Tag: ethical leadership

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Corona Relief and Corruption

Off-loading my heavy heart as lamenting to God before our nation in the Hebrew prophetic tradition:

Responding to this article, I believe Ace Magashule is beyond embarrassment, incapable of shame. He should start with himself and his sons – all accused of gross corruption – before talking about corruption in the ANC (African National Congress, the ruling party in South Africa).

What an utter disaster: The corruption of the ANC knows no end. It is truly endemic. Seemingly beyond cure. Worse than the corona pandemic itself, which officials exploit (the billions set aside for corona relief for the needy) in their own corrupt greed, further bleeding the nation to death.

Not even our President, Cyril Ramaphosa, seems to be able to stem the tide of corruption. He seems lame. We all had hoped and prayed for something decisively different, something better after the seriously corrupt Zuma rule that brought our country to its knees. I still pray for that decisive difference.

After millions spent on the Zondo commission to uncover and account for state capture, for the missing billions, no significant high profile arrests, no convictions, no judgment, no imprisonment. Eskom paid over R38 bn in inflated contracts. ONLY NOW is Eskom and SIU (Special Investigating Unity) seeking to find out how it can possibly recover R3.8 bn from former executives and the Guptas.

ANC and other officials have systemically stolen from the poor & needy, let alone raped the economy. And it continues under corona, when our nation/economy is at its absolute weakest. Utter and total shame on them. God sees it all, every little last deed of corruption. God will judge. On that day, God help the corrupt.

And God help us all, because the not-corrupt will suffer (are already suffering) under the coming judgement: Look at the long darkening road of corruption, human rights violations, bloodshed, dictatorship, that has destroyed our northern neighbour, Zimbabwe. That nation is at its absolute worst right now under Mnangagwa, after he was joyfully welcomed as a liberation hero in November 2017 liberating the nation in a ‘quiet coup’ from the liberation hero, dictator Robert Mugabe.

How can a man, Mugabe’s young general, who presided over the massacre of 20 000 Ndebele a fews years after independence, liberate and lead the nation into a new era of restored justice, peace & prosperity? Those Zimbabweans who naively danced in the streets in November 2017 soon returned to weeping and wailing when Mnangagwa proved true to character – though he claimed a ‘Christian conversion’ – evidently fake by its distinct lack of righteous fruit (no ‘coming clean’ as in publicly confessing his part in the Gukurahundi of the mid 1980s, and offering himself for trial before a court of law – means nothing changed in the man). Zimbabwe is a prophetic warning to us, to South Africa, in our shameless corruption, of what God’s judgement looks like through such corrupt leaders, who reduced the (supposed) bread basket of Africa to the basket case of Africa. The prophetic warning is LOUD & CLEAR, it’s on our doorstep. Let those who have ears to hear, hear and repent, pray and act to eradicate corruption in all its forms.

In your judgements, O Lord, remember mercy! (Habakkuk 3:2)

There’s a video clip doing the rounds of Utata Mandela speaking during the transition in 1993, saying that “the corruption of the Apartheid Nationalist government was endemic”, and the ANC would “stop THAT GRAVY TRAIN”. The ANC government would be very different, would “change the culture to live within the means of their community”, taking salary cuts to help the poor & needy. Utata Mandela is now spinning at high speed in his grave at the ANC gravy train taking our nation to destruction.

All the public promises of Ramaphosa on national TV, of Mboweni and others, are empty and meaningless until we see action, arrests, prosecutions, imprisonments, recovery of (at least some of) the stolen millions & billions of rands. Is there the moral political will and strength of ethical conviction to fearlessly confront and prosecute and defeat this corruption? I pray that there is, or that it comes to those who wield the power. God knows, I pray for our President in this regard. With God all things are possible! BUT we all have to pray up, stand up, speak up, and act up against this evil, to empower the will of the few good leaders that are there, that can make the decisive different we so desperately need in our nation at this kairos moment.

The ANC has deployed, and continues to deploy officials and leaders who have little or no CHARACTER… known bullies, arrogant liars, corrupt cheaters, blatant stealers, record criminals, etc. Management and leadership at any level in society, in business, in government, is about CHARACTER, CHARACTER, CHARACTER.

Leadership is about TRUSTWORTHINESS, HONESTY, TRUTHFULNESS, INTEGRITY, DILIGENCE, DELIVERY, RELIABILITY, etc. Don’t vote for, or support, any leaders who have corrupt character. Pray and vote them out of power. Confront, expose and report their corrupt dealings. Resist them with truth and integrity, with everything in you, with God’s help. It is a life and death battle in our country.

May God give us leaders of moral character who have the ethical conviction to courageously act for the good of the nation.
May God root out leaders and officials of corrupt character at all levels of management and leadership.
May God have mercy on the poor & needy.
Please Lord, we cry out to you, hear our prayer.

