Zille is a ‘satanist’

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has accused DA leader Hellen Zille of being a “satanist” bent on demolishing churches in black communities. “Helen Zille, who is suffering from satanism, has gone all out to demolish the churches in Western Cape,” Malema told students at the University of Johannesburg yesterday. “She is exposing herself ... people there will know they voted for a monster.”

Malema was reacting to an outcry by black religious leaders that the DA-led Cape Town municipality was demolishing township churches – while leaving shebeens standing. Angry religious leaders met a delegation of 21 ANC MPs to complain about the city’s anti-land invasion unit, which has demolished churches in Khayelitsha.

When the MPs, including ANC chief whip Mathole Motshekga, and religious leaders visited the unit had just finished bulldozing a mosque.

China turns to Buddhism to calm Tibet tensions

The Beijing-backed Panchen Lama addressed an international Buddhist audience in English on Saturday, as officially atheist China turned to Buddhism as a balm for internal unrest and international tensions.

The Communist Party tried to root out Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism during the first three decades of its rule, but now recognises the potential of religion to maintain stability.

"Buddhism has proven to have two benefits, it brings a spiritual peace to society and it also helps materially, for instance in disasters and in serving the weakest segments of society," said Shih Lien Hai, president of the World-wide Buddhist Development Association based in Taiwan.

"Religion is a force for stability in society. If government could understand religion's attributes, if it could bring religion's strengths into play, it would be more effective."

Source: Mail & Guardian

Calling all refugees

Government officials have slammed Bishop Paul Verryn for offering refuge to thousands of Zimbabweans in and around Jo'burg's Central Methodist Church.

"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered" (Proverbs 21:13). There are many similar texts in the writings of Christianity and the other major religions. They regard it as a virtue to care for the poor and homeless, and there is a noble tradition that a church building is also a place of sanctuary.

Every society has to strike a delicate balance between accommodating the marginalised and protecting the right of other citizens to go about their business. Investors in the renewal of the city centre can be forgiven if they withhold their money.

Not to do so would constitute an invitation to anarchy.

Can this be seen as an open invitation to anyone seeking refuge?

Unashamedly, yes.

Source: Financial Mail

South Africa Bars Dalai Lama From a Peace Conference

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has barred the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, from attending a peace conference here this week that is supposed to promote the 2010 World Cup and the potential of sport to unite people across races and nations.

If South Africa’s intention in barring the Dalai Lama was to keep the attention of the world focused on the World Cup instead of Tibet, it certainly seemed to backfire.

Kjetil Siem, chief executive officer of the Premier Soccer League in South Africa, which organized the peace conference, seemed taken aback on Monday by the storm of protest that had engulfed the conference. It was supposed to be a celebration of South Africa as the rainbow nation of all races united by soccer.

Source: New York Times

White SA struggles with African identity

Generations too late to be classified as Europeans, white South Africans are fighting for the right to be seen as African amid doubts about their loyalty, fuelled by a growing white diaspora.

In his "I am an African" speech, delivered at the launch of the country's Constitution in 1996, then-deputy president Mbeki said: "The Constitution whose adoption we celebrate constitutes an unequivocal statement that we refuse to accept that our Africanness shall be defined by our race, colour, gender or historical origins."

Source: Mail & Guardian

Land and Spirituality in Africa

The colonizers acquired land in an insensitive manner, driven by greed, and the process was intended to vanquish and dehumanize the original owners. This was achieved through military subjugation. The Zulu-Anglo War of I879 and the Anglo-Boer War of the early I9th Century can be traced back to the struggles for land. A number of massacres of Black South Africans were nothing other than an insensitive, greedy and cruel method for dispossessing Blacks of the land. Land was acquired with total disregard of traditional beliefs and cultures underpining our spirituality as Black Africans. Indigenous communities were stripped of their dignity, many lost their identity, languages, cultures and spiritualities. In this sense, land was acquired and used as a political tool.

After acquiring land, the colonizers commercialized it and later inflated its price. That left us with no land we could call our own. We soon found ourselves in exile in our own country. It is painful to note that churches, especially those that own land, were involved in the process which left Africans with nothing except �ubuntu�, a confused culture and a hope that God and their ancestors were still with them in their pain and happiness.

Source: World Council of Churches