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South Africa. A Bitter Season.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

Next December, the African National Congress will hold its five-yearly elective conference. President Cyril Ramaphosa will be looking for a second term as party leader, in view of the 2024 general elections. Weakened by internal struggles and weak governance, the African National Congress may split in two at the December congress.

For many political parties in the established democracies of Europe, to win 46 per cent of the vote in a country-wide election would be a triumph; but for the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed South Africa since 1994, this result in the local council elections held last November was a disaster.
It is the first time that the party has fallen below 50 per cent of the popular vote, and it continues a downward trend that goes back to 2004 when the party won 70 per cent. In addition, the ANC lost control of a number of big cities, including Pretoria, the capital, and Johannesburg, the financial and economic heartland of the country. In fact, it now controls only three of the country’s eight biggest cities.

Many political observers welcomed these outcomes, since it is not healthy for one party to rule, both at national and municipal level, with an outright majority for such a long time. Predictably, this kind of one-party dominance leads to corruption, non-accountability and a sense of entitlement. Jacob Zuma, whose tenure as President from 2009 to 2018 was characterised by maladministration and crookery, put this in very clear terms when he promised that “the ANC will rule South Africa until Jesus comes back to earth”.
Fortunately, it seems that more and more voters are of a different opinion. Even though they still have a deep loyalty to the party of liberation, the party once led by Nelson Mandela, more and more black voters, especially among the youth, are realising that the ANC has not fulfilled the promises it made 28 years ago, and which it continues to make – to eliminate poverty, to create jobs, to provide a decent standard of living, and to ensure ‘a better life for all’.
It might be expected that this judgment by the voters would provide the ANC with an opportunity to reflect on where it went wrong, and to find ways of improving. It might also be expected that the electoral setbacks experienced by the ANC would be to the benefit of the other political parties, and perhaps even open the possibility of a complete change of government in the next national election, due in 2024.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Regarding the ANC, firstly, the signs are that it will weaken even further, as internal rivalries and competition for positions of power are intensifying. There are broadly two factions within the party. One of them, which supports the party (and national) leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, is attempting to carry out positive reforms and to help the party to overcome its recent history of involvement in corruption and malfeasance. The other faction, associated with the former president, Jacob Zuma, seeks to prolong the systems of bribery, patronage and nepotism that it benefited from in the years when Mr Zuma was in charge of the country.
The Ramaphosa faction is in the majority in the main decision-making structures of the party, but it is not strong enough – or united enough – to comprehensively defeat the Zuma faction. In addition, the loyalties of a significant number of senior figures are not clear; they tend to take sides with whichever faction seems to be gaining in popularity.

To build unity
Ramaphosa’s approach is to try to build unity above all else. He does not want to see a split in the ANC, and he appears to believe that, by accommodating the Zuma faction rather than acting against it, he can keep the party together. He is also very much aware that, 15 years ago, when the ANC did act against Mr Zuma – who was then Deputy President of the country – it made him into a martyr and he was able to gather enough support to eventually become President in 2009. If Ramaphosa were to move against the Zuma supporters now, a repeat of such a scenario is possible.
All this is happening in the run-up to the ANC’s five-yearly elective conference, which takes place in December this year. Ramaphosa will be looking for a second term as party leader, and while the numbers so far are in his favour, it is likely that the Zuma faction will be strong enough to win a few of the other senior positions in the party. If this happens, we can expect a few more years of internal wrangling and tension, a kind of political stalemate within the governing party.

Cape Town. Parliament of South Africa.

This is bad for the country as a whole. The continued in-fighting in the ANC takes up a lot of the time and energy of government ministers and members of parliament who should be busy running the country and attending to its many needs. While they engage in party political battles, the list of areas in which governance is failing grows longer: state-owned companies that control electricity and water supply are near to collapse; the national airline has almost ceased to operate; various government departments, such as the Post Office, fail to pay their employees’ salaries on time; only a small part of the country’s vast rail network is still functioning; and so on.
These failures of governance have a serious impact on the economy, and on the unemployment rate which has now reached almost 40 per cent overall, and 70 per cent for young people. This, in turn, means that more and more voters will reject the ANC at the next election – but what will take its place? The second question, therefore, is about the state of the opposition parties.

Ideally, when a governing party starts to weaken after many years in power there will be an opposition party, or more than one, ready to offer themselves as feasible alternatives to the voters. This is not really the case in South Africa. The biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has also lost support in recent years, down from almost 27 per cent in 2016 to 22 per cent last year, and it has also been affected by internal squabbles and leadership problems.
The only other party of significant size is the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which has about 10 per cent support. Neither the DA nor the EFF will win anywhere near a majority of the vote in 2024. In addition, these two parties are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, and there is no possibility that they could combine their votes to unseat the ANC. There are numerous other parties too, but they are all quite small and while some might support the DA in a coalition, others are much closer to the ANC.

Which Future?
So, what does all this mean for South Africa’s political future? After so many years of being certain about one thing – that the ANC would maintain its overall majority in the next election – we are now entering into a period of uncertainty. If Cyril Ramaphosa is re-elected as ANC leader this year, he will lead the party into the 2024 national elections; and, since he is personally very popular with the voters, it is possible that the ANC will once again gain 50 per cent of the vote, and form a majority government. On the other hand, the levels of frustration with the ANC’s poor performance are now so high that it might suffer a further decline in 2024. If this happens the ANC will have to govern as a minority or it will have to seek a coalition partnership, either with one of the two big opposition parties or with a few of the smaller ones.
Neither of these options is likely to give us a stable government, at least in the short term.

Johannesburg. Gandhi square. ©viewapart/123RF.COM

Another possibility is that the ANC will indeed split. If this happens, the reformist faction will form a new party along social democratic lines, which could find some common ground with the DA, while the ‘Zuma faction’ may well link up with the EFF. Such a realignment in our politics would be very interesting; it could bring a new sense of purpose and rekindle people’s enthusiasm for democratic politics.
However, if the Zuma faction and the EFF were to combine and form a government, the consequences could be severe. Both these groupings are deeply compromised by corruption and both espouse populist policies that would destroy an already weak economy.
But South Africa’s political future is not just about which parties are in decline and which are likely to grow. We have a very active and committed civil society, made up of thousands of organisations committed to human rights, the rule of law, social justice and economic development. These organisations work very effectively to counter governmental abuses and failures, and in this, they rely on a strong and independent judiciary which has proved itself to be a bastion of democratic and constitutional rule.
The big question is whether South Africans will continue to value the multi-party democratic system if, as the years go by, it does not fulfil their needs – decent jobs, good education for their children, adequate living standards, freedom from crime and insecurity, and a healthy environment. With each successive election, fewer people register to vote, and of those who are registered, fewer and fewer actually go to the voting stations to cast a vote.
The task facing all those in leadership, whether in politics, civil society, the churches, the business community or the workers’ organisations, is to spread the message that even if democracy does not guarantee constant progress towards a better life, without it things will only get worse. As long as we remember this, we will be able to find our way through the current uncertainties and emerge as a stronger and more unified nation.

Mike Pothier

Bolivia. The ‘Andean romeria’. A Festive Path among Songs and Prayers.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

The pilgrimages of the various Andean communities are a combination of ancestral traditions and Christian spirituality.

The pilgrimage festivals take place between the months of September and October, which according to the Andean agricultural calendar are the months for sowing. The pilgrimage is prepared one year in advance when an organiser is selected for the celebrations of the following year. The organiser is responsible for the successful outcome of the event. He is supposed to be able to find the money necessary for all the expenses. He is supported in the preparation of the festival by the mayura, who must select the music and the musicians for the event. While the tata khumuri is responsible for the food transportation and the pack animals, the tata despensa is the food administrator, the mama cocinera is the one responsible for the preparation of food during the journey to the sanctuary and the journey back home.

The walking distance to the sanctuaries is between 40.50 and 60 km. Along the route, pilgrims can find specific places to rest, eat and pray before reaching their final destination.
On the day of departure, the tata khumuri, who leads the pack animals, walks ahead of the others, along with the tata despensa and the mama cocinera. The mayura and the tata pasante perform the ritual of departure, which marks the beginning of the journey. Pilgrims ch´allan, as a good omen for the journey, and entrust themselves to the Lord represented by an image or a cross covered with typical clothes. Once this ritual has been performed, pilgrims start their walk to the sanctuary, following the tata khumuri. They generally reach their destination in the afternoon and go to rest. The following day the tata pasante makes everything ready for the celebrations. The parish priest arrives and at half past ten everybody goes to the sanctuary accompanied by the jula julas, the musicians hired for the event and the mit’anis, young women waving flags of different colours. When this crowd reaches the door of the sanctuary, the musicians start to play the kuila (solemn music) on their knees, because they are in a sacred place.

The parish priest celebrates the Holy Mass and at the end of the celebration, pilgrims join a procession as a tribute to the Saint accompanied by the music played by the jula julas. Once the procession is over, all participants go back to their accommodation where the tata khumuri, the tata despensa and mama cocinera offer them food. Since it is a special day, two dishes are served, wheat soup and Jich´i with its kanka (potatoes cooked with chuño or mote corn and a piece of grilled meat). After the meal, the ch’alla ritual is performed, the tata pasante shares some chicha with the others, thanks God and asks for His blessing and protection. After the ritual the pilgrims go for a walk through the town. The next day they prepare their return home, they say goodbye from the ch`isiraya (place for farewell located at the exit of the town), and they start their walk back home feeling happy. During the journey they pray and when they are about to reach their community, they herald their arrival with an explosion from a stick of dynamite and then a second explosion follows to mean that they have arrived so that the second part of the celebrations can start. It is the moment of the pilgrims’ reunion with their relatives. The pilgrims have brought the jich`i and other foods they were offered during their pilgrimage to the sanctuary and share it with their families as a symbol of the blessing of the Lord. The following day, the celebrations continue, this time, with the entire community. It is the day during which the event organiser of the pilgrimage of the following year is selected.

The name of the new organiser is announced with an explosion of dynamite. The selected one is given all that is necessary to organise the event. He, in turn, begins to look for the assistants that will collaborate with him for the successful outcome of the next romeria festival. The next day he thanks all the staff that was involved in the event: the tata pasante, the tata mayura, the tata despensa, and mama cocinera and gives each of them, along with his wife, ch`alla and k`intu (offerings). In the afternoon between four and five, the sowing ritual, which concludes the day, is performed. The following day the dismantling of the altar, which had been set up for the event, marks the end of the pilgrimage festival. (Open Photo: ©jeremyrichards/123RF.COM)

Jhonny Mancilla Pérez

IX Summit of the Americas. From the Pandemic to Ukraine.

Wednesday, 1 June 2022 8:00

The ninth summit of the Americas, which brings together all the presidents of the continent, will take place from 6 to 10 June in Los Angeles. Washington’s real priority is to reach an “immigration pact”.

It is a political initiative conceived during the Clinton administration to accompany the process of economic integration, which its predecessor, Bush senior, had proposed as “a free trade zone from Alaska
to Tierra del Fuego.”

The first of these meetings took place in Miami in 1994; the next was in Santiago de Chile (1998), the third in Quebec, Canada (2001), and the fourth in Mar del Plata, Argentina (2005) – in which Néstor Kirchner, president of Argentina, strongly criticized Bush Jr. and the US continental free trade project; these were followed by the fifth summit in Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago (2009), the sixth in Cartagena in Colombia (2012), chaired by Obama, like the previous one, the seventh summit held in Panama (2015) and the last one in Lima (2018).

The pandemic disrupted the meetings, which normally took place every three years. Now, the holding of the 9th Summit – the second to be held in the United States – is seen by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as a tool to revive relations with Latin America, which lost priority during the first year and a half of Biden’s mandate, which has been accentuated in recent months by the war in Ukraine.

The theme with which the summit was convened is “Building a sustainable, resilient and equitable future”. But Washington’s real priority is to reach an “immigration pact”. The climate crisis, the transition to clean energy, equitable economic growth and the role of civil society and independent media complete the agenda.

On May 2, the Undersecretary of the State Department for Latin America and the Caribbean, Brian Nicholls, announced that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela will not be invited because “they do not respect the democratic charter”. The Democratic Charter is an instrument signed by the governments of the continent more than three decades ago and is a reference point for the institutional crises that have occurred in the region since then.

For Washington, these three countries do not fulfil the requirements of the Democratic Charter. Furthermore, in the face of the Ukrainian crisis, all three countries have adopted pro-Moscow positions. They are also the three countries in the region that have expressed their readiness to accept a permanent Russian military presence in their respective territories. For his part, Mexican President Manuel López Obrador asked Biden to invite “all peoples of the Americas”.

Meanwhile, Biden has appointed his two special advisers to the summit: former Senator Christopher Dodd and former Ecuadorian-born MP Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. The former served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 28 years with President Biden, while the latter is known to support Venezuelan refugees leaving their country, seeking temporary security status, immigration protection, and work permits.

This meeting comes as the immigration issue becomes more complicated for the Biden administration, which is working with most of the decisions Trump made to implement a drastic policy against illegal immigration. Proposals to ease or eliminate these policies, which were at the heart of the Democratic left-wing campaign, did not materialize.

