Comparative Analysis: The churches and their affect on society and politics in the cases of South Africa and Namibia.

Why did the Churches in South Africa and Namibia act in this reverse mirror fashion, with the late 80s being the watershed period of inversion from reaction to pro-action in South Africa and pro-action to reaction in Namibia?

Theory Section

To aid answering the above question I will use a theory put forward by the Religious Work Committee of the Human Sciences Research Council:

‘Because religion finds expression in the context of life’s experiences, it undergoes inevitable adaptation to reflect the particular life circumstances of the social group or class for whom it is functioning to provide meaning…In this way, a common religious tradition (i.e. Christianity for the purposes of this paper) with a common pool of symbols can receive expression in fundamentally different ways when adapted to the circumstances and needs of the different groups it serves in a society. In fact, the mobilisation of religion by opposing groups…is one of the most fundamental ways in which religion can come to be an initiator of social change for some, while being a way of resisting social change for others.’

There are certain phrases and words in this theory that require explanation. The first section hypothesises that religion is affected by its environment, and that this is necessary in order for it to relate to the believer. If the believing community cannot relate to their religion then it will find something else to express its religiosity. The next part mentions religious symbols. A religious symbol is a concrete expression to both a belief about what reality is and behaviours attempting to express an adequate response to that reality. In Christianity the ‘belief’ could be in the Holy Trinity, where the Godhead is expressed in three aspects, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Behaviour to this expression of belief would be worship in church including e.g. intercessory prayers to the Father, and the Eucharist where the Son is commemorated and experienced.  According to the above hypothesis, one religious tradition like Christianity can be practised in fundamentally different ways when adapted to different groups in society, with their particular needs and circumstances. In the last section, social change means a shift in e.g. customs, institutions or culture within a society, brought about by a new e.g. ideological element. Mobilisation of religion by opposing groups, is a difficult term. It could mean the use of religion for the causes of two opposing groups, a multitude of opposing groups, or a multitude of opposing groups, some of which are united with each other in the same cause. In the case of South Africa and Namibia, the latter most complex option is the truest. The above theory in its entirety shows that as much as religion can be affected by its environment, religion itself can profoundly affect its own environment. Thus it is not a matter of whether religion or its environment is primary, but rather how much motivational power lies within a religious symbol for a particular group, the ability of this symbol to move the group and the consequences of any action by this group for society. In addition to this theory one could say that ecumenism is a phenomenon that occurs as a result of the churches coming under more direct oppression. In a country with a Christian majority, ecumenism can be a powerful force for socio-political change in a situation of oppression. This is because groups unite behind a common symbol. However when the threat of oppression disappears, the common symbol fades, ecumenism weakens, and the socio-political clout of the churches dissipates, leaving them vulnerable to political ideologies.

        Prior to illustrating where the cases directly relate to the theory it will be useful to have some background information on the political and church history of both countries.

Political and religious background to South Africa

        Christianity was really introduced by the Dutch, who began to settle in the Cape from 1652. By 1814 the British had occupied the Cape Province, and during the 19th Century missionary activity expanded. The seeds of segregation in the Christian communities began very early. Among the Protestant churches two churches effectively existed. A missionary church and a settler church. By the middle of the twentieth century these two wings of Christianity had divided into many different denominations. The main groups of churches at this time consisted of: the Protestant churches (some of which combined the missionary and settler parts of their denomination to form a multi-racial denomination, and these became known as the English speaking churches); the Dutch Reformed Churches, which were Afrikaans speaking; the African Initiated Churches; the Roman Catholic Church, and the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the components of apartheid coming into place. The missionaries ironically formed segregation policies. These ideas were seized upon by African nationalism, and they were further legitimised by the DRC. De facto apartheid was made de jure in 1948 when D.F. Malan’s National Party came to power, entrenching apartheid into the nation’s political ideology. Gradually various churches moved to oppose the apartheid regime, especially after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 where protesters against apartheid were fired upon by the police, killing 67 and wounding 180. The ecumenical Christian Institute was founded in 1963 and the South African Council of Churches was formed in 1978.

