South Africa is witnessing the debasement of its moral fibre and the brutalisation of its common humanity. That’s the critical observation of South African Council of Churches General Secretary, Reverend Mzwandile Molo, who was responding to four deadly mass shootings that shook the country in a single week. A total of 43 people were murdered and about 30 others wounded.
The religious leader says this is no longer a series of isolated tragedies, but a national crisis – one that, he says, points to something deeply troubling about who we have become. He says the deeper truth is that the value of human life has been cheapened, while people have become increasingly desensitised to violence. Molo points to incidents from eNyobeni to Orlando East and Saulsville, saying South Africans are forced to relive these horrors again and again. He says while, in times like these, the faithful call on God for grace and mercy and put their trust in Him, their faith must also be matched with action.
Molo is calling on faith communities, leaders, civil society, business and government to stand together and confront the anger, inequality, trauma and loss of hope from which this type of violence grows. He warns that if South Africans refuse to face these realities, then society shares responsibility for the deaths.
