Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, has spent this week visiting Alma College, Michigan, in the USA as part of a two-month sabbatical. He has given two public lectures. The first, on Wednesday night, was a reflection on those influences in his life, which have led him to his present commitments. He spoke about his life under apartheid, his imprisonment on Robben Island and his passionate commitment to the creation of a new South Africa.

Archbishop Ndungane's second lecture, given last night, addressed critical issues facing South Africa today, such as the debt crisis, the AIDS epidemic, and justice for women.

The Archbishop also spoke at length about poverty and its related ills, such as HIV/AIDS, saying that South Africa's history leaves a particular legacy of economic justice to be overcome. 'South Africa has one of the most unequal societies in the world-and the gap is growing,' he said, and appealed for the government to provide a Basic Income Grant to every South African.

Archbishop Ndungane also attacked global economic policies and noted that foreign trade, ostensibly meant to benefit developing nations in Africa, has had a negative growth in that continent and South Africa in particular.

The Archbishop said that he is well aware that these views are anathema to received economic wisdom which is 'a wisdom received by those who benefit from it. It is a wisdom that fails to note that trickle-down has never worked, that so-called 'level playing fields' and 'free markets' are license for the strong to trample the weak, and that the increasing disparity between rich and poor is iniquitous to the point where it is nothing short of evil,' he said.

'One lesson of 9/11 is to demonstrate how instabilities can thrive where there is inadequate understanding of mutual interdependence, insufficient commitment to our shared humanity, insufficient justice. And then the rich and powerful can find themselves vulnerable too-something the poor, weak and marginalized know as everyday reality.

Archbishop Ndungane praised the transformative potential of Restorative Justice which, he said, is the key and, for example, brought 'healing balm to the wounds of apartheid.' 'But it takes commitment and courage-especially from those who have to give up some of their privileges' he said.

'We must together strive for lasting peace with justice-juridical, political and economic. We still desire world peace-a stable and lasting peace, and this can only come when there is greater justice, greater equity, for all' said the Archbishop.