The situation in Central America complicates this problem. Transit to the southern US border through Central America continues to be the main entry point for illegal immigration. The new governments of Honduras and Costa Rica show ties to the Venezuelan regime that their predecessors did not have. The El Salvador government, meanwhile, has turned to China in the face of Washington’s criticism of its authoritarianism. At the same time, the State Department opened an official channel to receive corruption complaints concerning the six Central American countries, which deteriorated its relations
with Washington.

But the war in Ukraine is the US priority. The exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, as mentioned, is linked to the pro-Moscow positions expressed by these countries. A month after the invasion, on March 24, the UN vote calling on Russia to cease hostilities was supported by all but the three countries in the region, as well as by Bolivia and El Salvador.

In other words, 29 of the 34 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean agreed with the position of Washington and the EU. But when the exclusion of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council was voted on April 4, Brazil and Mexico – as well as other regional powers such as Egypt, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia – abstained, not supporting the vote of the United States.

At the meeting of G20 finance ministers on April 20, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil followed the position of the majority of the group not to exclude Russia or to boycott its minister’s speech. In the vote of the Organization of American States (OSA) on April 21 to suspend Moscow as an observer of the organization, which prevailed with 23 votes, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina abstained.

Thirteen non-NATO countries attended the NATO and Allied Summit in Ramstein, Germany on April 26: four from Africa, two from Asia, and none from Latin America and the Caribbean. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Rosendo Fraga/Nueva Mayoría

Ukraine youth. Fighting for Freedom.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

In just a few weeks. The dreams and lives of many Ukrainian young people have been completely destroyed. But they continue to fight for their future and that of their country.

Veronika, 19, says: “The months before the war were the best of my life. I was in the second year of university. But the thing that gave my life real meaning was playing ice hockey. It was what I woke up to every morning.

On 23 February, our coach told me about plans to create a women’s hockey team to try and reach the professional league. I went to bed so happy, looking forward to the next day. At 5.30 in the morning, there was a huge explosion. My bed was shaking from the shock waves.

My mother came into our bedroom and told us to get out; we had no idea what was going on. We sat together in a corner of the kitchen waiting for it to end but the bombing only got worse. Five hours later we got up and ran to the basement.

As soon as I entered the basement, I realized that my life as I knew it was over. Hockey, work, friends, a guy I was very much in love with, all these things ended that day. That’s probably why I don’t feel anything anymore: no fear, no pain, no anger, no will to live. I feel as if I died at 5:30 am on February 24th.”

Kateryna recalls: “We didn’t immediately realize that Russian planes were dropping bombs. They weren’t in my video games. This was real life. We had only mouldy bread to eat. ”

Victor, Alexandra and some other people were hiding in a warehouse in Mariupol, a place of hunger, thirst and cold.
There was a market nearby and so, while the bombs were still falling Victor and Alexandra go to look for the remains of vegetables among the rubble and the burning cars. “We were risking our lives for rotten vegetables,” commented Victor. “At least, the people hiding in the warehouse had something to eat.

We left the city on March 16th. As we drove through Mariupol, the only things still standing were ruins, destroyed buildings and craters left by missiles. Black smoke hovered everywhere. We decided to leave without knowing where the ‘green corridor’ was because no one in Mariupol knew; we found ourselves in a huge movement of people trying to leave.

Oleksandr comments: “Who is responsible for all this? Who will apologize? Who will give me my stolen life back? Just like my hometown, I have the feeling that I no longer exist. I have severe skin problems due to a lack of hygiene and the dust in the basement means that I am always short of breath. I no longer have any liking for food.”

The young boys and girls, gathered in a Kiev basement and wearing their school attire, ought to be in their classroom studying history, but instead have to bear the brunt of the conflict that, for more than a month, has kept the whole world in suspense. They have to use their social media not for fun but to beg the world community to help them not to die under the bombs. They are there, calm but fearful, working with their computers, asking for their cries to be shared on the social media: “We do not want to live in fear but we want to stay here: please stop the war”.

Valentyna, a third-year student of computer science at the University of Kiev: “Some of our friends are out there with weapons in hand to fight, we are here with our social networks trying to fight in a different way. Twitter, like all social media channels, is a source of information for many practical indications on how to organize life in these hours. For example, we try to give advice on how to screen windows to prevent them from being shattered by the shock wave of bombs. ”

Vasyl, a philosophy student in Kiev: “We are afraid, after having spent months and months suffering from Covid. Two years that destroyed our life like more than anything else, now this absurd war. And to think that every year I went to visit my aunt in Belgorod in Russia. I have many friends in that city. And now … “From a small window, Irina looks at the deserted street of Kharkiv. She says: “Even in the darkest moments there must always be a ray of sunshine” and she concludes “The most powerful force we have is hope, we are struggling to stop this conflict. We are human beings. We want to live free “. (C.C.)

Dancing for Water.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

There had been a terrible drought, with intense heat that had dried up the rivers, streams and springs, until there was no water anywhere. The animals wandered far and wide in search of water, but could not find any. Nowhere was water freely flowing.

The animals held a meeting, and all of the large animals attended, the Elephant, the Lion, the Tiger, the Jackal and the Wolf, plus the small animals too. “What should we do?” asked the animals.

A few animals made some suggestions, and these were passed back and forth amongst the group. None of the suggestions seemed viable. Finally, the Jackal said: “I have an idea, let all of us go to the dry river bed, and dance; by the weight of us all trampling on the ground, we will tread out the water.”

All of the animals thought this was a splendid idea, and everyone was ready to get started instantly, as all were very thirsty and in need of a drink. The Rabbit, however, was scornful and dismissive of their plan. He said arrogantly: “I have no intention of going and dancing! All of you are crazy, to think that you will get water from the ground by dancing!”

The other animals took no notice of the sour and untrusting rabbit. They danced and danced, and the water did rise to the surface. They were all enormously pleased, and each animal drank as much water as they could. Because Rabbit did not dance with them, it was decided that he would not be allowed to drink. Rabbit laughed at them scornfully and cheekily with defiance said: “I will nevertheless, drink some of the water.”

That evening, the Rabbit took a leisurely walk down to the river bed, where all the other animals had danced furiously for a long time. He drank and drank from the river until he had had enough.

The following morning, the animals saw his footprints in the mud, and all muttered to themselves that he should not drink when he would not help in raising the water. The Rabbit taunted them, by shouting: “Aha! See, I did have some of the water! It was so cool and refreshing and tasted delicious!”

