According to Abrahamic epistemology, the best among humanity are those who have faith in the monotheistic merciful God and benefit other humans and nature etc with genuine altruism.
Over the years we have all read many comments on the constitution, our human rights agenda and a host of other isms that ostensibly makes South Africa one of the most progressive nations. On the flip side, media reports regularly quote awful crime statistics that also make South Africa one of the most violent societies. Since statistics do not lie, the increase in murder, rape and violent crime across our nation suggests a serious divide between what our constitution opines and our lived reality.
Absurdly when some seek to certify an opinion, the constitution is used as if by merely saying the word “constitution” to a violent criminal the law-breaking and chaos will stop. Sadly the constitution unlike the Torah, Bible and Quran is not a divine text and cannot, like all divine text in a Hollywood movie, stop a vampire from killing you when you hold it up or quote from it.
The problems, in truth are those who fail us by failing to practice their constitutional obligations for whatever reason. The situation is similar to having a convicted paedophile preacher talking about morality. No matter how qualified or eloquent the preacher is, who in reality will listen to him again?
Thus when political leaders appoint unqualified or useless officials who are unable to deliver on their constitutional obligations, they are in reality the worst amongst us. Across South Africa the poorest of the poor continue to suffer as their leaders appoint uselessness who is unable to deliver services even when the resources are available. Ironically those at the top get paid every month from our taxes while those at the bottom continue to have limited access to water, electricity, and jobs and so on.
At the same time those in authority hire their policy making friends to create extra legislation to give people more rights on paper but less access to toilets or protection from criminals in the real world.
Decades ago, a university associate asked a few classmates if a person who is forced into prostitution to survive had morality. I countered by saying that it would be better to create a reality where there would be no need for a woman to sell her body to survive instead about obsessing with judgement.
In the words of the wise, for far too long those in authority have obsessed with the proverbial morality of prostitutes instead of creating a reality where people had genuine choices. It is those who have the ability, wealth and power to change the world to a better place but do little, who is the worst among us.
May God protect us from them?
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress