We have a wonderful guest with us this morning, who comes from Cape Town, South Africa and during the past two months the Anglican Communion has been struggling with conflicts over many things; over the blessing of same sex unions and the consecration of gay Bishops in the United States and much of the reporting on the conflicts include mention of the continent of Africa. Several parishes among the 7,700 of Episcopal congregations in the United States have left the Church and placed themselves under the authority of foreign Bishops, mostly in Africa. The provinces of Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda are passionate there are passionate critics of the Episcopal Church and they have consecrated conservative American clergies their Bishops in the United States, to serve the disaffected congregations. And then conservative Bishops and priests in the United States believe Anglican leaders in Africa hold a truer understanding of Christ's teachings. "The Church in the West has lost its way", said Bishop Duncan, the Bishop pf Pittsburg, the Church in the Global South is actually clear about what it is to follow Jesus Christ. Although I as a parenthesis, one might question that clarity in places like Zimbabwe and Rwanda. Africa and the world has bigger challenges than the internal arguments and squabbles of the Anglican Communion. So we are lucky and fortunate today to have with us the Archbishop of Cape Town and Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, The Most Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane, to shed light on the African perspective on current issues; not only in the Anglican Communion but what's going on in Africa. So thank you Archbishop for being with us today and for this in fact being with us for this week. A slight tongue in cheek to start with, the Rugby World Cup between England and South Africa. How would you comfort aggrieving Englishmen at the -? Well first of all I would say, "Commiserations." But more seriously I think the English themselves would be surprised that they managed to reach the final if you look at how they began. This is not going well. And somebody in South Africa said, the only thing that they won initially was to win the toss, after that they lost everything. But after all it's a game of rugby. And I think that the English people should make should also know that the [0:03:08] ____, so they won last time, South Africa this time ,next time it could be somebody else. And you had a one liner. What's that one liner? What do you call an Englishman what is it? Well somebody sent me an SMS after this win saying that, "What is an Englishman who holds a World Cup?" And the answer, "An engraver." That's right, now you do. So but more seriously almost the serious side of this is almost all the members of the team are white and there was a headline in the I think in the London Guardian that says, you only need to look at the team to see that there's work to do. Well what's going on in terms of the post apartheid South Africa in terms of things like that rugby team? I think we have got to recognize that we are a young democracy. 13 years in the scheme of things is a very short time, and transformation is a big issue. And if you think about we have a society which has had four decades of entrenched racialism and before that, centuries of inequalities, with resources loaded against majority of the people, even in areas like sport and things of that nature. It's we are on a journey. The good news of course is that we recognize recognize that something that needs to be done. And on the hopeful note, I think if you look at the Under 21s and we have won those matches also, and you see the majority of young people there where black and also in terms of the Sevens Rugby, which also is doing very well, we have the majority of people who are black and very good athletes. Moving along, even though even sports were segregated weren't they? Oh yes definitely. Because cricket and rugby were for whites more or less. Yes, well that was the engineering of apartheid. They tried to engineer that rugby and cricket are white sports and therefore loaded resources in that direction. And that soccer and boxing are black sports, which in fact was not true, because we have played rugby, we have played cricket, for a long time. The joy of course is that these issues are being addressed. Yeah, you made a very important speech at the Bishops Forum in the past May in Cape Town and you will find excerpts in the program today, where you discussed the history of the Anglican Communion to my mind this is I wanted to see what you think of this, when I read the rhetoric it seems to me that many have lost touch with or never knew what it is to be Anglican, that there is a kind of loss of the tradition among many people, the way we have behaving with each other would you agree? Oh that's very clear very clear very clear in my own mind. And I think that it is something that should not distract us because I think there are forces in play which are seeking to destroy what the very essence of Anglicans and I think we must resist that because for centuries we have had something we should called that Anglican way, that have served us so well, and some of the elements of the Anglican way are tolerance, a greatest magnanimity in charity and and the fact the recognition of the fact that, what a church that is Episcopal led but its an auditory government, and that we are finding that there are people who seem to want to undermine the ethos of being Anglican in the sense that provinces are autonomous and that we have government structures, we have got due processes, once you undermine that you are opening recipe for chaos and is what is happening. Right, what do you think if the recent response of the House of Bishops to the the Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam? Well at the first instance I think that the the response of American Church is great and I