By Bishop Victor Phalane – 8 January 2016
As one of the liberation movements, you won the hearts of the majority of South Africans, beating parties associated with the Pan Africanist Movement and the Black Consciousness Movement. You conquered IFP, NP, PFP, DP, AZAPO, PAC, in the First Democratic Elections.
You are the governing party and most of your members, our compatriots, sacrificed their lives fighting for our liberation. Happy birthday means that we are grateful to God and to our fallen heroes for our freedom.
You led the struggle now you are leading the country. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! How can we forget the founding fathers and mothers of this Organisation?
Yet I have this to say:
God has put us here as prophets. God always made sure that where there is a king there is also the prophet! The prophet cannot be friends with the king. A prophet cannot go into bed with the king. Once you sleep with the king, you are compromised. God cannot use you anymore. You can learn from the Catholic Bishop’s Conference. They support the good that is being done by the ANC.
They are the first ones to acknowledge the strides made in building of houses, free fee schools, the provision of pensions, free and fair elections, providing electricity to the poor and free medical care to the sick. In the same breath, the Bishops continue to be critical of the ANC. They are crying about issues of crime; poverty, especially the growth of the black poor; unemployed youth; the undermining of the Independent State Institutions like the Public Protector; corruption; racism; education issues; lack of skills development; lack of economic transformation; incompetent cadres appointed to strategic positions; nepotism; lack of basic services; all kinds of scandals facing the leaders of this glorious movement and Nkandla. This movement is tainted. The scandals are too serious to be brushed aside.
I was talking to my family in Lyndoch near Stellenbosch this week. As we spoke about the South African situation, I realized that the prophet is there as a conscience of the nation and as an advocate of the marginalised and a voice of the voiceless. We respect our leaders as the Bible urges us to do but we cannot sell-out to this government for the sake of tenders, status, power, favors and co-option. The Catholic Church can never be coopted.
We are independent and are guided by the Holy Spirit, the Bible and the Social Teachings of the Church. Happy birthday!!!Cheers!!
But please come and meet the bishops so that they can give you the truth of where they believe you are taking this country. They will commend you on the job-well-done. They will also expose your weaknesses and failures with the hope that you can change and do what is right. They will expose your weaknesses not to humiliate you, but to adress your arrogance and to call you to humility. You can do better if you can face your demons. BISKOP.
