Religious voice is important
The country is in a crisis, and political leadership appears to be in a state of paralysis, and yet the answer to this question is not for us to throw up our hands in despair. Can we as desperate South Africans find a solution, and where would it come from? Religion plays an important role in the life of our people; in fact nearly 80% of people in SA subscribe to one form of religion or another. The interfaith community is large, and forms a significant cog of life in this country, and whatever contribution such organisation can make to help society find itself, will be a welcome relief. Therefore, finding solutions to many of our problems requires all hands on deck, and not only the wisdom of politicians or academics, important as these groupings may be.
At the onset of our democracy in 1994, we made a commitment to coexist in our diversity, and by extension, this meant all formations have a specific role to make to fix whatever requires fixing in our troubled land – and there are many broken things that we need to sort in our country. The unemployment statistics are shockingly high, and we all have to appreciate that if many people– young women and young men– remain unemployed–this may just serve as a catalyst for more socioeconomic problems. Unemployment, besides being a socioeconomic ill that strips people of their human dignity, has other unintended consequences: it exarcebates acts of criminality, and we daresay, the drug problem we experience today, is in part, and in large measures, fuelled by this socioeconomic condition. So we need to to talk and dialogue. The importantance of the SA Unite in Prayer gathering at FNB Stadium, Nasrec, Johannesburg, yesterday should be seen in this context. Churches, and representative of other faiths – including Islam and African religion, gathered in their number to finds a solution to many problems besetting our country. There was ZCC leader Bishop Barnabas Lekganyane; Ray McCauley, the leadership of the Shembe church, and many others, to look at all the socio economic challenges.
We need to put our differences aside, and work for the unity of our nation, and the eradication of all that which stifles progress.