Political Perspective

Gwen Lister

10 June 2011

Recent and not-so-recent events have prompted me to once again question whether, as a nation, we are not becoming morally bankrupt.

I use this term – being deficient in or devoid of morality and ethics – in the wider sense of the phrase and its applicability to our national life in general. Some would agree, many would disagree; but I believe it is absolutely crucial that we give serious thought to the negative impact that further deterioration in our nation’s morality will have on our country as whole, and not only in the political and/or business spheres as many may believe.

MORALITY is not about whether we go to church or not. I mention this because many people seem to think that simply by being a ‘Christian nation’, it automatically means we are a moral one. Wrong, at least in my view. And most of the time our churches aren’t terribly helpful as far as the morality debate is concerned and teaching people the difference between what are generally accepted rights and wrongs.

Morality is generally a sense of behavioural conduct that differentiates between good (or right) and bad (or wrong). According to Wikipedia, morality has two distinct meanings: the ‘descriptive’ meaning of morality refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct and social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in human society. The ‘normative’ meaning of morality refers directly to what is right or wrong regardless of what specific individuals think.

Likewise, immorality is the active opposite of morality while amorality is simply indifference towards any set of moral standards or principles.

I use the term ‘moral bankruptcy’ because I’m not sure at this point whether we are immoral in the sense of rejecting morality; or amoral because we simply don’t care whether we are moral or not.

But I would maintain that concerns about our moral decline are evident in a number of spheres, especially when wrongdoing is revealed and the public either don’t react (because they’ve come to accept that some wrongs are right) or don’t care one way or the other.

I acknowledge there may be slight, and I emphasise the word, differences between cultural interpretations of right and wrong, but we should not allow these to sidetrack us from our focus on generally accepted moral standards, i.e. good and bad.

I would argue therefore that our Constitution, more specifically our Bill of Rights, sets the standards of morality for our nation and not the churches or different cultural practices for example. Often, the churches in my view, give sanctuary to those who either do wrong or see no wrong, yet feel their weekly presence at places of worship exonerates them from immoral behaviour. ‘Thou shalt not steal’ can easily be forgotten in the face of ‘forgive us our trespasses’! I’m not arguing here that those who do wrong should never be forgiven, but it shouldn’t be quite as easy as many of our self-serving Christians make it out to be!

Many feel, for example, that the recent controversy over Lady May’s outburst on national television was ‘immoral’. I would argue the contrary. It was certainly ill-advised for her to call her audience ‘motherf….rs’, but not immoral. Many, but not all of those who rose up in protest, who themselves may be people who lie, cheat and steal, and who don’t care or express their outrage when women are beaten or acts of corruption are committed, are in fact the immoral ones!

We are immoral if we commit graft, but we are equally immoral if we shut our eyes to these transgressions. We are immoral if we abuse women and children, but equally, as a nation, we are immoral if we remain silent about these acts.

Not only is our national morality at an all-time low, but we are also becoming masters of double standards. This is particularly evident in our foreign affairs ‘policy’ and in our own conduct and lack of political will in speaking out and exposing wrongdoing. We claim to have ‘zero tolerance’ towards corruption, but most of our people see nothing untoward, for example, with former CEOs getting massive multimillion-dollar payouts simply because they have resigned their posts!

This has apparently become acceptable practice to a large degree, which is an absolute indictment of our lack of morality in my view.

It is perhaps time that we as a nation, and in particular our universities and research institutions and think-tanks, begin to debate the state of our national morality so that people are clear on what constitute rights and wrongs, good and bad, and begin to apply these principles to one and all.

In short, we need to start a national discussion to strengthen and reinforce our own morality, and guard against further deterioration to the extent that everything begins to be so fuzzy, our people are unable to distinguish between what is right and wrong.

Time too that leadership at whatever level of our society set more of an example so that these values can be inculcated in our national psyche.

This in turn would constitute a huge boost to our national pride and the promotion of a good society.

AllAfrica – All the Time