Political and religious background to Namibia

        Until 1968 Namibia was known as South West Africa (SWA). In 1884 it became a German colony. Prior to this various parts of Namibia were Christianised by different missions. German Lutherans, of the Rhenish Missionary Society, christianised the ‘southern’ part of Namibia, an area that was later to become the police zone. In the north the Finnish Lutherans christianised the population. When the German Lutheran Church became complicit in the apartheid system, many Namibians moved to the American inspired African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the German Lutheran Church later split into a German part and an African part.

        In 1915, SWA was conquered by South Africa as a proxy of World War One. In 1920 the League of Nations granted South Africa a mandate to control the territory. From this point South Africa commenced an integration policy to make SWA a fifth province. In 1946 South Africa attempted to legally annex SWA through the United Nations, but no permission was granted. In 1966 the UN unilaterally withdrew South Africa’s mandate to control the region. Gradually a liberation movement called the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) arose, gaining a significant foothold in 1975, when Angola became independent, enabling more secure military bases to be established across the border. Over the 1970s, all the popular churches moved towards speaking out against apartheid, culminating in the establishment of the Council of Churches in Namibia (CCN) in 1978.

Empirical data and discussion

South Africa

        The South African churches were an area of low intensity conflict between the apartheid regime and those who were against apartheid. For much of the time up until the end of the 1980s, the apartheid regime had a high level of influence over the churches. The regime had the advantage of being theologically justified by the Dutch Reformed Church, which was until recently the biggest Church in South Africa and still remains the second largest today (see Table 1). The state theology espoused by the DRC effectively ‘blessed injustice, canonised the will of the powerful and reduced the poor to passivity, obedience and apathy’. Although the majority of other churches rejected this state theology, they allowed themselves to be structured along racist lines. Those churches that claimed they had no racial structure often failed to have mixed congregations, especially outside the urban environment.

Table 1 Illustrating both the no. of members (N) within the largest churches of South Africa and the percentage (%) of that membership in relation to the population of South Africa in the years 1960, 1970, 1980 and the estimated figures for the year 2000.

The churches in South Africa fall into three categories. Those that were agents of oppression, those that were victims of oppression and those that opposed oppression. However it is too simplistic to state that one denomination was an agent of oppression, and one was a victim. There was a spectrum of opinion within the different churches. For example in the DRC there were some members that were vehemently against apartheid, e.g. Beyers Naudé, and within the member churches of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) there were those that ‘challenged the consensus that apartheid was a fundamental denial of the lordship of Jesus Christ.’ Such divisions within the denominations have caused official splits, e.g. When Beyers Naudé of the DRC formed the Christian Institute (CI) after the DRC rejected the Cottesloe Statement. The CI was ecumenical and showed solidarity with liberation movements.

        The churches and their leaders often lacked the courage to challenge the state publicly, or put any words they spoke against the apartheid regime into practical action. This was often due to the fear instilled by both the state and elders within a church community. For example, Frank Chikane, who was the General Secretary of the SACC was tortured under the supervision of an elder in the white section of his Church. Dissent was often dealt with in a rapid and brutal manner.

The government used propaganda to manipulate congregations. According to the TRC, Evangelical Churches were used by the government to ‘neutralise dissent’. For example, the Apostolic Faith Movement confessed it preached that any opposition to apartheid was communist inspired and aimed at the downfall of Christianity.

        Despite the churches in general having an apolitical stance, there were times when this was not the case, and there were certainly individuals within the churches that courageously pushed for socio-political change. Gradually this encouraged a modicum of ecumenism, which snowballed during the 1980s, helping to polarise the bulk of society against the laws of apartheid and the government that enforced them.

        The first strike that the churches made was in 1960, when the World Council of Churches sponsored the Cottesloe agreement. The statement confirmed its:

‘opposition to apartheid in worship, in prohibition of mixed marriages, migrant labour, low wages, job reservation and permanent exclusion of non-white people from government’. 