The animals called a meeting. They wondered what they could do, and how they could get hold of the Rabbit. Some animals suggested one method, others suggested another. Finally, the old Tortoise moved forward and said: “I will catch the Rabbit ?”
The other animals were a bit puzzled by this, because the Tortoise was one of the slowest creatures around, and certainly not up to the speed of the rabbit. “How will you catch the Rabbit, by yourself?”

Tortoise replied, “I will rub my shell with a pitch, which is black and sticky. I will then go near the edge of the water and lay down. To the Rabbit, I will resemble nothing more than a stone. When Rabbit steps onto my back, his feet will stick fast.”
The other animals had to agree this was a clever cunning plan. “Yes, this is a great idea”, they agreed in unison.

After a while, the Tortoise had smothered his shell with a pitch and had slowly step by step made his way down to the river bank. He laid down as he had suggested, and pulled his head into his shell so that he looked like just a round stone. That evening, the Rabbit arrived and had gone to the water to get a drink.

“Ha! – he laughed to himself sarcastically -. They are quite decent. They have placed a stone here so that I do not need to get my feet wet.” The Rabbit stood with his left foot on the stone, it stuck fast. The Tortoise then popped his head out.

“Ha! Old Tortoise! It is you that has tricked me, and is holding me by one foot. But I have another foot here to give you a good kick with.” The Rabbit, did what he said, and kicked the Tortoise with all his might, but it stuck fast to the black sticky pitch on the Tortoises shell, so now he was held there by his two feet.

“ I still have my hind feet, and I will kick you with them!” threatened the Rabbit menacingly.The Rabbit kicked with all his might, that also stayed stuck on the Tortoises shell where it had made contact. “Still another foot remains – said the Rabbit adamantly -. I shall stomp on you!”

The Rabbit stomped his final foot on the Tortoise and became even more stuck. The Rabbit tried to use his head to head-butt the Tortoise, and his tail to whip him. But both became stuck fast.The Tortoise slowly turned himself around, and step-by-step headed back towards the other animals, with the Rabbit stuck fast on his back.

“Ha! Rabbit! This will teach you to be so insolent!” shouted the other animals. The animals tried to decide the Rabbit is fate. They decided that he should be killed, but could not decide how. They were discussing this in the Rabbit is presence. The cunning rodent started to scream, “Please do not give me a shameful death!”

“What would be a shameful death?” they asked. “Please do not take me by the tail, and dash my head against a stone. Please, I beg you do not do this.” It was decided by the animals that a fitting punishment for the Rabbit, would be to do exactly what he had asked them not to.

Therefore, they decided that the Rabbit would be taken by his tail, and his head dashed against a stone. What they could not yet decide, was who would do this. The animals decided that the Lion should because he was the strongest.

The Lion walked to the front of the group, and the poor Rabbit was brought to him. The Rabbit begged and pleaded that he did not want to die such a terrible death. The Lion took the Rabbit firmly by the tail and started to swing him around. A white fluffy skin slipped off from the Rabbit’s bottom, and the Lion stood there clutching the tail in his paw. The Rabbit wounded but free, his tail fur would soon grow back with time. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Folktale from South Africa.

Is Ukraine Putin’s holy war?

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

Putin’s mother may or may not have been a closet Orthodox Christian who had her son secretly baptized.

Metropolitan (head of a major diocese) Tikhon, friend of Putin, first trained as a screenwriter, is known for his ultraconservative nationalist theology, his opposition to democracy and support for censorship as well as his promotion of Orthodoxy as the antidote
to ‘Western decadence’.

The friendship between Putin and Tikhon dates from the late 1990s and developed into a close relationship as their careers blossomed. Tikhon reached the status of Archimandrite (Grand Abbot) in 1998 and became Rector of the restored Stretensky Seminary in Moscow in 1999. Putin became President of the Russian Federation in 2000 in time to oversee the rebuilding of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

I went to Moscow in 1991 to talk to Gorbachev’s religious advisers and to visit a little catholic church and its community in the shadow of the Lubyanka. Two surveillance cameras were trained on the door. The parish priest was a resilient Ukrainian who had spent many years in prison. Catholicism is not Russia’s favourite brand of Christianity.

Gorbachev’s religious advisers wanted to talk about life after communism. They were worried about what would fill the vacuum and hold society together. “Now our communist ethics [sic] have gone what is going to replace it?” Enter Christianity seen by them as the only available solution to providing the glue for Society. I told them things weren’t quite that simple, they would need to accommodate different varieties of Christianity. I wondered privately about the future role of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Thirty years on and Russia is 70% Orthodox with quite a high level of observance. Pentecostals and Plymouth Brethren are given a very hard time and there is little love wasted on the Catholics. Orthodoxy in Russia has largely become a politicised religion.

It is difficult to assess what the Russian Orthodox Church means today for Putin’s life, thinking, imperial ambitions and legitimacy. Until Archbishop Rowan Williams’ recent denunciation of the Moscow Patriarch Kirill’s collusion with the war in Ukraine, Putin’s thinking about religion hardly featured in UK media analysis of his motivations. The question remains unanswered whether Putin is simply using religion as a political tool seeing war as “a mere continuation of policy by other means.”

There is nothing exceptional in a Head of State attending a thanksgiving service after their inauguration – in this instance in 2000 – Putin went straight to prayers in the Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Kremlin. We do know that Putin makes diplomatic use of his relationship with Orthodoxy.

During a visit to George W. Bush in June 2001 Putin drew attention to the baptismal cross his mother allegedly gave him. “This was a very good meeting”, Bush enthused. “And I look forward to my next meeting with President Putin in July. I very much enjoyed our time together. He’s an honest, straightforward man who loves his country. He loves his family. We share a lot of values. I view him as a remarkable leader”.
Trump was not the only President to be enamoured. Putin knew which buttons to press.

Archimandrite Tikhon has on several occasions accompanied Putin on foreign visits and Putin has visited the impressive Russian Orthodox monastery of St. Panteleimon on the Greek peninsula of Athos at least twice. The first time was in 2005 and the last in 2016 when, with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, he joined celebrations of the thousandth anniversary of Orthodox monks establishing themselves on Athos.

Recently a friend of mine on pilgrimage to Mount Athos saw about thirty men, in a small taverna in the ferry port of Ouranoupolis all in their late 20’s with shaved heads, eating supper in silence. Next day he watched them disembark in orderly fashion at the first Russian monastery on the peninsula. His immediate thought was that they were Russian soldiers from a military academy.

There is other evidence of militarisation of religion. In June 2020, Defence Minister, Sergei Soigu, opened the main church of the Russian Armed Forces on the outskirts of Moscow. The khaki-coloured Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ was dedicated for the 75th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War. Its metal floor is made from melted down Nazi ordinance and armour. It has icons of martyrs who fought for Russia, most strikingly that of Fyodor Ushakov, ‘righteous commander of the Black Sea Fleet’.

