Success or Failure?

I read this morning that in the USA $12 will buy 3 lattes.  Whereas in Tanzania the same amount $12 will pay for one child's education for one year.  We live in a world of disparities.  No one at either end is to blame, all are caught in these distortions against their will.  But we can do our part to work to change "the system".



As a teacher, Desmond Tutu despised another system... grand apartheid.  So he decided to become a priest, a role in which he could better influence people to work for change.  He eventually became a Bishop, and later even Archbishop.  His voice is still crying, although the wilderness around him has changed.  This week in the Mail & Guardian newspaper he wrote that South Africa is "the most unequal society in the world".



He highlighted corruption, unaccountability and weaknesses in the constitution as key areas that need to be addressed.




I mentioned this to a friend today at the coffee hour after church.  He has a good Anglican pedigree and says that during his years of compulsory military service, he always went to church on Sundays.  At the time, Desmond Tutu was Bishop.  He used to send out pastoral letters that every priest had to read out loud in every church.  He said that he remembers cringing to hear these letters read out loud.  He felt at the time that what Tutu was saying had little to do with faith or worship.  And serving as a soldier at the time, it made him very uncomfortable.



Perhaps that is our role in the ministry of Advocacy?  It's a bit like the saying about NGOs - that they are there to "comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable".   I am trying to do my part in both respects.




Over breakfast earlier in the week, another friend had an interesting take on what I call "triumphalism".  This basically encompasses the terms "corruption and unaccountability" that Tutu used, as quoted above.  He says that for about 40 years after the Anglo-Boer war, the British practiced it in South Africa.  Not only blacks but other whites namely those of Dutch descent were marginalized.  Then from 1948 the Afrikaners, who had lost the war, won the peace.  Apartheid was installed and for another 40 years, the Boers practiced triumphalism.  He grew up in this period as a boy of English descent.  He said it was very open and frank that ONLY Afrikaners would occupy the upper eschelons of power.  Others could get on with their private affairs, but were sidelined.



His somewhat fatalistic view is that the same thing is now happening again.  This time, it is the black ANC comrades who are in control.  And they are having a heyday.  They are feathering their own nests.  They are (like goats in the African proverb) "eating where they are tethered".  They are shameless about it.  Opportunism reigns.  C4L has encountered this first hand.




I recently consulted with an Advocate in the High Court about corruption.  He warned me that the way it was once seen - even by the courts - has changed.  He said that there are no longer absolutes - you are no longer just guilty or innocent.  He said it is now relativistic - everyone is corrupt, so it is not fair for one judge to penalize offenders more than others have done.  So the system is adjusting itself.  Or as some would argue - going soft or rotten.



This week Tutu wrote that he was a strong supporter of the ANC during "the Struggle" against white minority rule.  But citing inequality, violence and corruption, he stated that he would sadly not be able to vote for the ANC any longer.  These are sharp words, which by the way do not make C4L's life any easier!  For C4L operates in the province that is the bastion of ANC support.



Nevertheless, I feel that his diagnostics are still working.  Corruption is as big an enemy today as Apartheid was in the 1980s.  The great problem with Triumphalism is that it tries to validate corruption with a simpe retort: "It's our turn".




Pray for me as I walk down a fine line.  One foot treads in the direct conflict between C4L and triumphalists who have caused us harm and damages.  The other foot treads in anti-corruption rhetoric and advocacy.  (A sign on my door reads: You are entering a corruption free zone.)  While there may be synergy between these two, each one could also complicate the other.  Pray for wisdom and discernment as well as for clear insight and courage.



By the way, if you are uncomfortable with what I say at times, ask yourself (and me too, please) if I am failing or succeeding?!