JONATHAN JANSEN: Schools are failing to transmit basic human values
'When those institutions fail in their duty to convey such connecting values, then our worst instincts such as violence and revenge kick in'
EXTRACT
This commitment to reconciliation lies deep within our political culture from the reconciliation between Boer and Brit at the start of the previous century to the rapprochement between black and white at the end of the 1980s.
What held together the SA transition was a deep commitment within our national culture to ubuntu combined with a sacred commitment to spiritual life. It was a transition marked by unforgettable gestures from the prominent role of religious figures in the Peace Accords and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to everyday acts of forgiveness played out of the national stage; in regards to the latter, think for example of Adriaan Vlok’s approach to Reverend Frank Chikane and also to the Mamelodi mothers.
We were squeezed inside a narrow, rectangular plot of the Plumstead cemetery. On each side there was a rival funeral. The preachers struggled to out-shout each other. Our group was on a hiding to nothing. A long-established tradition in the church of my youth was a general aversion to musical instruments and a sense of English decorum carried by words like acting “dignified” at a funeral. Our acapella singing was subdued. The Pentecostalists on each side struck up with bands – a piano accordion, a saxophone and hearty singing punctuated with “amens”. Our decidedly more middle-class, reverential group of saints did not stand a chance against the hearty singing and throaty preaching of the working classes. Our preacher strained to be heard; all I could see was his lips moving as an older saint almost stumbled into the hole. This was Saturday morning on the Flats of Cape Town where people came to bury their dead. It was clear that graves were dug next to each other during the week and ...
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