The Ukrainian capital has religious significance for Russians. In 988 Prince Vladimir was baptized in the Crimea. The conversion of the Rus people began when he returned to Kyiv. An equally significant date for Putin is 1686 when the Orthodox Church in Ukraine was brought under the Moscow Patriarchate, only to split away in 2019 – supported by the then Ukrainian President Petro Porochenko – when the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul granted it ‘autocephaly’. Patriach Kirill’s view of Kyiv as the Jerusalem of Russian Orthodoxy might explain why central Kyiv has not been shelled.

According to the Christian Think-tank, Theos, Putin does believe Grand Prince Vladimir’s ‘spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy’ “predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilisation and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus”.

And Patriarch Kirill sees his role as being “concerned with the maintaining and strengthening of spiritual ties between people living in these countries for the sake of preserving the system of values which the one Orthodox civilization of Holy Russia reveals to the world.” In short, for Putin, the old canonical boundaries of the Russian Orthodox Church provide the template of Russia’s rightful political boundaries, and after the catastrophe of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, justification for the resurrection of ‘the Russian World’ (Russki Mir) to challenge and defeat the ‘secular political project’ of Ukrainian politicians who are backed by a ‘degenerate’ Western world.

Does Putin really believe his barbarism in Ukraine is a Holy War promoting a glorious expansive, ethnic vision of Holy Mother Russia? Or is he simply instrumentalising religion? If so, there are signs it is backfiring. On 13 March 2022, distinguished members of the Russian Orthodox Church signed and circulated A Declaration declaring Russki Mir a heresy. At time of writing, it has 1,280 signatories including theologians and others from different Christian traditions around the world. Some have compared it to the Declaration of Barmen which described the Nazi ‘Christian Movement’ as a heresy.

Perhaps the secular West should consider that some atavistic part of Putin really does believe in this perverse religious vision. The militarisation of Russian Orthodoxy is obvious and worrying. It has policy implications for the West, Ukraine – and the world. (Photo: ©jegas/123RF.COM)

Ian Linden
Professor at St Mary’s University,
Strawberry Hill, London.

The Philippines. Towards a new “Flowers and Rosaries Revolution”.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

On May 9, the Philippines will be the scene of multiple elections
that will have particular importance and, in all likelihood,
also significant consequences.

There are so many issues on the table, so many personalities, and so much at stake for this archipelago of 300 thousand square kilometres, fragmented into over seven thousand islands which has now almost 110 million citizens, 10 per cent of whom are abroad.
The strong ties between the archipelago and the migratory calling are relevant characteristics of the population, as are its composite reality, both island and cosmopolitan, the result of a history of migrations and conquests, of faiths in coexistence or often in contrast such as Islam and Christianity, and a national character in which ancestral, Iberian, and American contributions coexist.

photo.123rf.com

The archipelago was for a long time considered ‘the sick man of Asia’ for its apparent inability to rise from its ‘evils’: poverty, underdevelopment, dependence, corruption, and an elite control that is difficult to break, whether composed of those once associated with Spanish control, those mostly of Chinese origin controlling the economy, or those more westernized.
In May, voters will, first of all, be called upon to elect the president and vice-president by direct vote, but also many thousands of offices at various administrative levels, from local councils to provincial governments. Rodrigo Duterte, at the centre of one of the most controversial post-war presidencies, will lose his position as head of state, a non-repeatable six-year post.
However, his departure from the scene, welcomed by many, takes place at a particular time that will impose urgent and difficult choices on his successor. First of all, that of whether to act with power and decisiveness to revive the fortunes of the country, or once again make his priority the clientelist and personal interests that brought him to the candidacy.

Photo: who

Faced with the siege of Sars-Cov2, and its variants of various origin, the archipelago is facing a pandemic crisis that is bringing the Philippines back to levels of existence equal to, if not lower than, those of twenty years ago, cancelling a decent economic growth that, however, had not nullified profound inequality.
With under 60,000 deaths and 3.8 million officially registered cases, the country was the third most affected in Southeast Asia after Vietnam and Indonesia. These are high numbers but with only relative impact on a population close to 110 million, but the country has been brought to its knees by rigid lockdowns, aggravated by the limited health resources available. “The government has taken the difficult decision to impose severe quarantine by prioritizing the saving of lives and protecting communities from the virus by focusing efforts at improving health facilities”, said Secretary of Economic Planning, Karl Kendrick Chua. Without hiding that “this happened at a high cost to the economy
and to the population”.

Rough streets of small town in Philippines. Photo: 123rf.com

This is an acknowledgement of difficulties that are impossible to hide and which neither speeches nor repression of discontent nor the ‘usual’ and often opportune ‘threats’ of radical independence and terrorist Islamism in the South of the country, and those of the Marxist guerrillas elsewhere, not to mention even conspiracy and censorship, have managed to hide from the citizens.
The crisis has highlighted how a change of pace is needed for the country, to improve and rationalize essential services, to build up widespread welfare, and finally to free it from dependence on resources – migrants, plantation or fish products, foreign investment – too often subject to unpredictable events and strategic contingencies. The latter was most recently highlighted by the conflict in Ukraine.
Be that as it may, the Philippines today is grappling with a situation that has exacerbated poverty, unemployment (the pandemic is estimated to have ‘produced’ five million newly unemployed) and a lack of opportunity. (Open Photo: Philippine flag. 123rf.com)

(S.V.)

Peru. The Asheninka. Mijado, the Time for Sharing.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

By the word mijado this indigenous people, living in the rainforests of Peru, refers to the time of migration of fish and fishing activity, an occasion to strengthen the ties of friendship and brotherhood with loved ones, members of the same communities, or other communities. Basically, mijado is the time for sharing.

Before talking about mijado, and therefore the life and culture of the Asheninka, it is important to ask for permission to Shapishico (the guardian of the forest), the Tunchi (protector spirit of the forest), the Yakumama (the mother of all creatures of the water), the Sachamama (spirit mother of the forest) and the other sacred beings of the Amazon rain forest. At the same time, one must invoke the spirits of the ancestors of these indigenous communities, who are the owners and guardians of these lands.
The native communities of the Amazon region refer to mijado as the time of migration of fish from the South to the North to deposit their eggs. Fish travel in large schools to reach safe places in order to deposit their eggs and guarantee the maintenance of species. So, one can also define mijado as the time of fertility and of abundance of river fish.

