The Democratic Alliance has taken ”the strongest possible exception” to what it says is a sacrilegious poem in honour of Northern Province premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi.
The poem, by school pupil Tumi Makudubela, was published on the front page of the September edition of the Limpopo government’s newspaper, The Great North News, to mark Ramathlodi’s 48th birthday.
Written in the form of the Lord’s Prayer, it begins: ”Our premier who art in the Parliament. Hallowed be thy government. Thy constitution come. Thy will be done in rural areas as it is done in urban areas.”
It ends with: ”For ever and ever Limpopo.”
DA arts and culture spokesperson Sydney Opperman said in a statement on Tuesday that he intended to send a letter of protest to Ramatlhodi’s office asking him to distance himself from the poem.
He would also refer it to the commission for the promotion and protection of the rights of cultural, religious and language communities.
”The only thing worse than this insult to religious South Africans across the country is the fact that the poem was published in a newspaper paid for by the taxpayer,” he said.
”The ‘Our Father’ is dear to millions of religious South Africans. Freedom of speech is one thing, but this form of religious intolerance is something all together different.”
However, Ramatlhodi’s spokesperson, Charlie Nkadimeng, dismissed Opperman’s claims as ”sheer politicking”.
He said The Great North News indicated clearly that the articles in it were not the official views of the provincial government.
”But beyond that, it is not in the nature of our democracy to begin to censor views, opinions and artistic expressions of the citizens of this province.
”I would imagine the schoolchild was merely demonstrating his artistic creativity and would not have imagined the religious connotations that would arise from his piece of work.”
Khitsane Kutoane, general secretary of the Zion Christian Church (ZCC), of which Ramatlhodi is a member, said he could not comment without seeing the poem, but added that the ZCC as a Christian church respected the Lord’s Prayer.
”Our church is based on the Bible and we would not go to the extent of ridiculing the Lord’s Prayer,” he said.
Nor did he think Ramatlhodi would lend himself to anything that did so.
Anglican bishop David Beetge said though he could not comment directly on the poem without seeing it, whether it was sacrilegious would depend on whether the verse was attacking the ideas in the Lord’s Prayer, or merely using the form or style of the prayer.
”If you are deliberately mocking God in it, I would say so,” said Beetge, who is dean of his church’s province of Southern Africa.
”But I’ve seen many a parody of the 23rd psalm, ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’; I’ve seen ‘The Lord Is My Bus Driver’. I don’t think we must become oversensitive.”
It appeared that the author of the poem was just using the form of the prayer ”and substituting what is in effect the situation”.
He said he understood that there was a great deal of sensitivity around this issue, but that people should not become ”paranoid”. — Sapa