News / Africa
SA president's views shock SACC
22 Dec 2011 at 04:55hrs | Views
SA PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma's comments that Christianity brought orphans and old-age homes to South Africa have come as a shock, the SA Council of Churches said on Wednesday, the Sowetan reported.
"We are just taken aback. We are shocked and we don't understand," said SACC general secretary Reverend Mautji Pataki.
Zuma was quoted as saying that "as Africans, long before the arrival of religion and [the] gospel, we had our own ways of doing things".
He was speaking at the launch of a road safety and crime awareness campaign at KwaMaphumulo in KwaZulu-Natal.
"Those were times that religious people refer to as dark days, but we know that, during those times, there were no orphans or old-age homes. Christianity has brought these things," he said.
Zuma's office has since sought to clarify his comments.
The Presidency said what Zuma had meant was that South Africans should not neglect African culture, while embracing Western culture and Christianity.
"While we should embrace Western culture and Christianity, we should not neglect the African ways of doing things," spokesman Mac Maharaj said.
Maharaj said that the faith-based sector had made a "sterling contribution" for the struggle for liberation and justice for over a century in South Africa.
He said Zuma would meet religious leaders in the new year to discuss how they could work together on various social problems.
Maharaj said that Zuma's comments conveyed his views that "while we welcome the advent of Western culture, some useful traditional ways of doing things and aspects of African culture were undermined or even eroded".
"The president indicated, among other things, that Western culture had brought about the end of the extended family as an institution, leading to the need for government to establish old-age homes, orphanages and other mechanisms to support the poor and vulnerable."
"We are just taken aback. We are shocked and we don't understand," said SACC general secretary Reverend Mautji Pataki.
Zuma was quoted as saying that "as Africans, long before the arrival of religion and [the] gospel, we had our own ways of doing things".
He was speaking at the launch of a road safety and crime awareness campaign at KwaMaphumulo in KwaZulu-Natal.
"Those were times that religious people refer to as dark days, but we know that, during those times, there were no orphans or old-age homes. Christianity has brought these things," he said.
Zuma's office has since sought to clarify his comments.
"While we should embrace Western culture and Christianity, we should not neglect the African ways of doing things," spokesman Mac Maharaj said.
Maharaj said that the faith-based sector had made a "sterling contribution" for the struggle for liberation and justice for over a century in South Africa.
He said Zuma would meet religious leaders in the new year to discuss how they could work together on various social problems.
Maharaj said that Zuma's comments conveyed his views that "while we welcome the advent of Western culture, some useful traditional ways of doing things and aspects of African culture were undermined or even eroded".
"The president indicated, among other things, that Western culture had brought about the end of the extended family as an institution, leading to the need for government to establish old-age homes, orphanages and other mechanisms to support the poor and vulnerable."
Source - sowetan
