BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
Document envisages the role of religion in the public realm in South
Africa after its 52nd National Conference in late 2007. Following the
dramatic shift in power that took place at this National Conference in
Polokwane, when Thabo Mbeki sought a third term as ANC President
but was soundly rejected in favour of Jacob Zuma, the third and final
section of the essay examines to what extent the “The RDP of the Soul”
Policy Discussion Document has been taken up, concluding that a quite
different form of religion has made its way into South Africa’s public
life.
Mbeki’s deployment of religion
Having observed the gradual withdrawal of Christianity and religion in
general from the public realm after 1994, and Nelson Mandela’s careful
refusal to use religion in the public realm and his even more careful
refusal to refer to a specific religious tradition, I was surprised and in-
trigued by an extract of an article by President Thabo Mbeki which was
published in the Mail & Guardian newspaper in June 2003, in which
Mbeki referred directly to the Bible. The extract was taken from the May
30 edition of ANC Today (Mbeki 2003). Mbeki begins his online letter by
referring to the Bible: “In the Biblical Gospel according to St Matthew, it
is said that Jesus Christ saw Simon Peter and his brother Andrew fish-
ing in the Sea of Galilee. And he said to them: ‘Follow Me and I will
make you fishers of men’ [Matthew 4:19]”. In the next line he goes on to
interpret this biblical passage by saying that
Perhaps taking a cue from this, some in our country have appointed them-
selves as ‘fishers of corrupt men’. Our governance system is the sea in
which they have chosen to exercise their craft. From everything they say, it is
clear that they know it as a matter of fact that they are bound to return from
their fishing expeditions with huge catches of corrupt men (and women)
(Mbeki 2003:1).
The rest of his letter develops this theme, sustaining the ‘fishing’ meta-
phor throughout. The thrust of Mbeki’s letter is clear. He is deeply dis-
tressed by those in our country that assume the government is corrupt
simply because it is a predominantly (black) African government. He
rejects their “highly offensive and deeply entrenched stereotype of Afri-
cans” as they seek “to portray Africans as a people that are corrupt, given
to telling lies, prone to theft and self-enrichment by immoral means, a
people that are otherwise contemptible in the eyes of the ‘civilized’”
(Mbeki 2003:4). The self-appointed task of these detractors, Mbeki seems