PEOPLE OF RELIGION ACTING TOGETHER

Abstract

Whereas I ... have reason to apprehend that the safety of members of the public and their property and the maintenance of the public order will be seriously endangered by a gathering being organised, or purported to be organised, by the South African Chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace ... and since I deem it expedient for the public safety and the maintenance of the public order, I hereby prohibit the said gathering .... When a police order with the above wording was served on us on Friday, 13 September 1985, we were stunned. The meetings organized for that weekend were to be the culmination of both hard work and joyful co-operation during the first year of existence as an inter-faith organization. To mark this first year of working and growing together we decided to present the inaugural Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture and a Consultation on Women for Peace and Justice, simultaneous to our first annual general meeting. All of this was however thwarted by a power-yielding brigadier of police to whom goes the dubious honour of having banned a peace lecture! In an interview with an Afrikaans newspaper, he explained that the banning was imposed because of the presence of well-known left-minded and inciting people. At a private social gathering that evening, Mrs Leah Tutu made our day when she called us left but exciting! Early history The incident related above forms one chapter in the life of WCRP-SA. But to get the whole story, let us start at the very beginning. It was an international meeting which directly contributed to the establishment of an inter-faith group in South Africa, namely the Inter-Faith Colloquium on Apartheid, which was organised by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston and held in London in March 1984. Attended by leaders of all the major world religions from as far afield as India and Japan, this meeting unanimously condemned apartheid as sinful and inhuman. In its declaration, the colloquium expressed itself as follows: We met together from different religions of the world to respond from the viewpoint of faith to the fact of Apartheid. We were united in concern at the suffering it causes South Africa and the affront it presents to the moral conscience of humanity. Returning home, the three South African delegates were deeply aware of the need for the different religions in South Africa to form a united front in addressing -- as people of religion -- the evils of apartheid. So when Archbishop Desmond Tutu (then bishop) called together a meeting of religious leaders in April 1984 the scene was set for an historic coming together of people of religion. During that meeting it was decided to establish an inter-faith organization and to seek affiliation with the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP). And so the South African Chapter of WCRP was born. Objectives The most immediate reason for the establishment of WCRP-SA was to share in the dismantling of apartheid. The silence of many religious people in South Africa had placed the credibility of all religions in jeopardy and by making itself available as a platform, WCRP-SA attempted to form a united front of religious people against an inhuman and oppressive system. …