of Malay slaves.

This is not to marginalise the contribution to the struggle by other faith traditions including the African traditional religions, Hinduism and those of no faith, including communists and atheists.

Promoting racial, religious and societal diversity and freedom is a mainstay of the South African Constitution and Bill of Rights. This is also part of the ANC government’s social cohesion and nation-building strategy for the new South Africa. This is one area that the governing ANC in general seems to be getting it right. When it comes to faith traditions, ANC leaders bend over backwards to accommodate their events, ceremonies and entities.

In June 2023, Deputy President Paul Mashatile, an ex-secretary-general of the SACP in Gauteng and that of the United Democratic Front (UDF), attended the 30th Annual International Pentecost Holiness Church graduations and thanksgiving ceremony in Zuurbekom in Gauteng.

...