However, mijado, among the Asheninka, is not only the moment of fish migration, but it is the occasion for sharing and exchanging experiences with ayomparis (friends). It is the time for strengthening the ties of brotherhood with their neighbouring communities, as well as the time for bartering or exchanging products.
It is an opportunity to celebrate life by savouring different kinds of fish cooked in different ways such as grilled fish, or patarashka (seasoned and cooked fish wrapped in banana leaves), fried fish, fish soup and several other fish dishes. On these occasions food is shared with everybody, nobody can be excluded during the mijado time. In this moment of the year fish is also stored for the winter when river level begins to rise and makes it difficult to fish.

It is clear, therefore, that the Amazonian mijado is not only the time of fish migration and fishing activity, but it is also a time to reaffirm the ancestral spiritual identity of the Asheninka. Mijado takes place in a specific period of the year and in specific places which are blessed by the Yakumama (the mother of all creatures of water). On one occasion when I was in the land of this indigenous group I asked a girl where her father was and she replied in her language: “Riyaatati apa eniki royeeri otiyaarentsi” (My father is at the river to wait for mijado). Mijado cannot take place just at any time or in any place. Mijado fishing rituals in the Amazon region are generally performed in summer, between June and August. The Asheninka have set rules regarding fishing activity. They are supposed to catch fish just for food purposes and small fish, when caught, must be returned to the water in order to safeguard numbers.

According to oral narratives, the traditional cultural and spiritual event related to mijado has been practiced since ancient times among the Asheninka. The river communities and nearby settlers used to go to specific places to catch fish with artisanal tools such as hooks and nets which did not have any negative impact on environment.
The Asheninka ancestors caught only the necessary amount of fish for family and community sustenance. The tradition of mijado is well known at regional and national level, but over the generations this custom has lost that essence that characterised it as something spiritual, becoming a more commercial event. Besides, nowadays equipment for larger catches such as fishing nets of different sizes are used in order to increase fish catch, because the real ancestral meaning of mijado that is ‘sharing’ went lost, and so mijado has become a commercial event indifferent to its impact on the aquatic ecosystem and on the fishing resources of the rivers in the Amazon region. And what is more, the Asheninka are not the ones who benefit from the ‘commercialization’ of mijado, but those big merchants who arrive from the cities and who loot the resources of the indigenous communities of the Amazon. (Open Photo: ©123mn/123RF.COM)

Jhonny Mancilla Pérez

UN Member States must not walk away from treaty on business and human rights.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

As the power of corporations has grown, so should their responsibility towards human rights and our planet. Yet the reality is that around the world, harms to people’s rights through business activities continue to take place with impunity.

In 2014 the UN Human Rights Council started a process to establish a treaty to regulate transnational corporations under international human rights law. A report on the latest round of negotiations of such as treaty was considered on 16 March towards the next session of the negotiations in October 2022.

As the Human Rights Council considers the report, an international civil society coalition is standing up against attempts to undermine this crucial process. Looking ahead to the next round of negotiations in October, we call on you to support our efforts to do so in the next months. If we truly want to protect human dignity and our planet, we need a legally binding instrument on transnational corporations.

Several powerful States – primarily those headquartering large corporations – have so far refused to engage constructively with this process. They are now trying to impose their view on other States.
In doing so, they are damaging the progress made on the matter during the last seven years.

Most of these States have pointed to existing alternatives such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as being sufficient. Yet, repeatedly, these voluntary frameworks have proven inadequate to prevent or remedy human rights abuses by companies.

In the past years, the international civil society has worked to bring attention to the situation of victims seeking justice in mining-related cases such as Brumadinho (Brazil), Arica (Chile), Marinduque (the Philippines), and Kabwe (Zambia), where a combination of corporate negligence and weak government oversight have caused long-lasting and devastating harm.

In countries including Guatemala, Colombia, El Salvador, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this international civil society have stood up as access to water and other human rights are threatened by large scale industrial projects.

In most cases, companies succeeded in evading full accountability for their wrongdoing by using different legal loopholes. Meanwhile, the damage they caused is likely to go on for generations.

Oftentimes, human rights violations already occur during the early stages of extractive projects, with communities kept in the dark about the full impacts and risks and cut out of the supposed benefits.
This is why “free, prior, and informed consent” is one of the key issues covered in Franciscan’s recent factsheets on human rights and Indigenous People.

It is also why the international civil society is working closely with human rights experts at the UN on this issue, for example by contributing to the development of the “megaproject cycle” by the former Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation, which helps communities navigate these processes.

Yet the simple fact is that all these efforts can only have a limited impact without an overarching UN treaty. Since 2014, the international civil society with Franciscans International have thus supported the negotiations by both providing technical support and by bringing representatives of affected communities to the UN so they can share their testimonies. Nevertheless, after years of efforts we are still
at a crossroads.

The next session of the UN working group in charge of the negotiations in October 2022 will likely be a critical moment for this process. This fight for corporate accountability has been, and will continue to be, a collective effort. (The Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room, UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré)

John Paul Pezzi, mccj

Ukraine. Churches Divided by War.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is also having serious consequences on the ecclesial level in the complicated landscape of the Orthodox Churches. The situation is aggravated by the support of the patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, for Putin’s military invasion. An analysis.

For three years, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been divided into two opposing Churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (COU), the most numerous in terms of the number of bishops, popes (priests) and parishes, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Church (CAOU). Why such division?
At the time of the USSR, Ukraine was an exarchate of the Moscow patriarchate; with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the country’s independence, that structure split into three (recovering some minor groups): a small autocephalous Church, Kyiv patriarchate (led by Metropolitan Filaret, excommunicated by the Russian Church), and the Ukrainian Church, linked to Moscow.

Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople with Ukraine children.

In September 2018 Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople and primus inter pares (‘first among equals’) of the patriarchs and primates of the fourteen autocephalous Orthodox Churches, announced that he wanted to proclaim the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church, bringing together all the Orthodox churches of the country. The idea, according to Moscow, was suggested to him by President Donald Trump to weaken Russia!
In Orthodoxy, the autocephalous churches are canonically independent, each without interference from the others, but considered sisters, to which they are linked by the same Christian faith and fidelity to the first seven ecumenical councils (those held from 325 to 787).
Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow, scornfully rejected the idea of Ukrainian autocephaly, but on December 15 of that year, under the high patronage of President Petro Poroshenko, a ‘Council of Reunification’ was held in Kyiv proposing the creation of the CAOU.

