A Long Struggle: The involvement of the World Council of Churches in South Africa http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.ufbmp1001 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org A Long Struggle: The involvement of the World Council of Churches in South Africa Author/Creator Webb, Pauline (ed.) Contributor Hassink, Edwin Date 1994-00-00 Resource type Books Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Rights By kind permission of the World Council of Churches (WCC). Description About the Authors. Foreword Konrad Raiser. Introduction Pauline Webb. The Initial Challenge. Eloquent Action. Political Involvement. Economic Strategies: An Evolving Prophetic Partnership between South African and US Churches. Mobilizing the European Churches. Tumultuous Response: The Voices of the South African Churches. The Church and Violence. The Task Ahead. Appendix 1: Code of Conduct for Business Operating in South Africa (SACC Initiative, July 1993). Appendix 2: Statement on South Africa Adopted by the Central Committee of the WCC, Johannesburg, January 1994. Format extent 152 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.ufbmp1001 http://www.aluka.org jl% jl% A LONG STR UGGE EDITED BY PAULINE WEBB A LONG THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES IN S 0 U THAFRICA WCC Publications, Geneva Cover design: Edwin Hassink ISBN 2-8254-1135-3 © 1994 WCC Publications, World Council of Churches, 150 route de Ferney, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland Printed in Switzerland Contents About the Authors ........ ........................ vi Foreword Konrad Raiser ....... .................... vii Introduction Pauline Webb ...... ................... ix 1. The Initial Challenge Baldwin Sjollema ............... 1 2. Eloquent Action Baldwin Sjollema ..... ............. 12 3. Political Involvement Elisabeth Adler ................ 45 4. Economic Strategies: An Evolving Prophetic Partnership between South African and US Churches Donna Katzin . 58 5. Mobilizing the European Churches David Haslam ...... ... 69 6. Tumultuous Response: The Voices of the South African Churches Barney Pityana ...... .................. 84 7. The Church and Violence Charles Villa-Vicencio ........ 102 8. The Task Ahead Philip Potter ..................... 116 Appendix 1: Code of Conduct for Business Operating in South Africa (SACC Initiative, July 1993) ..... ............... 127 Appendix 2: Statement on South Africa Adopted by the Central Committee of the WCC, Johannesburg, January 1994 .......... 129 About the Authors Pauline Webb, a lay preacher, was organizer of religious broadcasting in the World Service of the BBC. She was vice-moderator of the WCC central committee from 1968 to 1975. Baldwin Sjollema was the first director of the WCC's Programme to Combat Racism (PCR), from 1970 to 1981. Elisabeth Adler was director of the Lay Academy of Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin, and, after a six-month consultantship with PCR in 1973, a member of the PCR commission from 1975 to 1983. Donna Katzin is director of South Africa Programs of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility in New York. David Haslam is associate secretary for racial justice in the Churches Commission for Racial Justice, Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland, London, England. Barney Pityana, who was director of the WCC's Programme to Combat Racism from 1988 to 1992, is now senior research officer at the Research Institute on Christianity in South Africa, University of Cape Town. Charles Villa-Vicencio is professor of religion and society at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Philip Potter was general secretary of the World Council of Churches from 1972 to 1984. Foreword Few contemporary issues have more profoundly marked the life of the World Council of Churches and how people perceive it than the struggle against racism and in particular the involvement in South Africa. It was as a consequence of this struggle and its programmatic expression in the Programme to Combat Racism that a decisive shift in ecumenical perspective began to manifest itself. Instead of continuing to interpret world reality from the perspective of those responsible for maintaining "order", the ecumenical movement declared its solidarity with the victims of the structures of injustice and with their struggle for "liberation". The condemnation of racism as sin and the rejection of its theological justification as heresy were decisive in shaping ecumenical reflection about the unity of the church in its constitutive relationship to the quest for justice in human community. For decades the apartheid system has been the focus of an intense struggle and of controversies surrounding the WCC's involvement in South Africa. Now that it is being transformed, it is possible and timely to retrace this long struggle. The Programme to Combat Racism, initiated in 1969, celebrates its 25th anniversary in 1994 at the moment when the whole people of South Africa have been able for the first time to elect their democratic representatives, marking the final point of the transition to a new order of society. The meeting of the WCC central committee in Johannesburg in January 1994 ushered in a new period of relationships between the worldwide Christian community and the people and the churches in South Africa. This book, which reviews the history of WCC involvement in South Africa from different perspectives, has been written not to foster ecumenical triumphalism but to keep alive ecumenical memory. The lessons learned during "a long struggle" must not be forgotten on the way ahead, neither in South Africa nor in the ecumenical movement as a whole. The contributors as well as the editor have all been actively involved in viii A Long Struggle shaping this chapter of ecumenical history. May their witness strengthen the ecumenical commitment to the promotion of justice and human rights wherever people are excluded because of race, sex, class or belief and denied their dignity as persons created in the image of God. Konrad Raiser General Secretary World Council of Churches Introduction One of the consolations of growing older is that the time span grows shorter. The utopian dreams of youth can become impatient as the long years stretch dauntingly ahead and the struggle to turn vision into reality seems interminable. Then suddenly comes a turning point and time seems to collapse like a telescope. The distant horizon of hope becomes an immediate landscape, and the lone voices of prophecy become the popular wisdom of the day. It is time then for memories to stir and to record the journey thus far, so that the ultimate goal might be kept clear and the commitment to attaining it be as determined and persistent as ever. The World Council of Churches and its Programme to Combat Racism has reached one such important turning point. The former will soon be celebrating its fiftieth birthday, the latter is marking its silver jubilee in 1994. Both began in prophetic zeal, inspired by the dreams of young and old, men and women, who saw a vision of unity which would break down the barriers that have for so many centuries hedged in the churches, divided the races and distorted the God-given design of human community. Like Joshua's army, they took up the trumpets to proclaim the truths of that kingdom in which all the walls would come tumbling down, only to discover how sturdy those barriers, buttressed by the prejudices of history, are. What seemed like an obvious act of obedience to God's word has become a long struggle, one that is as intense at the end of the twentieth century as it was at the beginning. Yet that word of God has accomplished in our own time more than anyone dared to ask or expect. In extraordinary ways it has undermined even societies that claimed to be founded upon it. A visitor to South Africa cannot but be daunted by the sight of the great Voortrekker monument. It stands like a defiant bastion on the mountain opposite the parliament buildings in Pretoria. On a stone frieze is recorded the history of a people who firmly believed that God had called them to x A Long Struggle fight their way into a new nation where the native peoples would be subjugated and they themselves would inherit a promised land. That sense of divine vocation persisted into this century when the constitution of the Republic of South Africa was framed, beginning with these words of dedication: In humble submission to Almighty God, who controls the destiny of peoples and nations, who gathered our forebears together from many lands and gave them this their own; who has guided them from generation to generation; who has wondrously delivered them from the dangers that beset them... It then went on to spell out the policy of segregation and discrimination known as apartheid, which denied the majority of the people inhabiting the land any share in its citizenship, many of their basic human rights and access to most of its wealth.