Besides this statement causing a deep rift between the ideas and practices of the DRC and the other Protestant churches in South Africa, it suddenly moved the concerns of the churches beyond the theological and into the political realm; specifically against the injustices of the apartheid regime. The formation of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) in 1968 led to a more permanent base from which the churches could criticise the policies of the apartheid regime. Through the publication of a range of anti-apartheid material its ecumenical voice grew louder, as the ideological stranglehold that the government had over the churches and the rest of the state gradually slipped.

        Despite written statements being the main means of opposition the churches employed, there were some practical efforts. Some churches withdrew their chaplains from the South African Defence Force (SADF). The Catholic Church engaged in civil disobedience by allowing all races to attend its schools in 1976. The SACC was also good at alerting the rest of the world to the situation in South Africa, ‘becoming an internationally significant information centre, representing the oppressed before the world’. This information prompted the international community to take action such as sanctions, which were employed to weaken the South African government. Such action, especially towards to the end of the 1980s did weaken the government and coupled with military failures in Angola and escalating unrest in Namibia, the apartheid regime was beginning to lose its control. At this time the rising levels of violence and unrest caused the churches to draw closer to one another. Ecumenism grew from strength to strength and more and more churches openly criticised apartheid. Examples of such criticism were the Institute for Contextual Theology’s Kairos Document in 1985, and the Call for Prayer to End Unjust Rule by the SACC.

        By 1986 the DRC began to question its own theology. The crescendo of church criticism, representing a polarisation of opinion against apartheid among the majority of South Africans, created a tense atmosphere, where the government grew to see that no matter how much violence it used to bring order, there could be no stop to civil unrest until apartheid ceased.

        When apartheid did cease in 1990 and the country moved towards democratic elections, the ecumenism that flourished in the late 80s ceased to mature. With the disappearance of the common evil, which apartheid represented, the churches had no clear or coherent strategy for the future. The possibility of such a strategy was rather unlikely due to the problem of racially structured congregations, which existed in some form within most of the churches. Even though apartheid ceased to exist the DRC did not unite with the rest of its family of segregated churches, although it claims to be open to the idea.

‘Since 1994 the ideal of unification with the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa, the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa and the Reformed Church in Africa has gathered momentum although a lot of work still has to be done’. 

Clearly for there to be a peaceful and just society, there needs to be reconciliation between the races. However due to their different social composition different churches had different ideas about what reconciliation meant. When it came to the Faith Community Hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) this became evident. Some churches saw reconciliation as a coming together while some churches saw reconciliation as redressing the situation of economic imbalance through reparations. Depressingly the DRC did not officially come before the TRC and it took until 1998 for it to reject apartheid, illustrating the deep divisions within that church over the question of reconciliation.

Namibia

        In the 1960’s the Namibian churches began to oppose the occupying South African regime. The churches were jolted into action by South Africa’s attempts to implement apartheid in Namibia. According to Steenkamp, there were other sources of encouragement for the involvement of the churches in politics. There was a rejection of the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms among Lutheran churches throughout the world (the doctrine that prevented church involvement in political affairs). The churches were also pressed by the poverty and exploitation suffered by their congregations. Finally new political parties offered the possibility for alternative state structures and thus political action. The churches filled a political vacuum that had been caused by the fact that no black opposition was allowed and no white opposition outside the churches existed. While the apartheid government was aggressively against the churches stepping into politics, it could not ban the churches since the regime modelled itself as the defender of Christian and Western values.

        By stepping into the political realm, the churches exposed themselves to direct oppression from the government. However, rather than this oppression striking terror into the churches and their leaders, it simply brought about more solidarity among them to struggle against apartheid and push for Namibia’s independence.

        From 1970 four large churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Ovambo-Kavango Church (ELOC), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in South West Africa (ELC), the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church, became increasingly vociferous against apartheid and involved in the liberation struggle. These four churches, when put together represented 75% of the Namibian population. In 1971 these churches fired a broadside against the apartheid regime, when Bishop Auala (ELOC) and Moderator Gowaseb (ELC) wrote an open letter to the South African Prime Minister B.J. Vorster. It illustrated the injustices Namibians suffered, such as limitations on movement and settlement, no basic political rights or franchise, and low wages due to the migrant labour system. The letter was rounded off with a call for justice and independence:

Our urgent wish is that in terms of the declarations of the World Court in co-operation with the UN, of which South Africa is a member, your government will seek a peaceful solution to the problems of the land, and will see to it that human rights be put into operation and that South West Africa may become a self-sufficient and independent state.

