By Raymond Perrier
This time of the year sees an overlap of the most intense periods of both the Muslim and Christian calendars – Ramadan and Lent. These are both times in which adherents are encouraged to exercise self-denial. It coincides with a fasting period for Hindus during Holi and then the Jewish festival of Passover begins which also has strict rules on eating. Not to be left out, the Bahá’aí faith – a 19th century religion that has echoes of these more ancient traditions – also marks a period of fasting.
Although each faith has different rules and customs, some more strictly enforced than others, the similarities between the traditions are surprisingly strong. One is a recognition of the importance of self-denial – especially unfashionable in a world where advertising constantly tells us we can have it all! Another is a heightened awareness of our own frailty in the face of the all-powerful, all-merciful divine – again counter-cultural when self-help books tell us we can do it all. A third is an increased consciousness of the obligations that we owe to those around us, especially the poorest.
I would be very reluctant to say that this last one is against the trend. As the director of the Denis Hurley Centre in Durban – a place where people of all faiths come together to serve homeless people and refugees – I am constantly impressed at the willingness of people to give their time, their talents and their treasure (however great or small) to help those in need. From school kids to university students, from religious groups to corporates, we benefit from the motivation that so many people have to reach out to others. Five years ago, when COVID forced us all into the same boat – with little sense of how long we would be there or who was even steering – many commented on the outpouring of solidarity that the shared experience of the pandemic created. But for those of us who rely every day on the kindness of strangers, the innate goodness of humans was not a surprise. COVID just gave many more people the time and the opportunity to express it.
I think it is good to be reminded of this when we read or watch the news today. It feels like the world has been taken over on all sides by business people and politicians whose only interest is to increase yet further the excess wealth that they have and the unchallenged power that they enjoy. Of course, they have always been there. South African history, before 1994 and since Liberation, can provide us with plenty of examples of the greedy, the malicious, the selfish and the narcissists. The current ones in other countries are perhaps just louder and better resourced than our home-grown variety.
Faced with this it is too easy to throw up our hands: to give up hope and just moan. Moreover, these days the traditional South African response of migrating does not look as attractive as it did. So if there is no flight, we need to fight. But how?
At a recent interfaith iftar that I hosted, I was struck by the shared goodness of the people in the room (from a range of faith traditions) who all felt helpless. But that is because we think that we need to beat the tyrants at their own game. Not only will we not win, but it would mean surrendering the very values of goodness and humanity that they are trying to overturn. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Malcolm Gladwell reminds us in his book David and Goliath that it is by working to our own strengths, and not the strengths of the seemingly insuperable enemy, that we can succeed. He cites examples from business, from politics and from culture. I might feel like a David at the moment in the face of a multi-headed giant. But once I discover how much I have in common with other Davids, and how much we can do by working together, the prospect of putting the world back on the path to goodness does not seem so impossible. South Africa, with its tradition of religious cooperation, and defying the odds, has a lesson in hope to share with the world.