St Volodymyr’s Cathedral is a cathedral in the centre of Kyiv. It serves as the mother cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kyiv Patriarchate. CC BY-SA 4.0/Роман Наумов

The COU, however, absolutely refused to join. In January 2019 Bartholomew, with a tomos (decree) formally accepted the request. The Russian patriarchate considered this decision a schismatic act, taken against its will, and in a country that the Church of Moscow considered its ‘canonical territory’, that is, subject to its jurisdiction. He, therefore, ended Eucharistic communion with him.
As for the Churches united to Rome, in Ukraine, there is the Greek-Catholic Church and the Latin Church, made up mainly of Poles.
There are also small but lively Baptist communities, linked to the Protestant Reformation.
The presence of Jews in the country is significant. With the Nazi invasion of the Second World War – which began in June 1941 – they suffered severe decimation over a period of three years: 1.6 million Jews were murdered. There was the heinous massacre of Babi Yar, in Kyiv, where on 29 and 30 September of that year, 33,771 Jews were gathered, with deceitfulness and the complicity of pro-Nazi Ukrainian minorities, and then massacred.

Inter-Orthodox Schism
In the Black Sea, since Roman times there has been a great deal of traffic: by crossing it, and going up the navigable Dnieper, you could reach Kyiv, a city built on the banks of the great river, about three hundred kilometres to the north, in the centre of a territory called Russia. With the establishment of Christianity, the Byzantine traders made their religion known to the pagan Slavs of that area. It was only in 988 that Prince Volodymyr (the name in Ukrainian; in Russian it is Vladimir) was baptized; as was the custom then, all his people also had to become Christians.

The red basilica of Perushtitza, known as the church of the St. Patrick in Plovdiv, is a byzantine-ages town in Bulgaria. 123rf.com.

In 1054 the first Rome, on the Tiber, and the second, Constantinople, excommunicated each other due to theological disputes and political pressures; Kyiv kept out of this dispute, however, and tried to maintain good relations with both of them.
Two centuries later, the Mongol Tatars begin to invade Russia; in 1240 the Metropolitan of Kiev then took refuge in Russia, where he resided in various cities until he fixed his residence in Moscow (created only in 1147), finally taking the title derived from it.
After a hopeful start, the attempt of the Council of Lyons II, in 1274, to reconcile Latins and Byzantines, failed. It was the Council of Florence, in 1439, which again attempted the arduous undertaking. Pope Eugene IV promised Emperor John VIII a crusade, to help him defeat the Turks who were dangerously nearing Constantinople. But finally, the crusade failed and on May 29, 1453, the Ottoman Turks conquered the city: after a thousand years, the Eastern Roman Empire ended.

St George outdoor icon. 123rf.com

Pope Paul II (1471) favoured the marriage of Zoe, the only heir of the Byzantine Empire, with the great prince of Moscow, Ivan III, hoping he would become a Catholic and participate in a crusade against the Turks, but this speculation came to nothing. In the sixteenth century, this myth was born in Russia from the monastic world: ‘The first Rome fell into the heresy of papism; the second into the hands of the Turks; the third, Moscow, the pillar of Orthodoxy, will never fall’.
In summary: the Church of Kiev is the daughter of Constantinople; that of Moscow is the daughter of Kiev. But the Russian patriarchate maintains that, since 1686, Ukraine voluntarily became its ‘canonical territory’; therefore, three years ago he considered it ‘intolerable’ that Bartholomew should initiate the procedures to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church. This is how the intra-Orthodox schism arose. (Open Photo: The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, on the northern bank of the Moskva River, a few hundred metres southwest of the Kremlin. CC BY-SA 4.0/Diego Delso)

Luigi Sandri/Credere

Circus Zambia. A Chance to Change the Situation.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

The colours of the walls, the little flags decorating the entrance, the large open space where they practise all is harmony and serenity at Circus Zambia. It is here that hundreds of youngsters learn
the arts of the circus.

The writing on the wall declares that inside there is a place where people can “run, jump, fly… “, and this is the feeling we get as we enter and see the boys and girls from difficult situations finding on their doorstep a place where they feel valued and cared for.
The idea of Circus Zambia came from a boy in the outskirts. He seemingly had no prospects but just the determination to change his life and that of many of his friends.
Gift Chansa, Co-Founder and artistic director of Circus Zambia, was born and grew up in Chibolya, one of the more disadvantaged outskirts of Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. From childhood, he liked to challenge his friends to do the acrobatics on the streets which led him to discover the existence of the circus.

Gift Chansa, Co-Founder and artistic director of Circus Zambia

He managed to study this discipline in China and the Netherlands. He was awarded a diploma in Project Management at the National Institute of Public Administration at the University of Zambia. Since the formation of Circus Zambia, he has become a reference point for the social entrepreneurship of his country, so much so that, in 2018, the MTV television network recognised his work and his leadership.
Six years after the start of what Chansa describes as “The movement to change the image of the city quarter “. Circus Zambia has two centres, one in Chibolya and another in a residential area in the centre of Lusaka where work continues on a project called ‘Body, Mind and Soul’ with a ‘Holistic perspective’, considering it as a whole that transforms the person and helps the community.
Chansa and his collaborators describe themselves as ‘A lively, young and social circus’ in which talent is discovered and where people work to bring it to fruition. This is how they have already succeeded in convincing some of the more talented students to spend a year in China to train and learn new circus techniques.
Today, that small group of artists is now a group of professionals who have performed in the United States, Ethiopia, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom.
Their shows, which they perform in their centres every last Friday of the month in Lusaka, and the private shows they put on for small groups or companies that book them to provide entertainment at their event, have enabled them to acquire the large centre where they train and to pay the school fees and buy school equipment for 24 boys and girls to discourage them from dropping out of school for lack of resources, or due to family pressures.

The Circus also supports about a hundred children who take part in the Body Program, practising their different skills as clowns, jugglers, dancers, or acrobats. “It is through this demanding physical training by which they improve from day to day, perfecting and improving their acts, that the young people learn the value of leading a healthy life and the importance of caring for their bodies.
The Circus keeps them away from such widespread and difficult to control problems such as drugs and alcohol”.
Among the priority activities of Zambia are the visits to the city quarters and the street shows, as the members of the project explain to us. Entertainment and humour enable us to face complex social problems. “The prevention of HIV, violence against women and child marriages are topics on which we never stop speaking so that, right from their childhood days, they are aware of the world they live in and guard against”. There are at present more than 5,000 boys and girls involved in the various projects.

Chansa points out that if you say you live in Chibolya, people do not trust you. “We know that people associate Chibolya with drugs and criminality, but Chibolya is more than all of that. Just think of talented young people who want to get on in life”.
Coordinated physical and mental work, apart from the daily difficulties of the children, transform them when they come to Circus Zambia. “With our programme, we take on the same problems that challenge young people in the community. For example, we teach such values as the empowerment of women and gender equality. We also have a project involving sanitary hygiene and clean water and we are locally involved in global problems. We are a very organic and rooted platform that assists the youth”.In the great hall, we see some young people performing exercises on special acrobatic equipment while others are practising on the beam and, in a corner, a group of young people are discussing some future projects.

