CORONAVIRUS UNITES ALL

 The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic may become one of Africa’s greatest challenges. Our people are vulnerable. Many have compromised immune systems, live in densely packed townships and often need to travel to places of work using public transport.

Our economy was already struggling before the crisis, with high unemployment and low levels of growth, partly caused by narrow self-interests that superseded the interests of the common good. But we are not alone. We may be vulnerable as a country, but this virus does not see race, gender or class and, most importantly for the human family worldwide, it does not respect borders.

That is why this crisis is one that unites all of God’s children, wherever we may live. In Africa, it is not a ‘township’ disease. Those who live behind high walls are not immune – it will spread fast and far if we allow it to, and it will cause havoc. While we must ignore the scaremongers by not giving them airtime and not retweeting their messages, we must pay close attention to those with medical expertise, led by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize.

Support

We must give our full support to government’s priority: screen everyone, test those who need to be tested, trace those who may have come into contact with infected people and treat those infected with COVID-19.  Above all, as people of faith, listen to what Jesus says at the beginning of John’s gospel: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”
We live in different times and we are going to need bravery, foresight, strength and the courage of our convictions to get through this crisis. We will never be the same again.

But, after the agony of Good Friday, there always comes the hope of Easter; the hope of new beginnings. We will overcome this challenge, and if we approach the future with hope, we can emerge from the pandemic to build a better South Africa and a better world – a more equitable future, a more just future, a gentler future.

ideological

We need to rise above stale ideological debates between left and right, rejecting both unbridled globalisation on the one hand and narrow nationalisms on the other. We must create a world in which our economies are underpinned by the fundamental values that all the world’s major faiths share, in which people come before profits.

In Africa, we need to bail out the people, not the State-owned enterprises that are guzzling our resources but don’t serve everyone. We can no longer afford to spend billions on enterprises whose existence is a matter of national pride, not of human survival. Especially among the political class, we need to promote the moral and ethical handling of our resources, both during this crisis and into the future. We need to be building up the agricultural and technological sectors of our economy, and create jobs that pay a living wage.

We need to end spatial apartheid and attack with vigour the building of residential areas in which our people are not forced to live cheek by jowl in shacks. Not only in South Africa, but across the world, we must learn to live out the interdependence this pandemic has demonstrated that we all share.

solidarity

How do we harness the goodness and the solidarity that this crisis has brought out in us? We need a new economic model – an alternative to the current governance of global financial systems, and one that seeks robust, practical ways to transform the market economy from a self-serving mechanism for elites to one that serves our environment and all of God’s people.

Pope Francis has warned us that ‘a healthy economic system cannot be based on short-term profit at the expense of long-term productive, sustainable and socially responsible development and investment’. And our president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has remarked that our current crisis is leading to calls for ‘a new moral economy that has people and their welfare at its centre’.

Finally, I want to extend deep gratitude from all of us to our health workers, to our police and soldiers, to public service workers, to petrol attendants and supermarket tellers, and to all the others who provide essential services during this time. They are our heroes. My thanks also go to members of congregations and clergy for praying from home and keeping the faith, and a special thank you to the church’s COVID-19 teams that are coordinating our response to the pandemic.

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