Religious Leaders Cheer Death of Apartheid and 'Resurrection' of South Africa
Episcopal News Service. May 18, 1994 [94102]
Religious leaders around the globe wept, prayed, danced and shouted in a chorus of celebration for the victory of democracy over apartheid in South Africa as Nelson Mandela was inaugurated president on May 10.
None was more exuberant than Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel laureate and primate of the Church in the Province of Southern Africa, often described as "the spiritual leader of the dismantling of apartheid." In his finest purple vestments, he literally bounced with excitement at inaugural events. His boundless enthusiasm seemed to sweep the entire world into a joyous dance, that began in his homeland and then spread around the globe via newspaper and television reports.
"Woo-hoo! It's a transfiguration," Tutu shouted in response to the power shift. "We are free today! We are free today!"
"We rejoice that Christ has given you his Spirit of justice and forgiveness so generously, and we shall continue to stand beside you in solidarity and Christian love," said Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey in a letter to Tutu.
In the United States, Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning said that, following the long struggle against apartheid, the inauguration of Mandela was "among the proudest days I can remember as a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion."
At the National Council of Churches, General Secretary Joan Brown Campbell said that the inauguration was "in every sense as significant as the fall of the Berlin Wall that heralded an end to the Communist hold on Eastern Europe... The election was a victory for the human spirit. For a few days, peace pervaded and because it did... the potential for the future is profoundly enhanced."
At the Episcopal Church Center in New York, the staff dedicated a midweek Eucharist in honor of the victory over apartheid. A banner with the new flag of South Africa was carried in procession and a chorus of young South Africans sang songs of liberation, including "God Bless Africa," one of two national anthems.
Comparing the inauguration of Mandela to the resurrection, Ntsiki Langford, director of the Episcopal Church's Jubilee Ministry Program and finally a citizen of her native South Africa, boldly declared at the service, "We have buried apartheid."
"We've asked, 'Lord, how long?' And now at long last the African majority moves from repression into the halls of government," Langford said. "The birth of our nation is a victory for humanity. It is a joy born in pain and suffering... When history delivers a miracle, the mind experiences a kind of electricity, the thrill of a new beginning," she added.
Paying tribute to Mandela, Langford said his "patience, forbearance and largeness of spirit set an example for all South Africans in captivity and triumph."
Langford pleaded for patience with Mandela and his new coalition government as it seeks to develop the South African economy. Yet she also brushed aside suggestions that black South Africans would be greedy or arrogant in their newfound freedom. "We're often accused of aspiring too high, of threatening to overwhelm the new government with a greedy tide of demands, of expecting to occupy suburban estates overnight and be served poolside cocktails by our former oppressors," she said.
Among black South Africans, Langford said that "the expectations are as modest as a flush toilet, an indoor faucet, paved streets, electricity, garbage collection, and as elementary as human dignity." Further, she said, "most of us are too tired for revenge and realize it won't restore slain relatives and bulldozed houses."
Thanking the Episcopal Church for its efforts against apartheid, Langford said, "You are a part of our history, you helped destroy apartheid... Under the leadership of Bishop Browning, this church voted for and fought hard and long for economic sanctions against South Africa."
Langford insisted that Christian churches must continue to be involved, not only in South Africa, but in other struggles for justice. "To divorce the church from public policy issues that affect people's lives is to divorce the church from life, and to divorce the church from life is to make it irrelevant," she said. "Advocacy worked. You entered into the stream of life with all its systemic power arrangements and swam against that stream in a common struggle against oppressive powers which threatened the common life in South Africa."
However, Langford warned that the struggle in South Africa is not over. "We know that Nelson Mandela will be both the father of his reborn country and the healer of its wounds -- South Africa's George Washington and its Abraham Lincoln," she said. "But the reconstruction and building the nation will require support. Please don't leave us now."