President Thabo Mbeki took issue with Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Friday over statements he made earlier this week, saying fundamental requirements for rational discussion is familiarity with the facts and respect for the truth.
Delivering this year’s Nelson Mandela Lecture on Tuesday, Tutu said, among other things: ”We should not too quickly want to pull rank and to demand an uncritical, sycophantic, obsequious conformity.
”We need to find ways in which we engage the hoi polloi, the so-called masses, the people, in public discourse through indabas, town-hall forums, so that no one feels marginalised and that their point of view matters, it counts.
”We should debate more openly — not using emotive language. We should not be browbeaten by pontificating decrees from on high. It should be possible to talk as adults about these issues without engaging in slanging matches,” Tutu said.
Writing in the African National Congress’ online publication, ANC Today, on Friday, Mbeki said: ”One of the fundamental requirements for the rational discussion suggested by the archbishop is familiarity with the facts relevant to any matter under discussion, as well as respect for the truth.”
From the very beginning of the democratic order, the ANC insisted on the need for transparent and accountable government, and worked consistently to encourage and enable two-way communication between government and the people.
This included public information terminals at post offices and multi-purpose community centres, public hearings in legislatures, izimbizos, and the presidential working groups.
At no point during these interactions had either the people or the media observers communicated any message that anybody had ”pulled rank” or ”demanded an uncritical, sycophantic, obsequious conformity”, or that they had been ”browbeaten by pontificating decrees from on high”.
”But, of course, others, such as the Archbishop, may have information to the contrary,” Mbeki said.
”Evidently the Archbishop thinks there is something wrong with ANC members agreeing with ANC policies they have decided within the various forums of the organisation, including our national conference.
”Thus respect for positions democratically agreed within the organisation are described as ‘unthinking, uncritical, kowtowing and party line-toeing’. He contemptuously dismisses the members of our movement as ‘voting cattle of the party’.
”The archbishop has never been a member of the ANC, and would have very little knowledge of what happens even in an ANC branch. How he comes to the conclusion that there is ‘lack of debate’ in the ANC is most puzzling.
”Rational discussion about how the ANC decides its policies requires some familiarity with the internal procedures of the ANC, rather than gratuitous insults about our members, based on a refusal to ‘accept the bona fides of all’ for which he appealed,” Mbeki said. – Sapa