The final function of the Marlene Silbert Youth Interfaith Intercultural Programme (MSYIIP) took place on Sunday the 28th October 2018. We were graciously welcomed by the Deputy Mayor, Alderman Ian Neilson who hosted this special event.
The programme this year has been a great success, with nine schools participating in the Grade 10 and Grade 11 programmes. The monthly learning sessions have allowed learners to forge new relationships on the basis of humanity, equality, and social justice, and to create a greater understanding of self and others, building respect between people from different religions, faiths, cultures, and backgrounds and develop an appreciation of the value of diversity.
As part of the programme for the evening, each school shared a short presentation on what they had learnt throughout the year. Many learners reflected on the experience of becoming friends with fellow learners they would have never normally had the opportunity to interact with. As Programme Facilitator, Sarah Oliver shared,
I think what is so remarkable about a programme like this is the exposure that it gives the students to worlds and lives of fellow young people that they just never would have engaged with otherwise. The intention here is to start to unravel our built up prejudices of ‘the other’, whether ‘the other’ is of a different faith, race, gender, sexual orientation, or socio-economic class.
Moving forward from this final year end event, the intention is that learners will leave this programme with a greater understanding of our countries different cultures and experiences, and be able to apply this in their lives as active citizens. One student highlighted this by saying,
From this programme I have learnt a lot of things that I can apply in my life. I grew as a person and have made new friends. I loved the experience. I have learnt that we shouldn’t judge and make assumptions about people we don’t know without knowing their stories and what made them who they are.
A big thank you to the Programme Founder, Mrs Marlene Silbert, who continues to guide and support the programme with incredible care and commitment. Thank you also to the Programme Coordinator Natalie Simons-Arendse, and lead Facilitator, Sarah Oliver, for their tireless efforts in making sure the programme runs smoothly and efficiently.
This year we have also had an amazing team of young facilitators from the GOAL Trust, who have played an important role in mentoring and guiding our young learners. Thank you Uzair Ben Ebrahim, Izzy, Salwah Salie, Adeeb Fakier, Sherry Tapfuma, Sima Gcora, Phelo Krakri and Xola Maswana.
Thank you also to the programme donors who continue to see the important value of this programme as not only an investment in the lives of the learners, but an investment in building a more peaceful and inclusive society.
Finally a special thanks to all the teachers, parents, and learners for their commitment and willingness to engage in interfaith and intercultural work! Sparkles to you all!
Our first Sacred Connections Sunday took place on the 28th October. Hosted in the beautiful space of the Brahma Kumaris, it was the perfect location for the sharing of our sacred practices and connecting
Berry Behr shared the story of the White Lions and our connection to the earth as a blessing of Interfaith. Kirtanya Lutchminarayan offered a beautiful chant from the Hindu faith, accompanied on the guitar by Nur Felix, and Ayanda Nabe spoke about the importance of women in African Traditional Religion.
Sacred Connections takes place on the last Sunday of every month, with three different faith traditions participating to share sacred practices, and build appreciation, communication and peace between people of diverse beliefs. We hope you will be able to join the next one on the 25th November at Princess Vlei, Retreat.
Heritage Day should be more than beer, boerewors and braaivleis. At least those were the thoughts of the people who chose to spend the day exploring our diverse religious heritage.
Although there has been an attempt to rebrand Heritage Day as National Braai Day with Archbishop Tutu in an apron as its patron, this culinary particularity demeans a holiday meant to help us welcome our diversity in a nation that belongs to all its people but did not always.
On a level more in keeping with the original intent of the day, the Cape Town Interfaith Initiative (CTII) each year arranges a Heritage Day bus tour to visit places of worship of different religious community. This year the tour consisting of people from nine different faith communities visited the South Peninsula where they were immersed in a heritage rich in pain and suffering underpinned by a past heritage of intolerance.
The Muizenberg Synangogue
First stop was the Muizenberg Synagogue built 90 years ago. Sadly there has been a dramatic global increase in antisemitism to which South Africa has not been immune. Ridiculous as it sounds, South Africa’s Jews were given until 7 August to leave the country by Tony Ehrenreich who also threatened them with physical harm if people were killed 9 000km away by Israelis. This, despite our constitution giving everyone the right to freedom of religion, belief and opinion. Because the Jewish New Year would begin that evening, the police were taking no chances and did not want anyone to enter the building, so the group stood on the steps outside where the Synagogue Chairman addresses them and told them about the synagogue and the festival whose service included universal prayers for peace, health and prosperity.
Prejudice unfortunately is part of our heritage.
From there they walked up the road to a beautifully maintained and painted Muslim kramat at the eighteenth century grave of Sayed Abdul Aziz RA), an escaped slave where they were told the history of the site and the services conducted there.
Slavery is also part of our heritage.
Next stop was the St Francis Church, built in 1837 after winter storms had destroyed the original building (erected in 1814). The church has stone carvings on the walls erected by shipmates to commemorate deceased sailors and beautiful stained glass windows, one of which portrayed an African St Frances surrounded by African animals like a lion and a cheetah.
St Francis Anglican Church, Simonstown
In 1967 the church lost 70% of its members – worshippers whose parents, grandparents and great grandparents had been baptised, married and buried by the church, the oldest Anglican parish in South Africa, 200years old this year. People had been living in Simons Town at least since 1687, when Governor Simon van der Stel visited the area. In 1743 it became the official winter anchorage for the Dutch East Indian Company’s ships, and a magazine, hospital, barracks, a residence for the Governor, a bakery, a butchery, a carpenter’s shop and a smithy soon followed, along with the builders and bakers and candlestick makers, both slaves and freeborn, required for the functioning of the town. And they lived there until September 1967, when Simons Town was declared a white group area. Not even Governor Simon van der Stel would have been allowed to stay there – his grandmother, Monica of the coast of Goa, had been an Indian slave.
At a stroke of a pen, St Francis lost most of his congregation and Simonstown its residents.
First to be removed under the Group Areas Act were black people. On two Sundays army trucks arrived, loaded up the women and children, throwing their possessions alongside them, When their men folk arrived home from work at the docks, they found slips of paper on their doors giving the address in Guguletu where they would find their families,
With that sort of heritage, how significant is a back-yard braai?
So, on Heritage Day the former residents of Simonstown return. From Ocean View and Retreat, from Heath field and Noordhoek, from all over the Peninsula,they return to Simonstown for the annual wreath-laying and commemoration of those forced removals, an event organised by the the Simon’s Town Museum and the Simon’s Town Phoenix Committee. The CTII bus group watched as bus after bus arrived from which descended white-haired ladies stooped over with arthritis, old men on sticks assisted by their grandchildren. They had gathered to take part in a procession to Jubilee Square, some holding street signs with the name of the street where they had lived. Apartheid had come and apartheid had gone, but they were still here. Seven thousand people had been evicted and they had not forgotten the results of the Group Areas Act.
From this reminder of the painful heritage of apartheid the CTII group went to the Heritage Museum. This commemorates the Forced Removals of the Muslim community who had lived there since the Eighteenth century. Situated in the house of the Amlays the last Muslim family to be forcibly removed and the first to return in 1995, the Heritage Museum, initiated by the Noorul Islam Historical Society, contains photographs from the 1800s to the present. On show are bridal gowns, cooking utensils, an Eid table and a Hadj room. The CTII group visited the mosque, in perfect condition, kept going by a handful of Muslim men.
The madrassah is empty – gone are all the children whose voices used to fill it. The Muslim families who lived in the houses in the streets alongside the mosque are gone and there is great bitterness in the community.Their houses have not been returned. Abandonedhouses fell into disrepair and were bulldozed flat. Compensation when offered is totally inadequate.
Last stop was the Simonstown Town Hall where the Hare Krishna provided a tasty ayurvedic vegetarian lunch followed by a Buddhist healing meditation where the group was told to leave behind bitterness, anger, jealousy, suffering, as these could be internalised, and to think of the miracle of one’s body and one’s life. This was accompanied by the hypnotic music of reverberating brass bowls and a large gong.
The CTII has taken the legacy of interfaith solidarity forged during the anti-apartheid era into the post-apartheid era. Trips like this encourage transformation and acceptance of religious diversity and equality. This Heritage Day we could see from where we had come. We could rejoice in what we are now – a nation that belongs to all its people, where diversity of culture and beliefs can be celebrated and where samoosas. dal and rotis are as much a part of our heritage as a braai.
The Charter for Compassion, unveiled in November 2009 in Washington, D.C., with signatories that included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Prince Hassan of Jordan and Sir Richard Branson has been translated into more than 30 languages. This project was the brainchild of former Catholic nun Karen Armstrong, scholar and author of books on comparative religion.
When Armstrong was awarded the 2008 TED Prize she wanted to use the opportunity to make the world a better place. The recipient of the annual TED prize receives $100000 and the chance to make “One Wish to Change the World”. Armstrong wished for a council of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders to draw up a Charter of Compassion to identify shared moral priorities that she hoped would foster global understanding. This Charter was to be a product of its time, for its time. Our time.
The Charter hopes to change the public conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt – be it religious or secular – has failed the test of our time. It wants to create a culture of compassion and encourage actions that will do so. Recent events in South Africa point to the need for every individual and corporate to endorse this critical document.
The Cape Town Interfaith Initiative (CTII) launched the Charter in Cape Town on Thursday 20th May 2010, to coincide with CTII’s 10th anniversary. Since then, the Charter for Compassion has been endorsed in various houses of worship, organisations and schools.
Very excitingly, CTII has also engaged in discussions with the City of Cape Town to make Cape Town a City of Compassion.
We, the parents, learners and teachers of our school declare our commitment to the following principles, and pledge to hold ourselves and one another responsible for achieving them.
We recognize that every person shares a common humanity capable both of happiness and suffering. We pledge in our words and actions to treat everyone in this school community as we would wish to be treated, to help those around us who are in need, and to make amends when we cause another pain.
We recognize that we are a school with learners who have different abilities, body sizes, races, religions, classes, gender identities and sexual orientations. We pledge to imagine what it is like being someone different from ourselves and try to understand their point of view, especially when we disagree or find ourselves in conflict.
We recognize that intolerance, ignorant disrespect and hatred cause suffering and that when we do nothing, or laugh or post comments online we allow the suffering and the evil deeds to continue. We pledge to resist all forms of prejudice, racism, sexism, discrimination and bullying, and to respect those who may be different from ourselves, and so to make this school a place where everyone belongs.
We commit to practice the compassionate values in this Charter for Compassion within our school community, in our daily actions, in our community and in the world.
I think what is so remarkable about a programme like this is the exposure that it gives the students to worlds and lives of fellow young people that they just never would have engaged with otherwise. The intention here is to start to unravel our built up prejudices of ‘the other’, whether ‘the other’ is of a different faith, race, gender, sexual orientation, or socio-economic class.