salute the House of Bishops for their response and thought it gives us an opportunity to enter into dialogue and hopefully, as I said at the convention that, it is my fervent prayer that in the fullness of time we will find an amicable solution to the possible needs of our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers, just as we did in terms of the women in the Ordained Ministry. Right, right when you think of the overall story that's being put out about, it sounds as if it's the Episcopal Church against the rest of the Anglican Communion. And one realize is that Africa is an enormous continent with many, many countries. Where do the in your mind, the Primates fit into the structures of the Anglican Communion and are they actually being given too much prominence? Well before that lets I just want to get a spiritual angle in this, that you know in the scheme of things the devil can't attack god. It attacks those who wake for god. And I think that the Episcopal Church in the US is one province that has shared its resources, both human and material, for world mission and for we are grateful and I think that in my seeking to analyze what has happened in the cool off of the afternoon, is that there seems to be an attack in what the American Church is doing for the wake of god in the world, so be strengthened in that regard. Secondly I think that the Primates Meeting has taken a road which is not theirs; I think that you get people that would think that they want to create some kind of Curia. And yet the Primates Meeting was created as inter justified Donald Coggan is an Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a forum for fellowship, a forum for sharing of ministries, a forum for being able to engage with one another by way of advice a friendly advice in terms of the issues that that affect us. I never forget the words of Ed Bronx a former [0:10:25] ____ official, of this Church, reflecting on the Primates Meeting that, he found a lot of support when introduced the whole issue of women in the Ordained Ministry. That advice was given to him in terms of moving forward, as distinct for in terms of the current scene of the Primates Meeting which seems to me to want to dictate policy in the Anglican Communion. Is it the legislating role? Yeah, right right. There has been such mixed reviews because one admires him as a theologian, but a lot of people seem to be disappointed in the leadership of Rowan Williams; if you were able to advice the Archbishop of Canterbury and he would listen what would you what would you say to him? Well, I mean Rowan is a very nice person, he is a theologian and I think that my understanding he is wanting to accommodate everybody to the extent of being naïve in terms of expectations, and also I think that when you occupy that kind of position you must have a political sense in terms of the the Church and I would have advised Archbishop Rowan to consult as widely as possible in terms of especially those people who support him in terms of moving forward in this issue. For instance had I been Archbishop of Canterbury god forbid that I am not and I will never be, I would have taken this issue into the realm of the Primates Meeting. I would have found various other ways of dealing with this. The unfortunate thing of course is that we did not follow advice that was given by the section that I chaired Lambeth in 1998, just for the benefit of this audience, that and I tend to be given the most impossible task in this Church. I was asked to chair the section one which dealt with the most with almost all the critical and complex, ethical and moral issues and one of them was the issue of human sexuality. We had 60 Bishops who spent two weeks at Lambeth and before that by way of correspondence, informing themselves on this issue, and these 60 Bishops covered from the extreme conservatives in our Church to what I call are rapidly liberal, if you know the Anglican Communion at all, it was from Sydney to New York, thus the expanse and these Bishops matched, they disagreed, they cry together, but at the end of the day they found one another and sat on this issue, we agree on these items, we don't agree on this, there is a lot we don't understand, there is a lot we don't know, we want to comment this one and a half page report for the study of the Communion. In other words, had we gone that route the issue would have been discussed, and in my view would have come to Lambeth next year, just as we did on the question of the Women's Ordination, whereby we agree that if a certain province feels that we need to go this way and their structures allow for it, we should follow that one. It's unfortunate that we didn't do that, but my hope is that that ground is not lost, that through the listening process we may regain that and be able to address the pastor needs of our gay and lesbian people. After it is a pastoral issue, it's a not a matter of theology, faith and doctrine. Yeah, I want to ask you in term because of this vision that or the myth that's put out there, the Episcopal Church bucking the rest of the Anglican Communion that there Africa is very varied in its response, is very flexible in some places about how we understand Scripture. The two places in Africa, particularly one of them which is related to some of these renegade what I call renegade Bishops Rwanda and Zimbabwe. