EDITOR’S NOTE: Time to throw away the bad words and keep the good

SOME great leaders and luminaries who have changed the world for the better – like Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein – could probably be forgiven for some shockingly backward and painful words and views they expressed somewhere in their personal timeline of history.

The world they lived in was itself very dark, still being enlightened and developed. And some of their earlier racist, misogynistic and other disdainfully othering views could have been discarded over time as they developed into the great leaders they became. But how then does one explain similarly shocking views of leaders of the “information age” of today like the Reverend Vukile Mehana?

As an umfundisi (“teacher”), society and the ANC, of which he is chaplain, expected progressive guidance and teachings.

Had Mehana kept his regressive views to himself until the party’s January 8 anniversary, he’d now be preparing to share the stage with Cosatu’s first female president.

He would likely keep his speech and prayers PC, but we now know how he feels about women in leadership.

Zingiswa Losi, and other female leaders who should be encouraged instead of being disparaged, would be none the wiser standing alongside him. And everyone would think all was well. Well, it clearly is not.

Mehana was supposed to internalise and teach the gospel of the ANC’s 50-50 policy. There are many verses he could also quote from in our world-revered Constitution.

Is a Pauline conversion still possible for the man of the cloth?