Performing in front of strangers, whether on the street or the stage, develops self-confidence.
The messages encouraging them to keep on practising until they can perform the exercise, using the innate energy of youth, make the training sessions a series of incessant repetition. Some are balancing hands-free on ropes to demonstrate their ability to use their legs, arms or torso to avoid falling; others are trying the unicycle for the first time or form human figures that require enormous flexibility.
“These exercises help to increase self-esteem and to show one’s potential and talents in a natural way. What we are really doing is helping them to face life with serenity and commitment. However difficult, there is no obstacle that cannot be overcome”, Chansa concludes. (Open Photo: © Circus Zambia)

Carla Fibia García-Sala

South Africa. The Energy Transition has to wait.

Sunday, 1 May 2022 8:00

Beyond the government’s policy statements, the country will not start turning its back on fossil fuels in the short term. There is too much impact on employment.This has been confirmed by the Minister of Minerals and Energy Gwede Mantashe and supported by
the Trade Unions.

South Africa’s electricity generation accounts for more than 80% of the country’s output. It makes the country one of the top-20 emitters of carbon dioxide worldwide. The government plans that this will fall to 60% by 2030 through increasing renewable sources, extending the life of its one nuclear plant and natural gas.
About 95% of electricity production is controlled by the parastatal Eskom which is massively in debt and which has struggled to maintain a stable supply recently thanks to a legacy of mismanagement and corruption during the era of President Jacob Zuma. There are over 40,000 coal miners in the country and 28% of South Africa’s coal is exported, making it the 6^th largest coal exporter in the world.

Eskom also employs over 40,000 people. With an official unemployment rate of 34.9%, one can understand why the South African government is cautious about an energy transition.
To re-train 80,000 workers, many unskilled, would be a huge undertaking in a developing country. The governing party also needs their votes at a time when its popularity is on the decline.
South Africa is a world leader in the process of synthesising petrol and diesel from coal. Ironically this industry was first developed by the apartheid government at a time when the regime was threatened with oil sanctions. Today this very profitable company, SASOL, employs 30,000 people worldwide and is present in 33 countries. SASOL’s factory in Secunda, in Mpumalanga Province, in eastern South Africa, is estimated to be the largest single factory carbon polluter on the planet. Like all fossil fuel companies, it proclaims that it is going green, but progress is difficult. How to move away from fossil fuels and still run a profitable company, is the problem?

Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Minerals and Energy.

The recent funding from Western countries to help South Africa make the transition to a low-carbon economy has been received by the Minister of Minerals and energy, Gwede Mantashe with some scepticism if not downright suspicion. He argues that Western attempts to ‘help’ Africa to decarbonise are hypocritical because the West’s own record on decarbonisation is one of foot-dragging. He believes that South Africa and other African nations must maintain their sovereign right to use their fossil fuels and resist being railroaded into a hasty transition that harms African development goals. After all, the fossil fuel emissions of the African continent amount to a mere 3% of global emissions. Of course, South Africa supplies coal to some of the big polluters like India, so it depends on how you generate the statistics.
Minister Mantashe is an enthusiastic supporter of heavy industry, including nuclear power. He wants to maintain and expand the exploitation of fossil fuels in South and southern Africa. He recently directed his anger at environmental groups which brought effective legal challenges to Shell’s plans to conduct a seismic survey for fossil fuel deposits on the seabed along the West Coast of the country. His arguments have a certain force, and they resonate with the unions whose members’ jobs would be threatened by the transition.

There are two objections to them, however. The first is the problem of being left behind technologically. If South Africa and Africa invest in expensive infrastructure for the exploitation of coal and natural gas, this means there will be fewer resources to put into future energy. And this country and other African countries are ideally suited for some alternative energy sources. We have some of the most abundant sunlight sites in the world and many onshore and offshore sites which are suited to harvesting wind energy. True, these are being developed in South Africa, but mostly by private energy producers and at a government-regulated pace that is designed to protect the coal industry.
We are in a similar position to twenty years ago when the government decided to build two massive power stations in South Africa’s coalfields, thus locking the country’s economy into a technology that was already out of date. Minister Mantashe seems happy to lock us into coal and gas for another 30 years by which time Western nations might well be imposing punitive taxes on goods produced and transported
using fossil fuels.

Open pit coal mining and processing in South Africa. 123RF.COM

The second problem is illustrated by the situation in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique where the curse of the hydrocarbon resource is being played out tragically in the violence which has gripped that area. Islamist insurgents have caused havoc among local people in the struggle to take control of the Total gas fields off the coast.
Developing countries with ‘get-rich-quick’ natural resources are prime targets for criminal groups. It is not just the problem of insurgency. In Angola, the entire oil industry became the fiefdom of a single political family. The sad fact is that possessing large deposits of hydrocarbons does not automatically translate into the equitable sharing of wealth. The history of South Africa itself illustrates this fact – the diamonds and the gold discovered in the 19^th century attracted the attention of empire-builders like Cecil Rhodes and other colonial looters.
Perhaps South Africa has the legal and institutional strength to avoid the problem of the resource curse. However, the fact that Shell has been conducting a seismic survey off the East Coast (and another has been planned by an Australian company off the West Coast) has set environmental alarm bells ringing.

Oil rig in the ocean bay of Cape Town. 123RF.COM

A solid historical objection to Shell is the company’s history in Ogoniland in Nigeria where the environmental impact has been catastrophic and scandalous. If they trashed Ogoniland, one can ask, how can we guarantee that they will not also trash the coast of the Eastern Cape, known locally as the Wild Coast for its great beauty and rich ecological diversity?What is the feeling of ordinary people about the issue of the energy transition? In the areas where drilling might take place, there is concern for the loss of traditional economies connected to the environment, as well as the impact on tourism. Solidarity is not 100%, of course, for there are always some who would hope to benefit from the concessions and contracts that hydrocarbon exploitation brings.
As for people who are not directly involved, there seems little concern except among the professional classes. For many ordinary people, life is a hard struggle and therefore issues like how rapidly we move to a renewable electricity supply are hardly their daily concern. For them, the question is whether they can afford electricity at all and whether their children will ever find jobs. Unlike in Europe where the supporters of fossil fuels are on the defensive, in South Africa, fossil fuel businesses and their political supporters still hold many of the strong cards. (Open Photo: The Tutuka Power Station near Standerton, in the Mpumalanga Province. ©dpreezg/123RF.COM)

Chris Chatteris sj

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