Pride, reverence for life has been lost
ARCHBISHOP Desmond Tutu delivered the Steve Biko Memorial Lecture at the University of Cape Town in September 2006. Here is an excerpt:
I HAVE often said black consciousness did not finish the work it set out to do.
Why have we lost our deeply African reverence for life? Just look at what happens with a car hijack. The scared owner hands over the keys and for no earthly reason he/she will be shot dead in cold blood for the sheer hell of it: utterly gratuitously, wantonly.
Is it not horrendous to an African, even before black consciousness came on the scene, for an adult man to rape a nine-month-old baby? What has come over us?
Perhaps we did not realise just how apartheid has damaged us, that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong. So that when we go on strike, as is our right to do, we are not appalled that some of us can chuck people out of moving trains because they did not join the strike.
Why is it common practice now to trash, to go on the rampage? It seems as if we have perverted our freedom, our rights into licence, into being irresponsible. Rights go hand in hand with responsibility, with dignity, with respect for oneself and for others.
Can you tell me why we think it is okay to litter? Why are we so unmindful of our environment? Of course many of us still live in poverty and squalor. But although we were poor long ago, we used to be proud of our surroundings, sweeping even the street.
There are many neighbourhoods that make you proud, where people have cultivated lawns and gardens. The people who don’t care are the first to want to sit on those lawns and they will often leave their trash behind.
We must tell these people littering is a crime, but it is also a sin. We despoil God’s creation of which we are supposed to be stewards.
Why do we think it is okay to litter?