The South African Council of Churches (SACC) has asked the African National Congress to act against one of its members of Parliament who called Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s views on transformation ”treasonous”.
The SACC’s national executive committee on Wednesday expressed ”grave disquiet” at remarks Butana Komphela, chairperson of the Parliamentary portfolio committee on sport, reportedly made last week.
It called on the ANC ”to attend to the matter urgently” and to champion the rights of all citizens to express their views on South Africa’s democracy.
Komphela’s comments came after Tutu told a newspaper the best way to improve the country’s sporting future would be to improve facilities for deprived sectors of the community.
He advocated abandoning the ”tokenism” of the current approach to transformation which was ”an insult to all those involved”.
Komphela then reportedly called Tutu’s views ”treasonous … and tantamount to undermining the spirit of the new Constitution.”
Outrage from the opposition benches later caused Komphela to deny that he had accused Tutu of being a traitor.
However, he said: ”The Constitution requires that we move from the old to the new. If anyone says transformation should be scrapped … it is the same as high treason.”
SACC called for ”temperate language” in public discourse.
”The strength of our democracy lies in the public space we create for a diversity of viewpoints to coexist,” said the organisation’s secretary general, Molefe Tsele. – Sapa