Immediately the letter politicised the churches and their leaders, and it also gave a political conscience to the black population, offering a mouthpiece to express their desires for justice and condemnation of oppression. Furthermore, a Namibian theology was being developed among the churches, bringing them together behind one cause.

        Examples of this growing together between the churches is most evident in the 1970s. In 1972 the ELOC and the ELC formed a confederation. In 1974 the Christian Centre was established for informal co-operation between the churches. This ecumenical centre was formalised into a Council of Churches for Namibia (CCN) in 1978, to co-ordinate the resources that the churches offered, towards the struggle for liberation.

        Essentially the churches, with their institutions reaching throughout the whole of Namibian society, provided a base from which a resistance culture could be fostered. They could publicise to the world the grievances of their oppressed congregations as well as assisting and protecting their congregations. The CCN performed numerous activities of support for the oppressed. For example the white clergy exploited their ‘immunity’ by going to the security forces’ detention centres, and delivering Bibles to specific inmates. This had the double effect of reassuring the prisoner that he/she was known about, and it also ensured that the security forces knew that the prisoner would not be allowed to ‘disappear’ unnoticed. 

        Between the late 1970s and early 1980s the CCN effectively became the ‘religious wing’ of SWAPO. It became effective at attaining international support for SWAPO, as well as exposing the atrocities and propaganda of the South African government. At the same time international interests were affecting Southern Africa. The presence of Cuban troops in Angola, and the perceived threat of communism spreading throughout the region, encouraged the USA to co-operate with South Africa. Effectively South Africa managed America’s cold war interests through supporting Angola’s UNITA rebels. In 1981 President Reagan proposed the idea of linking the implementation of UNSCR 435 to the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. UNSCR 435 proposed UN assistance for the transition of Namibia to independence. As a result of political agitation from the CCN who denounced this ‘linking policy’, and the agreement with America, the apartheid regime sought to appease internal and international criticism by giving Namibia more autonomy.

This was initially attempted prior to the deal with Reagan, in late 1978-early 1979, through giving Namibia a National Assembly. However the UN declared the elections to this National Assembly null and void - the South African government abolished the system in January 1983. A second attempt culminated in the 1985 Transitional Government of National Unity (TGNU). This gave more legislative and executive power, although security, defence and foreign affairs remained in South African control. The TGNU was an attempt to appease international criticism, while simultaneously delaying independence in Namibia. The CCN saw through this smokescreen and began to test the system, which it legitimately could be a part of. In September 1986 the CCN argued that the dusk-to-dawn curfew that existed in Namibia was contradictory to the TGNU’s bill of rights. The TGNU rejected the CCN’s argument, but this defeat was really a victory, since it illustrated the true apartheid colours of the TGNU.

Throughout this period human rights abuses intensified, and there were allegations that security forces were roasting their victims over fires. This atmosphere of severe oppression led the CCN toward sponsoring a meeting of churches, student and women’s groups, ethnic councils and opposition political parties in April 1986. They made the /Ai- // Gams Declaration calling for independence and the mobilisation of the Namibian masses to ‘fight conscription, abolish the TGNU, and implement UNSCR 435’. However, the resolve of this group did not translate into action; the group was plagued by disagreement, and later that year SWAPO stepped out alone following a Supreme Court ruling that it could hold public meetings.

