Listening to the silent majority

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While we in the west think with Gregory Bateson that we should search for ‘a new ecology of the mind’^62. in the townships of South Africa, thoughts still turn to God. In the West we ask ourselves, ‘What is the mind; how does the brain function? What is consciousness and what is

62. Steps to an Ecology of Mind, by Gregory Bateson, Ballentine Books, New York (1972)

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soul or psyche? Was there consciousness prior to birth? Is the soul timeless? Will the soul be able to remember the death of the body? If the universe has a cause, is it God? What could have existed before God? Did God create cosmic matter out of nothingness? Was it God who gave us time? Or is God timeless too?’ Einstein maintained that God wasn't gambling. After him, it was established that subatomic particles do behave in ways that cannot be predetermined. Therefore, God was gambling, after all, with creation.

In South African townships blacks often seem to display a faith and a trust in God that faded long ago from the minds of most people in the advanced world. I flew down a year after our first encounter to again meet members of the Western Cape Council of Churches. We sat on the terrace of the De Waal Sun Hotel, this time with Archbishop S Mhambi, President of the Council, J Yelani, Bishop Thomas Siyolo and the Reverend TD Bengo. They told me, ‘If only the true Christians in South Africa would stand up to fight the battle of liberation, there could be a solution to all the problems of South Africa. We believe that to solve our controversies we should not use violence as if we are a godless people. We must talk to one another as Christians. If we are all enemies of each other in this land, there is no future.’ I pointed out that Christians elsewhere had gained quite a reputation for butchering each other, from Lebanon to Northern Ireland. I also asked them how they could possibly assume that blacks would not be at each other's throats after liberation in South Africa as elsewhere in the continent.

‘In Christianity,’ they assured me, ‘there are no Zulus, Xhosas, Sothos, or whatever. We are all creatures of God. We are all sons and daughters of God. If our minds are telling us that we can liberate this country by force, there will never be a solution. It must be clear in our minds that this land was created by God. Christianity knows of no discrimination. We are all children of God. The freedom-fighters have now been struggling for years, and it is still going on. There is no solution. Nor will there be a solution without God. That is the truth. We must know that God is our creator. All that we have achieved is a gift from Him, not from our hands, or from our ability to think.’

The churchmen continued; ‘For example, the Bible tells the story of Moses and Pharaoh. When Moses went to Egypt he had faith in his religion and in God. He was friendly towards Pharaoh because his faith told him that God was going to fight for him. Moses overpowered the Kings

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of Egypt, because of the hand of God. There is not doubt that if we believe in God, the liberation of South Africa will come.’ I asked to what extent this faith in Christianity was in conformity with original African religious concepts. They told me, ‘It is not so easy to turn back to African religion, because in those days African kings ruled. Actually African kings were looked upon as gods.’ After referring to Mandela and Buthelezi as descendants of African royals, I asked how the change-over had been made from earthly kings to God in Heaven. ‘The tribal religions are very difficult to understand,’ I was told. ‘The white people that came to our lands are foreigners. They did not bring their kings with them. Who then would rule the whites? The Indians came here, but they came as foreigners and did not bring their maharajahs with them. So who would rule them? But in Christianity these problems do not exist, because God rules all Christians, whether whites, Indians, or blacks.’ I asked why African religion was difficult to understand.

‘We know,’ they said. ‘We learned about African religion from our forefathers. And we also learned about it in history classes.’ ‘Do you mean to say,’ I asked, ‘that the whites who designed your curriculum included the history of African religion?’ The churchmen said: ‘We can properly say that the whites that came here centuries ago were true Christians. They didn't hide our history from us. On the contrary, they explained it to us, and this is still being done. You see, since whites arrived here, your forefathers, the Dutch, studied how African religion was being practised and they noted everything down. They translated from Xhosa, and other languages, and what we blacks possess now in regard to our own faraway history was all written down by white Christians at the time they first came here. If whites had not done this, we wouldn't have known anything about it today. Our own forefathers never wrote anything down. There were no schools in our land. So in that respect everything has been done by whites, and perhaps some of your Dutch forebears. Therefore we say, we must now sit down together and share that knowledge and experience together as true Christians.’