By Jo-Mangaliso Mdhlela
Despite frequent and frightening political dark clouds hovering over the country’s skies, author, priest, theologian, and social justice campaigner, the Reverend Dr Wesley Madonda Mabuza prays for the restoration of the rational political discourse in the country.
In an interview, Mabuza, the author of the new book, Keeping the Spirit of Kairos Alive, a book you could loosely describe as an expanded sequel to the 1985 Kairos Document, makes a compelling appeal for the serious deconstruction of church theology so as for society to uncover the richness of contextual theologies that speak to current socio-economic, political, and ideological realities of the day.
He says the Kairos Document was nourished and marinated by concepts of liberation theological wisdom meant to help liberate the suffering masses who were oppressed by the apartheid rule.
The document was meant to countervail the force-fed state theology used by the regime to brainwash black people – giving an illusion that the black person’s liberation would come in the afterlife.
Such theology sought to justify the prevailing oppressive political system as divinely ordained, legitimising oppression, racism, and authoritarianism.
During the 1980s, the state gave itself a state of emergency regulations to use extra-judicial authority to crush and curb rolling mass action orchestrated by black political activism supported by trade unions and church activism.
During that period, the killing of anti-apartheid political activists became rife. There were 575 political killings orchestrated by the regime in 1985 and 284 in 1986, accompanied by 172 deaths resulting from “political necklacing excesses”, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) final report.
The TRC also reported that between 1948, when the apartheid regime first came into power, and 1994, at the beginning of the constitutional democratic order, 21,000 people had lost their lives as a result of state-orchestrated political killings.
Times were bad. In 1985, the National Party had been in power for 37 years. In 1948, when it ascended political power, under prime minister DF Malan, the party promised its constituencies it would legalise “a structured, ideological system of total racial separation” to prohibit any integration among different races.
The white population would own the whole of the so-called “white South Africa” with black population in the so-called “white urban areas” allowed to occupy “white areas” on the understanding they were “temporary sojourners”, but “rightly” belonged to the homelands.
Of the Kairos Document, Mabuza said: “The Kairos Document sought to debunk that myth. It became incisive in its condemnation of state theology propounded by the apartheid regime.
“Our prayer was that the system would be defeated by the people’s power, and the book, Keeping the Spirit of the Kairos Alive, is an effort to remind the new democratic order of the government of national unity (GNU) that even today, in a democracy, things are not going too well,” said Mabuza.
Mabuza says the Kairos Document in the 1980s was explicit in its call “for Christians to participate in the struggle for liberation as a precursor for the creation of a just, democratic society.
“Yes, democracy we have. But what is its value when black people continue to live in squalor?”
Writing the book 41 years after the publication of the Kairos Document in 1985, Mabuza says this “is to remind us that many people sacrificed their lives, and we should guard against those who desecrate democracy.”
“People died fighting for this democracy. Think of people such as Steve Biko, Solomon Mahlangu, Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto, Sicelo Mhlauli, Neil Agget, Griffith Mxenge, Abraham Ongopotse Tiro, Chris Hani, among others.”
“For more than 30 years of our democracy the church has been silent about acts of gross injustices and corruption committed by our leaders.
“My book reflects on those challenges, reminding society it has a duty to create God’s kingdom on Earth by speaking up against the injustice of any form, even when perpetrated by black leaders”
In the last chapter of the new book, Mabuza reflects on what would happen if the church were to relapse into “church theology”.
Social action by the church, he suggests, must entail the church’s interaction with all sectors of society serving as light in places of darkness, and dispensing its liberation theologies “to keep society alive with hope”.
The church must always speak with ethical authority, emphasising the values of social justice and of the reign of God.
The Kairos Document sought to dislodge the suffering from the iron grip of the apartheid tyranny.
“And today the church must do the same, fighting corruption and misgovernance wherever it occurs.”
In his book, Mabuza is challenging society to be more involved in dismantling “the country’s corrupt system” and poor governance fraught with malfeasance and unethical behaviour by many black political leaders holding high office in government.
Mabuza is a retired Methodist priest, former chairperson of the Diakonia Council of Churches, former director of Mission and Evangelism of the South African Council Churches, and former director of the Institute for Contextual Theology.
(The book, Keeping the Spirit of Kairos Alive, is available in most bookshops)
· Mdhlela is a freelance journalist, a former trade unionist, and an Anglican priest.
