'Reconsider celebration of Bartholomeu Dias'

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MOSSEL BAY NEWS AND VIDEO - At the Mossel Bay Transformation Lecture on Saturday, the Godly Governance Network's (GGN) President, Pastor Sipho Mengezeleli, called for national government to declare 3 February, the day Bartolomeu Dias landed at Mossel Bay, as an official day of repentance and prayer for spiritual revival and moral renewal, economic restoration and for a government of national unity.

He also called on the Mossel Bay Municipality to suspend and review the annual commemoration of Dias at the Dias Festival. It commemorates what he terms to be "the colonial foundations of foreign cultures that continue to define the nature and character of the country's current governance, and moral and spiritual practices that threaten the democratic order".

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He called on all churches to join and provide their support for a revival and for effective intervention strategies to deal with the moral decay and deadly social ills in society.

Pastor Sipho used his book, "A National Call for a Godly Nation in our Lifetime", as the basis for his talk at the transformation lecture at the South Cape College on Saturday, 23 February.

He argues that Mossel Bay is where the first racial conflict between Europeans and the indigenous people of Southern Africa took place; the site of the first recorded white on non-white murder in Africa; the first place where a radical colonial economic strategy resulted in taking ownership of occupied territories, land and natural resources.

He argues that it was in Mossel Bay where the foundations were laid of exploitative trade relations and systematic dispossession. The town is where global foreign cultures met, clashed, and where the indigenous cultures were since suppressed.

In total he lists 10 historic and ungodly foundations that hinder unity and which he says are being commemorated through the annual Dias Festival.

Pastor Sipho calls on Mossel Bay to repent so that the coming spiritual revival, which he says will spring from Mossel Bay and move inland, may proceed. He adds that the ills of the past should be addressed so that a common programme may emerge to change the town and the nation through the unity of the church.

"We need to start the debate of transformation right here," Pastor Sipho said and added that he would take this message and debate it in each of the town's 14 wards.

"The municipality should answer to the question of what its transformation agenda is, on whether we should continue to celebrate Dias."

Speaking on behalf of the EFF, the secretary for the Western Cape Nkosinathi Jeff, pledged his party's support for the movement. "All of us in Mossel Bay are oppressed, irrespective of race. We are here to listen; it is all about putting God first."

The GGN calls on all churches, community-based organisations, traditional leaders and the media to attend its revival meeting planned for 3 March at 18:00 at the D'Almeida Civic Centre.

Mama Stage, the secretary general of GNN, is advocating for the changing of the guard.