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the Cardinal, being a predominantly Roman Catholic country, visiting Rwanda on the behalf of the Pop asked the Church leaders, "Are you saying that the blood of the tribalism is deeper than the waters of the baptism?" And one leader answered, "Yes, it is." And when the going gets tough which story wins, the tribal wins out over the universal. So in a period of less than a hundred days more than 800,000 Rwandans were killed by fellow Rwandans. Neighbors were killing neighbors as many as 90 percent of Rwandans in 1994 were Christian, mostly Roman Catholic, the Church wasn't simply silent, it was deeply implicated, Christians killing Christians, often familiar with each other, in a number of cases they killed their own pastor or priest, the Church has resisted pressure for political reform before the genocide, they failed to listen to their own baptismal story and fell once more into the tribal one. Many priests, pastors, nuns, brothers, [0:16:32] Katakiz and Catholic and Protestant leaders supported, participated in, and helped to organize the killing. Now I don't want to isolate Rwanda. But this seems to me I have never seen any discussion in among Anglican Primates or any communicate from the Anglican Communion which began to face that kind of issue. And I wondered how you sense I mean in terms of also Archbishop it's very recent, this week, the Archbishop of Harare is now in court trying to withdraw his dices from that province. So it isn't as if Africa is all sweetness and light and we are kind of in a mess. What how does it these two places, Rwanda and Zimbabwe intrigue me in terms of how Africa the African Churches are dealing with their own people these two Archbishops in particular? Yes, well in the first instance Africa is not mono ethnic I mean there are 53 countries in Africa and I think there are 12 of 13 provinces. And we have different forms of responding to the demands of the cosmos. I must say Alan, that I share your concerns or sentiments that I visited Rwanda for the first time and I was taken to Genocide Memorial, and as I speak I am still haunted by the eyes of the children who escaped being killed by sort of rapping around themselves, around their mother's catch or something of that nature. And I remember meeting the Archbishop of Rwanda Archbishop Kolini, and saying to you that, I have never had to address this issue in the cause of the Anglican Communion, in terms of the needs of Rwanda, and saying that my heart goes on out for those traumatized children. And if we don't address that we have a recipe for another genocide coming and I said that were you to address this, in fact I invited him to come to my province, to share with the people of my province what has happened and how we, from our experience, can help with reconciliation and he never took up my offer. And it is a belief in terms of who we are, and therefore this attitude if self-righteousness is just not on, and perhaps I think the words of that wise old Desmond Tutu come in here because Desmond says that, in human nature when you are faced with a massive issue internally, you tend to want to point out outside, because you can't deal with the major you know, major issues that confront you. And after all my brothers in the continent that the people of Africa the whole I interplay with in my capacity as President of African Monitor, don't care a damn what's happening in your New Hampshire, they don't even know where that is. What matters to the ordinary, to millions of mothers in our continent is whether there is a plate of food on the table for our children for their children and that what we are actually facing is life and death and death issues. I am not saying that the issue of human sexuality is not important. In the scheme of things it's not a Church dividing issue, it's a pastoral issue, there are life and death issues that affect us in the continent of Africa, which we should be doing. And what is terrible in our continent is that we tend to fight proxy wars - and I think that what my brothers unfortunately whom I have I have addressed these issues to them, but they are fighting a proxy war in terms of this disenchanted people, in this particular part of course a lenient and would then lose sight and lose track of the major issues that affect us in our continent. What do you think then is the agenda of Nolbert Kunonga, the Archbishop of Harare? What is he doing in court right now? Well -. Why does he want to separate --? The Bishop of Harare - Bishop of Harare. - yes, and well I just don't know what's happening there. All I know is I am grateful that I am in the Anglican Church in the Southern Africa which is the best province of course. I know that the Archbishop of Canterbury met with Bishop Kunonga and the Archbishop Malango, when he was in my province, early this year, and I had hoped that may be things were ironed out. And it's rather an unfortunate situation in terms of what's happening down there. Well it I am just reading in the this is from October 17th, that's very recent, that he has preached in support of Mugabe's seizure of white owned land and was allocated a prime commercial farm on the outskirts of Harare. In 2005 he was dragged before an ecclesiastical court to answer for more than 30 charges including incitement to murder. So it sounded it just sounded a slight echo of Rwanda and other province and it's a it help us understand that Africa is a much more complicated continent and that and that whole mythology of what they called the Global South is not as coherent and is not as numerous as we are led to believe. Well, I think we could say the similar thing, because he is the Primate there and he trot along to Kenya to join in consecration of this Bishops, instead of addressing the issues of within his province, in terms of that particular issue. Now we are going to open it up soon, but there is one more issue, which actually has two prongs to it, and that has to do with your so called retirement, because we in another private conversation we talked about the two issues that are going to be your and are already your concern in the so called retirement. Could you a talk a little bit about the those two issues? Yes. Of course Alan you know that nobody can retire from god. And I have go to major issues that I have been called to undertake. One has got to do with our own situation in South Africa, in the field of education. I have been asked to take a lead in restoration of what you call historic schools. Before apartheid, education