The CCN, despite being incredibly effective at mobilising resistance at the grass roots was not free from internal wrangling. From its conception there were divisions due to different ethnicities experiencing different levels of oppression. Anglican bishops were removed from their positions by the government in an attempt to foster division. The ELC split in 1979 when its leader defected to one of the parties in the National Assembly. The other main problem lay with SWAPO. During the late 1970s SWAPO became more Marxist than Nationalist and, as already mentioned, the South African government gave Namibia limited autonomy. Thus issues became more complex for the churches; there were doubts about SWAPO’s intentions and there was the possibility of a less oppressive form of South African occupation. However, these issues were overcome by the churches, since they saw little change in the style of government apart from its name, leaving no option but to strongly support SWAPO.

Towards the end of the 1980s the political situation significantly changed in Namibia. South Africa suffered military failure in Angola, and knew it could not overcome the solidified resistance that gripped Namibia. Furthermore the situation throughout the world was changing significantly and South Africa lost American support, as well as being effected by sanctions. These events led to Namibia’s independence in 1990, an event which the churches had been praying for decades to happen.

However the last few years of occupation and independence itself brought about a real crisis within the churches and especially the CCN. Effectively the CCN became its own enemy in the unfolding events of the ‘Spy Drama’ or ‘Detainee Crisis’. Throughout the struggle against South Africa SWAPO performed a number of human rights abuses against its own countrymen. There were SWAPO detention camps outside Namibia in Angola and Zambia. Hundreds of people were detained, allegedly for spying for the South African authorities. However it is now clear that many were imprisoned simply for criticising or being thought to be critical of SWAPO’s activities.

The parents and relatives of those held received little support from the churches, which were gripped by a ‘culture of silence’. Instead they took matters into their own hands, by setting up a parents committee, which received chastisement from both SWAPO and the churches. However, when the transition towards independence got underway (April 1989), SWAPO was obliged to release 200 of its detainees from a camp in Angola. The testimonies of the released detainees shook the churches and caused a great deal of embarrassment for SWAPO.

The Detainee Crisis, compounded with the problem that the CCN became involved in corruption scandals, e.g. the food-aid scam led to the CCN losing a great deal of popular support. In relating to the Detainee Crisis, the CCN tried to justify itself on the grounds that it thought the widespread reports about SWAPO imprisoning and abusing innocent people were South African propaganda. While some churches did express their regret, there was a failure for the ‘CCN leaders to acknowledge their own failure to respond earlier.’ Having won the democratic elections in Namibia, SWAPO attempted to bury the detainee issue, but the victims, supported by Pastor Groth, wanted apologies, explanation and reparation. The CCN did little to support Groth, until there was such a wave of public interest that it agreed to hold a conference on the issue in May 1996. However SWAPO called for a boycott of the conference.

The aggressive stance by SWAPO and especially President Nujoma concerning the detainee issue is forcing the CCN to distance itself from its former partner. However the initial reluctance of the CCN to get involved in any investigation or criticism of the government, illustrates the transformation of the Nambian churches from being mouthpieces for the voiceless to being gags to the oppressed.

Comparative, concluding analysis

The theory that religious symbols can be utilised by opposing groups for resisting social change, or bringing it about, seems to be proved in the cases of South Africa and Namibia. In both cases the churches both affected the politics and were themselves affected by politics through the motivational power of religious symbols.

During the apartheid regime, South Africa’s biggest church initially provided the National Party with a state theology, legitimising the installation of apartheid legislation. From that point, the National Party maintained strong control over the DRC as an organ to control South African society. The DRC could subtly spread state propaganda and portray the government as a moral entity, throwing a shroud over its human rights abuses. The effects of having the country’s biggest church indoctrinate the racist theology of apartheid, effectively caused a great deal of confusion and uncertainty among Christian South Africans.  Furthermore it stifled ecumenism, since a sizeable proportion of South African Christians would not have anything to do with a united movement of churches that were against apartheid. Another factor, which made it difficult for the South African Church to affect politics and society, were the sheer number of divisions, not just between races but in the number of different denominations.

In Namibia the opposite was initially true. There was no large church which the state had control over, and thus there was no state theology. Any attempts to establish such a theology were vehemently resisted. The four largest churches were very united from the start and their congregations, though having definite differences among them, were less segregated. The extremes that did exist were not as marked as those in South Africa, and the fact that four churches encompassed 75% of the population made united church activity much more facile.

