This essay explores how the doctrine of the Resurrection informs theological reflection on reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa. It begins by establishing the fragile and liminal state of reconciliation, despite the efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It then argues that the Resurrection offers an ecstatic and relational understanding of the human, which in turn provides a basis for advancing claims regarding human dignity and well-being. In conversation with the work of Oliver O'Donovan and James Alison on the Resurrection, (...) this view is further contextualized by incorporating insights from ubuntu and from the work of Judith Butler on grieving. The essay closes with proposals for how the church in post-Apartheid South Africa can give witness to the Resurrection in its immediate life and work through advocacy and carrying on the politics of grieving. (shrink)

This article focuses on the politics of memory and forgetting after Auschwitz and apartheid. In the first two sections Habermas' critical contribution to the German Historikerstreit is discussed. Important in this regard is the moral dimension of our relation to the past. In the next two sections the emphasis shifts to South Africa and more specifically the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The article ends with a general discussion of the dilemma of historical 'truth' and representation in (...) contemporary societies. Key Words: apartheid • Habermas • Historikerstreit • history • South Africa. (shrink)

There appears to be a growing disquiet amongst academics surrounding the ascendancy of ‘responsible’ investment that is egoist or self-interested in character – ‘business case’ responsible investment. This ascendancy has in no small measure been associated with the uptake of United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) as a de facto standard for mainstream responsible investment. This article contributes to this disquiet. It does this by examining how egoist ‘responsible’ investors (as endorsed by the PRI) might have behaved had they (...) been around in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s during days of the anti-apartheid socially responsible investment (SRI) movement. Armed with near perfect (hindsight grade) enhanced analytics, it is clear that the signals that such egoist ‘responsible’ investors would have sent to company management in terms of the apartheid issue would have been highly muddled and therefore ineffective. The net conclusion is that there is nothing inherently or inevitably ‘responsible’ about egoist investment and that the aversion to behaving ethically amongst institutional investors must be challenged and not swept under a carpet of rhetoric. (shrink)

Suppose that it can be right to grant amnesty from criminal and civil liability to those guilty of political crimes in exchange for full disclosure about them. There remains this important question to ask about the proper form that amnesty should take: Which additional burdens, if any, should the state lift from wrongdoers in the wake of according them freedom from judicial liability? I answer this question in the context of a recent South African Constitutional Court case that considered whether (...) an officer having been granted amnesty for apartheid-era killings should be held to mean that the police force may not discharge him on the ground of having been convicted of a serious offence. The Court ruled that, despite amnesty having been granted to the guilty officer, the police force was permitted to discharge him. I distinguish the major ethical reasons the Court gives for its conclusion, which ultimately appeal to the value of national reconciliation, and I argue not only that the reconciliation-based rationales rest on empirical contingencies for which there is little evidence, but also that their logic in fact provides some reason to reject the Court’s conclusion. Then, I sketch an attractive new theory of right action, grounded on salient sub-Saharan values often associated with talk of ‘ubuntu’, that I maintain provides a stronger, unitary foundation for the Court’s key pronouncements. I conclude by discussing some of the broader implications of the moral theory for related matters, such as the rights of victims in the processes leading up to presidential pardons of those who have committed atrocities and the duties of newspapers with regard to the reputations of the latter. (shrink)

The economic and socio-political impact of multinational corporations (MNCs) on third world countries has been the subject of intense debate and controversy leading to charges of exploitation and colonization on the one hand, and demands for codes of conduct on the other. This article examines the working of one of the most comprehensive of such codes under the most reprehensible political conditions, i.e., the operations of U.S.—based multinational corporations in South Africa under the acgis of the Sullivan Principles. It is (...) argued that despite the best intentions, and considerable social goodwill, the Sullivan Principles were seriously flawed both as to goals and as to means of achieving them. Finally, it suggests a new approach to developing standards of MNC behavior in third world countries which emphasizes those areas of activities that are directly under the control of MNCs, and offers targets of achievement to which MNCs can and should be held accountable.The paper is a revised and expanded version of a keynote speech delivered by the author at the First Biannual Conference on Advances in Management, Orlando, Florida March 25–28, 1992. (shrink)

Following a general sketch of my paradigm of the opening chapter of Genesis as a presentation and analysis of the human predicament, I offer an analysis of the Adam and Eve story and the story of Babel as paradigms of the Genesis authors’ understanding of human transcendence. A brief summary of the primary elements within this notion of transcendence precedes my applicalion of it to a contemporary social issue.

This paper explores the meaning of social justice and development in post-apartheid South Africa. It begins with social justice as a process of equalisation, presenting some evidence of the challenge and explaining the difficulty of achieving racial equality. Recognition of changes in national development strategy in the post-apartheid era, and their implications for inequality, leads to discussion of alternative development ethics, which involves reconsideration of what stands for the good life. The possibility of a combination of traditional African (...) communitarianism and the ethic of care is explored, as a basis for an alternative conception of the good. Some impediments to the realisation of such a vision are identified. (shrink)

... rushing around like the red queen in a world where change is virtuous merely because it is change, we can start by putting up some resistance. ...

This article explores the relation between the government and the media in post-apartheid South Africa. An overview is given of key developments and tensions between the government and the media in the first 10 years of democracy and the ethical frameworks underlying the respective positions. An overview of the debate between the so-called "national interest" and the "public interest" is given, and linked to normative ethical frameworks of libertarianism vis-a-vis communitarianism. A mean between the 2 is suggested in the form (...) of mutualism, whereas the necessity for conceptual clarification in debating the relation between the government and the media is emphasized. (shrink)