How do you make sense that the world peoples converged on the campus of University of South Africa (UNISA) on March 30 and 31 under the banner of World Peace, yet high on the heels of this summit, we woke up to unprecedented acts of barbarism as what we have seen in the recent weeks? As one who participated at that summit where we earnestly believed world peace was and is attainable in our era, the xenophobic attacks are an indictment. The peace summit attracted peace lovers from all walks of life: politicians, religious leaders, traditional leaders, youth leaders, women leaders, members of the diplomatic corps, media practitioners as well as chief justices. The clarion call was simplistic yet powerful to ignoreÔÇömake peace a reality!
Under the watch and guidance of the eighty-five year old South Korean war veteran Man Hee Lee, who has become the champion of peace, persuasively convincing heads of nations to commit to the signing of an international constitution that he designed for the cessation of wars around the globe, one cannot but agree with him that this world needs a heavenly culture if peace was to be restored. Lee, who serves as the Chairman of Heavenly Culture, World Peace and Restoration of Light (HWPL) launched the peace crusade in September 2014 in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
“I have a solution for peace and wholeheartedly believe in it. It is not a hard road to travel as I work with so many of you around the world to achieve peace. As religious leaders chant the ‘end of times’ because of the wars we see, I say no; with combined forces and efforts, our generation has a birth right to chart a future for world peace to be achieved. We have to unite as oneÔÇöit is a collective responsibility for all inhabiting the world to achieve peace with one another,” stated the icon of peace to a thunderous standing ovation.
Lee said that to live a heavenly culture is to live according to the principles and values of heaven and the creator, bearing in mind the respect for the sanctity of life for each individual. He said he chose peace after experiencing first-hand the atrocities of war between 1950 and 1953 during the Korean War. In 2010, Lee made the declaration of unification and led the effort in protecting peace on the Korean peninsula and Asia. Furthermore in 2013, he made the declaration of world peace whose strategy drawsw on the power that the youth have to cooperate for peace. Lee has travelled to 60 nations engaging with international leaders of both the secular and religious worlds in discussions centring on the drafting of an international agreement to bring about the cessation of wars and usher in world peace. It is envisioned to be transformed into an international law to guide the world on achieving peace.
“I was heart-broken upon my visit to the island of Philippines to find a major conflict between two religious leaders who had not spoken to each other for over 40 years. I met one of the leaders who lost countless of his followers because of the conflict. I pondered; if all religions can teach ‘love one another’ yet there is so much hatredÔÇöhas religion lost its purpose in our time? The heavenly culture of knowing peace was revealed to me and it is not the way of the world, hence this solution remains the only key to unlocking the future,” Lee explained amidst chants. He further revealed that just like in other parts where there is warring, Korea and Japan used to experience conflicts due to Japan’s dominance and her colonial legacy.
“When I paid a visit to Japan, the prime minister presented me with a peace prize. I told him I did not care for the prize if there was no peace between the nations. People need cessation of wars and flourishing peace. My God inspires me in what I doÔÇöunite the world is my message wherever I go. If world leaders love their nations, they must come forth and sign the declaration. Thus far I am delighted because there is no single political leader I have discussed this solution for peace with who has rejected me. But why are our acts contradicting our preaching about peace? It is because of corruption in our religious communities. We need to return religion to its original state as God had intended for it to unite, not divide people. I hope religious leaders shall work together to unite humanity,” stressed Lee.
Lee has not minced words to remind leaders to bear in mind the future of the nations they are privileged to lead in the present, emphasising that politics and religions are not the problems, rather, the self-appeasement attitude that disregards the truth that the world exists for future generations, is the source of all troubles.
“Have you ever imagined the destruction caused by war? You can’t see the clouds days on end because they are covered by smoke. You go into war wearing the same clothes and after a bloodbath, you come out wearing the same clothes no matter how long the war has lasted. The shaking of the ground from gunfire rips your heart apart. Do you know how much it costs a nation to go to war? Nobody can compensate the losses no matter whether your side is declared the winner in the war. We must protect the future because the future lies in the youth who are the same people sent to the frontlines to die in the senseless wars that serve the corruption inherent in our leaders. The culture of heaven is the only solution for peace to abide, not by the will of men of this world,” he declared.
How then did South Africa miss such an important message delivered on her soil with wide coverage from media outlets that were present during the peace summit? The xenophobic attacks are therefore a manifestation of an inherent attitude of anger that the citizens of the rainbow nation haveÔÇönot just with foreigners but more so within them. Some analysts have postulated that African despots should not stand tall to condemn the atrocities in South Africa, because they caused their citizens to flee despair and persecution.
