“The educational system in this country should be Africanised,” proclaimed Dr Mathole Motshekga at a seminar on cultural values within the human rights framework.
The seminar was hosted by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Motshekga, a former Gauteng premier, is director of the Kara Heritage Institute which aims to promote cultural awareness among Africans.
“Human rights are too deeply rooted in Western society,” Motshekga said to a captivated audience of commissioners and human rights workers.
“Our judgement is biased to the West and does not do justice to African culture and religion that is based on spirituality.”
Motshekga expressed admiration for Jews and Muslims for educating their people from an early age on their ancestry and cultural background.
“Just as the church teaches people about Abraham and Isaac, our children in school should be taught about great Africans such as John Langalibalele Dube, Pixley Isaac Seme, Anton Lembede, Kenneth Kaunda, Steve Biko, and Mandela,” Motshekga told the Mail & Guardian Online on Wednesday.
Motshekga said that an established cultural value system was of the utmost importance.
“People without a past are people without an identity and without a culture.”
The SAHRC’s aim with the seminar was to examine and come up with practical ways of affirming a culture of values in the South African human rights framework.
The debate on the role culture plays in the country’s legislation comes at a time when people’s minds are receptive to this issue. Former deputy president Jacob Zuma, currently on trial in Johannesburg for rape, unleashed a storm of controvery when he last week called upon his Zulu roots to explain his acts.
“Culture can never be used to take away rights of other people,” chairperson of the Cultural, Religious, and Linguistic Commission, Dr Mongezi Guma, said at the seminar.
Guma agreed with Motshekga on the biased legislative judgement in South Africa. “The problem is not in the Constitution, it is in the lenses with which we read it,” he said.
“The tools we use to view the Constitution should not only be the Western tools we’ve learned to use over more recent years. We need to incorporate our traditional heritage. I’m simply requesting that we use bifocal lenses.”
Jody Kollapen, chairperson of the SAHRC, explained the importance of incorporating values into the constitutional mindset.
“We need to discuss issues in this country not only in academic circles but also with people on the ground,” Kollapen told the M&G Online.
“People often assume that values and the Constitution are the same, but they are not. Understanding and interpretation of same sex marriages for example is still very different from one person to the next. We must reach consensus in that way that even though somebody might not agree with same sex marriages on a personal level, he or she can still see the importance of it for others and for the wider spectrum of things.”
Criminal attorney and member of the Media Review Network, Archie Augustine, drew the conclusion that the Bill of Rights does no justice to values.
“The jails are fuller than ever before. You can not make a value system out of legal rights.”
He said that the Bill of Rights doesn’t protect religion and education by law.
“I am not saying that the Bill of Rights contains no principles,” Augustine said, pulling a booklet out of his jacket pocket.
“I love this little book, but government really must cooperate with cultural organisations to ensure the Constitution does justice to cultural values and morals.”