... and what they are in a changing South Africa

Since the demise of apartheid in 1994, with its strong Christian-based value system that was not applied or accepted across all cultures, South Africa has embarked on a struggle of another kind – to find a common set of personal, cultural, religious and social values. 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a person’s values as “beliefs about what is right and wrong and what is important.” The word value, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, dates back to the 13th century Latin word "valere", meaning: be strong, be well, be of value, and was first used in 1918 to refer to a social principle.

These social principles or values refer to qualities of behaviour, thought and character that society regards as good. A value is an ideal accepted by an individual or a group on which they base their life’s actions.

There is a personal value system – which includes religious, cultural and socially accepted values or norms and a communal value system that is upheld by law.

These values are learnt by example from what children observe when they are growing up - from parents, caregivers and other role models, from peers and elder siblings and from the media – primarily television, but including books read, videos watched and games played.

“Values emerge out of particular socio-cultural and religious contexts. In a country like ours, made as it is by various socio-cultural and religious contexts, the quest and place for values is a terrain of struggle,” said Reverend Desmond Lesejane of the Ecumenical Service for Socio-Economic Transformation based in Johannesburg.

“People have different perceptions of values,” explained Professor Suleman Dangor from the School of Religion and Theology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. “There are personal or human values, and religious values,” said Dangor, “and they don’t always coincide. In essence there are many shared values that most of us can agree on – like honesty and responsibility – these are universal; common to all human beings. These are essential values that we should teach our children at home or in schools.”

“Moral values are a set of basic and beneficial human decency habits which people live by, or should live by,” said Dave Metzler, founder of the Cool Values programme that provides a systemic programme for teaching values to schoolchildren.

“Values are formed at a young age, prior to teen years,” said Metzler. “Their importance cannot be overstated, they are profoundly that part of us all that determines our safety, security and happiness as well as our prosperity. For society, it means prosperity in countless areas of their lives. Less crime, divorce, abuse ...”

Dangor added, “Values are formed very early in childhood; in the first five to six years. At home, or in the crèche – that’s where values are inculcated. Children can learn other values later on, but the groundwork is laid here. If they don’t have a good foundation at the primary age, there could be problems later.”

"In South Africa with our multicultural heritage we are going to have a conflict in values," said Dangor. “It is important for us to understand other cultures and their outlook – we need that type of context – and we need to focus on the values that are common.”

“Moral values are implicit in the respect for equality, human dignity and human rights as embodied in the constitution,” said Karthy Govender, professor of constitutional and administrative law at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, currently seconded to the South African Human Rights Commission.

Implicit, explained Govender, in that the constitution does not only guarantee rights; it confers a corresponding obligation to respect those same rights.

“Before 1994 there was a distinct overlap between Christian morals and value and State-accepted norms, but this is not necessarily the case now,” said Govender. “Right living doesn’t mean that the core messages of Christianity can’t play a leading role in shaping mores – but the same applies to other religions too.

“We will have to try to find a commonality of values. With the diverse cultural background we will battle to find a uniform set of norms – even in terms of marriage with monogamy and polygamy. In terms of the constitution it may not be an immoral system of living. We are going to have to disagree on many issues – like gay marriages. We are going to have to respect individuals and society. South Africa will have to become quite tolerant,” said Govender.

“An attempt to forge a ‘new’ value system from a combination of the best values within our diverse cultures will itself become a contested process,” said Lesejane. “We should only look at the moral fallouts around the promotion of gender equality as a value. There are just too many religious and cultural groups which see this as wrong, insisting for themselves that men have the moral right or obligation to be leaders of women and children.”

Professor Jonathan Hyslop, Deputy Director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, said that while core values are important, he feels that there is such diversity within South Africa that looking at consensual values is not appropriate.

“Most belief systems would regard murder as a bad thing,” said Hyslop in explanation. “But most systems would also consider war justifiable under certain circumstances – but those circumstances would differ.

“We need a process of negotiation,” he said, "where people can discuss problems around differing sets of values. South Africa is changing rapidly. There is often the feeling that traditional values are good values, but this is not necessarily the case. Not all traditional values are reconcilable with the constitution. Even within the constitution there can be a conflict of values with judges balancing a number of different considerations.”

Hyslop added that Jacob Zuma suing the media was a case in point. Here there is conflict between the values placed on the right to human dignity versus the media’s right to freedom of speech.

“With the plurality of religions and beliefs of different kinds, respect is going to be the essential ingredient.” Hyslop added that it does not mean you have to agree with a person’s set of values, but you have to respect their right to believe differently on issues where there are not clear-cut bottom-line universal values.

Lesejane added, “This struggle is not made easy by the paradigmatic shift from authoritarian moral systems where values were defined by those in power (political, economic, cultural or religious) to the current democratic dispensation we now live in.

"Values, if they have to be sustainable, must be intrinsic to individuals and communities and not be externally defined and enforced for them to be effective. This should simply not be domination by the majority.

“At the moment we can do well as a country to cherish the values entrenched in our constitution, as these are the most collectively defined and accepted and can be a base for socialisation and entrenchment of the social cohesion we so desire,” concluded Lesejane.

This article appeard in the Cape Times (20 July 2006) and Sunday Independent (30 July 2006). 

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