A fair comment when gleamed on the surface. But the root cause of anger of such proportion as we are seeing these days depicts dysfunctional families and how each socialises its children to accept the diversity in the tapestry of humankind. It does not matter which religion; if there is any belief in self that teaches self to be the only thing that matters the most, such belief is flawed. ‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he shall not depart from it’ (Proverbs 22:6). Our children are taught to denigrate upon fellow human beings from an early age. The racial slurs and ethnic epithets we use against those of a different background need not be implanted in the impressionable minds of children and youth who only play them out.
The problem of how our families impress upon us the belief of prowess and therefore superiority, or belief of timidity and therefore inferiority are the result in the chaos we are seeing now. This problem of family beliefs about one’s heritage is more pronounced when we are grown up and more so, when we are public figures for whatever reason that puts us in the centre stage to influence public agenda. How many times have we seen leaders goof up in public and hide behind the truth that they too, are human and have emotions and opinions? But each time we lose our cool in the public space as people of influence, what it really means is that the subconscious mind is in fact revealing a lot more than what we have been tactful to conceal away from the naked eye. Similarly, we quickly find a way to inspire the public mercy that the sensational media took our speech out of context and completely blew it disproportionally! This happens because we cannot face up to our unbridled tongues that can wage a war or set the nation ablaze. King Goodwill Zwelithini of the Zulus instigated the violence because he himself is an unhappy citizen going by this speech:
Both king Dinizulu and Cetshwayo were arrested for fighting for our country’s freedom. They fought for people’s freedom in 1994, but when we talk of South Africans in 2015, we talk of people who don’t want to listen, who don’t want to work, who are thieves, child rapists and housebreakers. People who are lazy and do not want to plough their fields. When foreigners look at them, they will say, ‘let’s exploit the nation of idiots.’ As I speak, you’ll find their unsightly goods hanging all over our shops, they dirty our streets. We cannot even recognize which shop is which; there are foreigners everywhere. I know it is hard for other politicians to challenge this because they are after their votes. Please forgive me, but this is my responsibility, I must talk…As King of the Zulu nation which is respected worldwide because of the role it played in fighting for freedom in Africa, I will not keep quiet…it is time to say something. I ask our Government to help us fix our own problems, help us find our solutions. We ask foreign nationals to pack their belongings and go back to their countries. It is evident that King Zwelithini celebrates his ethnicity.
He makes no mention of non-Zulu traditional leaders who would have suffered similar or worse blows in fighting the apartheid system. He holds the Zulu nation high up and above others as having ushered freedom to South Africans. King Zwelithini nudges the consciousness of an apparently lazy and passive South African nation that its land and wealth are being grabbed right under their noses by foreigners, therefore; it is time they get out of the slumber and reclaim it. Any sensible human being cannot ignore such a clarion call or reminder from a leader.
King Zwelithini shows disgust with the filth that is strewn across South African townships, cities and villages brought about by foreigners and their cheap quality products that they are selling to unsuspecting South Africans on their soil to exploit their seeming idiotism. King Zwelithini makes it his moral duty to speak out even admittedly aware of the backlash that his commentary can bring about, but that is why he is the king of a nation that in his judgment, not only fought for the freedoms of South Africans, but helped in the emancipation of other nations across the motherland (he will have to host an imbizo and tell us which are those). The roaring king ends by making a plea to his government to aid him and his subjects in dealing with what they view to be the problem and he is clearÔÇöflush out foreigners.
Faced with the improbable task of a government that would not act impetuously as the king orders or recommends for fear that South African nationals living and working in other parts of the world might be subjected to similar treatmentÔÇöthe subjects took law into their hands and the murder picture of Eric Sithole from Mozambique told of the inbred anger among poor South Africans who espouse the belief of the king that their state of poverty is due to foreigners taking over their wealth. King Zwelithini is an angry man and he represents an average South African, who is frustrated by their state of being after 1994, a year that marked a drastic change with respect to socio-economic and political freedoms. More than twenty years down the line, the majority of black South Africans still work in white-owned businesses; they live in shacks in the townships because the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) has failed to deliver decent housing to every citizen [as] promised at the dawn of independence.
*Rev Bishop Enole Ditsheko is Chairman of Little Eden’s Justice and Peace Centre
