By Deon de Lange
"We need to teach our people to fear God," ANC president Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday, and he suggested the way to do so would be by making children pray before school - "as it was in the past".
Speaking to about 500 religious leaders outside Polokwane, Limpopo, the ANC leader said, "we need to teach our people to fear God".
"Even those who are not religious - they may be communists - must learn to fear others. We must also learn to fear our ancestors," said Zuma, who is himself an honorary pastor.
He suggested people would consider their actions more carefully if they kept in mind how the departed, or God, or other citizens, would view their behaviour.
"How do you teach society to fear God? Is it not by making children pray before school - as it was in the past?" he asked.
Zuma decried what he described as the "erosion of morality and values in our modern society" and called for a return to the norms of yesteryear, when orphans and the elderly were cared for by their communities and there was no need for orphanages or old-age homes.
"In those days, we did not have what we call today 'street children'. Streets do not give birth to children. We build the streets, give birth to children and then put them on those streets," he said to murmurs of approval.
The ANC leader, who once headed the country's moral regeneration campaign, put a large part of the blame for the "modern interpretation of values" on the media, saying there was too much sex and violence on radio and television.
He said citizens had a right to "defend themselves" from programming that brought sex and violence "into our homes", and suggested the current system of age restrictions and content warnings was simply a clever marketing tool to "advertise" such programmes to children.
"The children go to bed early, forcing their parents to go to sleep earlier, and then they get up and watch these programmes," he said.
Zuma was careful to avoid outright electioneering throughout the morning session - and seemed mindful not to preach to church elders in their own backyard.
But, towards the end of the meeting, he suggested that religious leaders urge their congregations to "examine their conscience" to determine "which party is raising these issues". He said if he were a fully fledged pastor, he would not tell his congregation who to vote for, but would "help them examine their conscience".
Professor Pierre de Vos, a constitutional law expert at the University of the Western Cape, on Wednesday explained that the Constitution did not prescribe a "strict" separation of church and state - as is the case in the United States.
But he pointed out that, according to the Constitution, religious observance at schools and other public institutions would have to be "strictly voluntary".
He also noted that such a measure risked falling foul of the equality clause contained in the Constitution, since this clause "contradicts many practices of many religious groupings, particularly with regard to gender and sexual orientation".
Zuma later addressed about 400 traditional leaders and traditional healers, where he was warmly welcomed into a hall thick with smoke from smouldering mphepho (a herb burnt as part of a traditional cleansing ritual).
Here Zuma addressed the land question - an issue close to the hearts of traditional leaders - suggesting the Land Restitution Act be revisited to do away with the cut-off date for land claims.
"I find this Act very strange. The land was taken from us over centuries, but when you want it back, you are given a short space of time (to do so) and a cut-off date (is applied) to such an important matter," he said to nods of approval. But he was quick to add that this was his personal view and "should not be attributed to the ANC".
The Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994 sets December 31, 1998 as the cut-off date for land restitution claims. No claims lodged after this date have been considered, but communities in Limpopo, the Northern Cape and the Western Cape have appealed for the date to be reviewed.