Rule by divine right?

by Editor · May 14, 2008

The president of the African National Congress (ANC) is profoundly mistaken in claiming that his party has been anointed by God to govern South Africa into perpetuity.

Addressing a May Day rally in Cape Town, Mr Zuma said: �Even God expects us to rule this country because we [the ANC] are the only organisation which was blessed by pastors when it was formed. It is even blessed in heaven. That is why we will rule until Jesus comes back.�

This echoes previous statements in which Mr Zuma suggested that his party is ruling by some kind of divine right. One need not be a theologian or political scientist to spot the flaws in Mr Zuma�s bizarre claim.

The absolute monarchs of old (and a few still today) justified their autocratic rule by claiming that the feudal caste system was willed by God, constituting a natural order. Those who opposed the principle of the monarch�s divine right to rule were therefore seen as defying God.

When Mr Zuma invokes his party�s divine right to rule, he is proposing that voting against the ANC is an act of defiance against God. That is an affront to South Africa�s believers and the country�s democacy.

If Mr Zuma really believes that the ANC is ruling by God�s mandate�and he will need to elucidate on the manner by which he regards himself competent to act as God�s spokesman�then the party must subject itself to accountability before God. The ANC would have some difficulty explaining to God how its abortion law, for example, is reflecting his will.

Mr Zuma�s idea of the ANC ruling by divine right has an alarming echo of the theological justifications for apartheid peddled by the National Party (which, ironically, was eventually absorbed by the ANC when it dissolved). Unlike the Nats of old, Mr Zuma will not find a church willing to support his claim. More likely, many a scrupulous theologian will consider his claim blasphemous.

We doubt that Mr Zuma actually subscribes to his grotesque claim of a divine mandate. It seems more likely that he engaged in manipulative and hyperbolic oratory.

In doing so, Mr Zuma lost sight of a striking paradox: during apartheid, the National Party�s propaganda machine portrayed the ANC as an entity in conflict with God and support for it as an act of impiety; today the leader of the ANC is employing the very same tactic against its opposition.

The irony goes further. When Mr Zuma claims a divine mandate on basis of the ANC having been blessed by pastors when it was founded, he forgets that the founding father of apartheid was a man of the cloth, Dominee DF Malan.

There are many good reasons to cast a vote for and against any political party in South Africa. The Catholic Church does not endorse one party over another (though it may claim the prerogative to comment on specific policies which contradict the Church�s teachings). The Church�whose claims to discerning God�s will surely are stronger than Mr Zuma�s�commends and encourages our democracy, and wishes it to be strengthened further.

Mr Zuma�s near-blasphemous proclamation serves only to undermine our young democracy in a bid to satisfy his party�s voracious hunger for power, and in doing so assails basic principles embraced by virtually all religions in South Africa.

The president of the ANC would be well advised to adopt a bearing of humility before God, and offer the electorate good reasons why they should vote for his party�out of their free will.