Special Hearings — Faith Community Hearings — 1997-11-17

CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me, I really don't want to interrupt what is a very moving   account but there is just this whole question of time constraint, how much more   have you got?

UNKNOWN: Just one page.

CHAIRPERSON: One? Thank you, sorry, you were at a semi-colon.

UNKNOWN: The second concrete way in which this happened was that Evangelicals   tended to oppose those who were involved in the struggle against apartheid and   vilified them. Thirdly, the apartheid segregationist policies were part and   parcel of the institutions and lastly, the legitimisation of human rights violations   by the State machinery in the whole anti-communist rationale of the time.
Reflecting on the future, I'd like to take this opportunity Mr Chairman, to   just thank the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in sense, for helping to   disclose the truth about the past because, because of that, there has been a   sense of awakening and a sense of realisation by a lot within our movement -   people who felt or did not know or claimed not to know, that a lot of these   things have been revealed. And we have seen a marked shift in a number of the   people, who in the past would have uninvolved and unconcerned. So, because of   the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we have been able to find it easy to   mobilise local churches in particular, to become more actively involved with   the victims of human rights violations. And we've discussed this programme with   the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to see in what way the churches at   a local level, can begin to be involved in reparation. 
We've also set up a fund through which we make it possible for ordinary Evangelicals   to take personal ownership of the process of Reconciliation and Reparation because   - as you will remember, a few years ago at the Rustenberg Conference a lot of   our leadership confessed sins of omission and commission and it is an opportunity   - in the light of those confessions, to take the process forward and allow ordinary   Evangelicals, local churches and various institutions to begin to make personal   contributions to the process of reparation through a fund that we have set up.
We continue also to look at how we can bring human rights violations or human   rights as an issue, more centrally to the agenda of Evangelicals through a process   of education for democracy which we have started. I'd like to pause there and   allow my colleagues to add - if I may Mr Chairman?

CHAIRPERSON: Maybe you want to switch of yours.
Is there anyone of you who might want to - Mr Lafoy, yes?

MR LAFOY: Thank you Mr Chairman. Just to add to what my colleague as stated   and further develop point number 3 - but briefly. Failing to live up to the   faith and contributing to human rights violations, we must confess - as Evangelical   Pentecostals, that our leadership frequently participated in government commissions.   An example the John Vorster Commission that led to the closing of the Christian   Institute and the banning of Doctor Beyers Naude, effectively demonising the   true prophetic voice which has left the church disadvantaged today. 
When 25 years ago we proclaimed the direction of the nation, the precipice   and the end result? - we were justiced by being told that Jesus Christ will   come before all that will happen. The slave mentality of the preponderous groups   within our church further empowered the conservative right. Frequently our leadership   travelled around the world to counter the SACC so-called propaganda, claiming   to speak for 11 million Evangelical Pentecostal christians.
Point 2 On our way forward. We need to say that the reconstruction and development   programme in building houses, sports fields and the upliftment of our community   is very important but we have a nation with an identity crisis. We have a nation   with damaged minds, we have cripple care societies which care for people with   broken backs and withered limbs but we do not have a society that cares for   people with broken minds.
We have people who hate themselves, hate the Negroid blood that flows in them   and if we do not give attention in the reconstruction - not just of schools,   but the reconstruction of the minds of our people, then we will miserably fail   our country at a time like this.
There's a necessity - finally Mr Chairman, to create a new value system concerning   life. We have a value system in South Africa where White life is very important   and Black life is nothing. Pro-life people want to protect the unborn child   and we as the church support that but those same people did not protect life   - living life, in children, youth and elderly, simply because they were Black.   And until we create a value system where all life - as created by God, is important,   we as the church will fail our society at this point in time. Thank you Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Yes?