was led was under the hands of the churches and it produced notables like Mandela to small fries like me. Almost every black person like me in any sphere of life in South Africa, from politics to business to church to sports, everywhere is a product of those schools. Apartheid came, took over education and those schools are now in a state of dysfunction and I have been asked to take a lead in the restoration of these schools as centers of educational and cultural expertise. Where was it in apartheid that black's disadvantage? Was it not only in resources but in terms of actual subjects taught? Yes. Things like that I mean. Yes, I think the philosophy of Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, was that black people must get an education which will not enable them to aspire to green pastures, that are designed for white people. And so subjects like maths and science were - subjects that were not meant for blacks. And so we have to rediscover that to make these schools centers of educational and cultural excellence and that's a major task which requires a lot of resources than we are hoping to get into partnership with government, with private sector, with the founders of the schools, with alumni, so it's a big one. Big one, yeah. The second one is the African morning term, this is an independent, not for profit not for profit organization that I created, I founded last year and its major objective is monitoring development and aid funding, what the donor countries actually give in in aids, what African governments do with that aid and most importantly what impact does this make on the ground? I guess this was the response to what I had as I was struggling around champion [0:27:24] ____ calls of the poor that billions of dollars have been given to Africa and they don't show it and I think the person actually put it to me. Yeah, you had a taxi driver. He is a cab driver in London, if have been on a cab in London, cab drivers have got opinions on almost every thing and so this cab driver said to me you you are from Africa? I said yes you agree with me that Tony Blair met? I said why? He is taking all these money which is going to be for our pensioners and scaling them to these elites in Africa. I didn't respond but when I was watching the town with a friend of mine, watching the sun go down and doing those nice thing that Anglicans do when the sun go down, I thought this cab driver needs answering and that answer was in the African monitor. To monitor what the development funding what it does and and what impact does it make on the ground, what African governments themselves do with that funding. The in fact an editorial in today's New York times which is entitled a question what development round analyses the global trade talks that began in 2001 in Doha, Qatar with the rules the editorial says being written to benefit the rich nations and now also the big developing countries, but for the poorest countries those without competitive export sectors, the gains are likely to be meager. An analyst by the an analysis by the Carnegie endowment for International peace concluded that under the best circumstances, rich countries could gain more than 30 billion a year from a successful conclusion of the Doha round about $30 a head, middle income countries - places like Brazil and South Africa could gain up to 20 billion that's about $6 per capita, poor countries would gain about five billion which amounts to $2 a head. And so this this - I know the concern is what to do about agriculture, what do you what have you found out about what African needs in contrast to what it receives in terms of aid? It's very interesting that Africa's identified agriculture is a a key sector in its economy and in fact have adopted an - green revolution as a way forward and and also I think is interesting what you are just saying about - Africa as a whole from civil society to governments and to aid - we are saying that for sustaining ability to take place in development, trade is a very key area and therefore the opening up of these barriers, it's something that we should press for so that Africa can benefit in terms of the global economy and the the joy is that we have got a new kind of leadership in Africa which is challenging us to take responsibility for our destiny and in the light of that the whole question of intra African trade a beginning with regional information and and the creation of the Pan-African infrastructure fund in amount of in access of 600 may be on the US dollars has been contributed by Africa to improve infrastructure within the continent in order to facilitate trade and so openings in terms of trade agreements will help a lot in terms of sustainable development in our continent. And put that food on the table you were talking about earlier. Last question then is that how can we, not only in California in our own diocese but the Episcopal Church, what would be your sort of word of encouragement to the Episcopal Church and how can we best support you in your work in - What I think the [0:32:02] ____ of the millennium develop grows its partnerships. I think we should strengthen the partnerships that we already have - we have shown that such partnerships do yield a benefit because politicians move - they are nice people, they are our friends but for them to move, they normally needs a notch and I think that the Washington office for instance and extension of 815 has done standing work when we were lobbying for debt relief and I think that we should continue to do that because in words of Jim Wolfensohn, the former president of the world bank, he says "we live in a world without walls where the wealthy, the powerful, the mighty are just as vulnerable as the weak, as the marginalized and the poor and so it is to enlightened self interest that we work together to make a world with a human face" That's good. Its wonderful way to open it up. We are going to open it up to the audience.
member. 