Namibia also had more focused goals from the start. While the majority of Christians in South Africa were against apartheid, there was a sizeable minority that supported it, again leading to the reluctance of some to speak out against it. In Namibia a huge majority was not only focused on the symbol of liberation from apartheid, but also the symbol of liberation from South Africa itself. Thus the initial ability of the Namibian churches to galvanise their congregations against apartheid and for independence, was down to the fact that those very defined symbols struck a cord in the hearts and minds of virtually every Namibian.

The theory about violence aiding ecumenism is certainly true in Namibia and partially true in South Africa. The violence against the Namibian churches strengthened the resolve of those churches. However this was mainly because the churches acted in support of each other. This kind of encouragement was not present in South Africa as early, and the threat of violence did deter many churches to subdue their dissent until violence became widespread e.g. during the states of emergency during the mid 1980s. When the political situation changed in the late 1980s – early 1990s so did the needs of the congregations. As my additional theory states this lead to the break down in ecumenism in both countries. In South Africa the fact that the common evil of apartheid had ‘officially’ disappeared led the churches to return to their own concerns. This is linked into the theory that religious institutions have to cater to the interests of their group. This caused a lot of difficulties, because even though apartheid had ‘officially’ disappeared, racial segregation certainly continued within the churches, albeit unintentionally. The make up of congregations could not be altered overnight. Today there is a lot of words about reconciliation but a great deal of apathy, although there are new kairos that are beginning to get everyone’s attention, notably the kairos of poverty and aids. In Namibia a similar break down on the ecumenical level occurred. The devotion of the CCN to SWAPO did not alter overnight. Their marriage over the 1980s led to the CCN overlooking SWAPO’s power freakish behaviour. Ironically the relationship between the CCN and SWAPO could be seen as analogous to the one between the National Party and the DRC. The CCN’s reluctance or timidity to criticise its political sibling caused many to lose faith and see the point in the ecumenical council. Whether the churches will club together again to criticise the Namibian government’s current abuses, e.g. its ‘gay bashing’, is still unclear, but one would hope that the Church would be ‘wise enough to assess these things rightly…(and) continue to be a voice of the voiceless and the oppressed.’

There are a couple of criticisms to the theory that I have used for this paper. Firstly the empirical information that I have given clearly shows that the different churches in South Africa and Namibia do not necessarily have unity within them, even on issues like apartheid. The theory does not really take this into account, since it treats each group as if it were a united body. Some of the churches in South Africa and Namibia were so large that they encompassed a spectrum of opinions, many of which were contradictory. Thus one might ask, who do the churches and their leaders really represent and do their leaders represent them correctly? This leads me onto the next criticism. The theory does not highlight the importance of individuals, and their affect upon religious groups. It was often individual church leaders or a small group of individual leaders that caused the biggest shake-ups in the churches and the societies of South Africa and Namibia. The example of Beyers Naudé is particularly pertinent here. He, a member of the DRC, plunged the churches of both South Africa and Namibia into deep reflection and political involvement by stating his total opposition to apartheid in all aspects of society. There are many examples of leaders that caused similar shake-ups, e.g. Pastor Groth, who for a great deal of time stood alone in his criticism of SWAPO’s abuses. Finally the theory fails to take into account the ambivalent effects of the international realm upon politics. In the case of Namibia, where the CCN was stirring all sorts of unrest about the apartheid regime, both domestically and internationally, a sudden intervention from the USA gave South Africa a sudden power boost and increased legitimacy to prolong its occupation of Namibia.

Today it is unclear how much the churches will affect the futures of South Africa’s or Namibia’s politics and societies. While the churches certainly had a role to play in bringing about the socio-political conditions that facilitated the end of apartheid, more direct importance can be ascribed to the international climate of the late 1980’s. There are few clear answers to the current problems facing South Africa and Namibia. Faith can help the way we deal with these problems, but it is not an answer in itself and when it is ideologised it can become a root to further problems as it has in the histories of South Africa and possibly Namibia.

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