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TRUTH OR LIES – WHAT’S THE COST?

I watched the Chernobyl series of 5 episodes and was deeply struck by the words of the  courageous Russian nuclear scientist Valery Legasov,

“As scientists we are naive.  We are so focused on our search for truth we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it.  Truth is always there whether we seek it or not, whether we choose to see it or not, whether we care for it or not.  Truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants.  It doesn’t care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions.  It will lie in wait for all time. It will hold us accountable.  This at last is the gift of Chernobyl.  Though I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask:  WHAT IS THE COST OF LIES?”

Chernobyl: The Cost

Valery Legasov was assigned by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to lead the resolving of the Chernobyl disaster of 26 April 1986.  The cause was human error and negligence, but more importantly, the design flaws of the RBMK nuclear reactor.  Unthinkable in Russia. Viciously denied and suppressed by the USSR Politburo and KGB. 

Legasov told the truth and paid for it dearly. He committed suicide two years after the nuclear reactor exploded. However, the cost of the lies of the political leaders was paid for by thousands of people who died over the years – to this day the official death toll in Russia is 31; unofficially it’s between 4500 and 90000. And nature itself paid the price:  the 2600 square km exclusion zone of radioactive death.  

In 2006 Mikhail Gorbachev wrote that Chernobyl was probably the true cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union, not perestroika and glasnost.  WHAT IS THE COST OF LIES?

Post-Truth World: Lying Leaders

“That’s Russia! The West is different!” Another lie!  We are in a life and death battle of truth and untruth, of honesty and lies, of moral integrity and amoral corruption, of ethical character and ‘fake it till you make it’ performance.  We live in a post-truth world where lies are the norm. They are seen as the truth and truth is seen as lies. It’s the perverse form of the ‘politics of truth’. Power games for personal and national gain. Spiritual and political leaders are especially culpable in this regard, and the people suffer for it. 

Presidents who routinely lie with predictable ease give permission and power to their leaders, to the entire nation, to lie. It’s a spiritual reality: an evil ‘principality and power’ takes over and thousands and millions of people follow such leaders with gullible worship in ideological blindness, thinking they are heroes.

A sure sign of a spiritual power, of ideological capture, is the irrational emotional defensiveness – even violent threats – when confronted. There is no ability to reason with rational and psycho-emotional objectivity. These leaders use their power, by lies and coverups (propaganda), to make truth the enemy of the people. The nation picks up the tab and pays the price.  WHAT IS THE COST OF LIES? 

South Africa: National & Personal

The price we have paid in South African for the decade of lies from Jacob Zuma and his network of patronage has been like a nuclear fallout. It will take years to recover. Now under pressure from the Zondo Commission on State Capture Zuma has agreed to come in July to answer questions. The spider of the national web of corruption is appearing. Pray for his deception to be defeated and for the truth to prevail.

It’s a serious spiritual battle. It’s not just Zuma and political and spiritual leaders – it’s each and every one of us. “The human heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things – who can know it?  I, the LORD, examine and know the heart…” and will hold it accountable (Jeremiah 17:9). Indeed, God “hates… a lying tongue” because of the destruction it brings (Proverbs 6:16-17).

Legasov once feared the cost of truth, but now asks: WHAT IS THE COST OF LIES? Or we can ask: What is the cost of NOT standing up for the truth?  What is the cost of keeping quiet? Do we love the truth enough – and the victims who pay the price of untruth – to confront and unmask the politics of truth? Do we call out people around us when they lie? Do we call out the lies of leaders? Do we drive back the suffocating darkness of lies by a relentless shining of the light of truth – not matter what it may cost us.

Some of our investigative journalists in South Africa are courageous heroes in this regard, such as Jacques Pauw in The President’s Keepers (on Zuma’s corruption) and Pieter-Louis Myburgh in Gangster State (on Ace Magashule’s corruption).

Defeating the Evil of Untruth

However, let me be clear: we cannot defeat the evil behind this darkness unless we are ruthless with ourselves. Unless you are radically self-honest and forsake any and every temptation to lie – even a ‘white lie’ to spin the truth, exaggerate, give half the truth, cover up – you have little or no power to defeat the power of untruth that is covering the land, the globe, like a suffocating blanket. You cannot challenge others if you yourself lie. 

Whether we know it or not, like it or not, THE TRUTH will always eventually triumph.  It will hold us accountable personally and nationally, sooner or later, in this life and/or in the life to come. If we are always utterly truthful, even to our own hurt, God will stand by us and will vindicate us in this life and/or in the life to come.

Then darkness will be driven back and light will rule in human society. The reign of the ‘politics of truth and love’ (love of the truth). The economy will prosper and nature itself will explode with fruitful life.