Moral Regeneration and social ills dominate discussions at the Inter-faith Symposium

The KwaZulu-Natal Legislature hosted its annual Inter-faith symposium on 14 April 2015 at the Pietermaritzburg City Hall.

Representatives of various faiths in the province converged in the Capital City to seek solutions and strategies to deal with issues of moral regeneration and the fight against all forms of social ills in our society.

Speaker of the Legislature, Hon. Lydia Johnson welcomed all delegates to the event and explained the main theme of the symposium “Promotion of morality and ethics with special focus to the province of KwaZulu-Natal”. She emphasised the significance of the gathering given the spate of social ills such as rape of women and children, drug and alcohol abuse, murder, crime and corruption confronting society today.

She said that the importance of moral regeneration cannot be over-emphasised today in view of the surge of all forms of moral decay in our society. She called on the inter-faith community to work together to bring back moral renewal among the citizens of this province. She went on to condemn the recent spate of xenophobic violence in KwaZulu-Natal which is being perpetrated against foreign nationals and urged the inter-faith leaders to take a stand against it.

The keynote address was delivered by the Chairperson of the Moral Regeneration Movement, Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, who commended the Speaker for providing a platform for engagement in a discourse that is arguably the most critical today. Other speakers included Professor Luke Ngoetshane from the KwaZulu-Natal Council of Churches, Dr Nomagugu Ngobese who presented a perspective from the indigenous religious background, and Professor RS Khumalo who presented a perspective from the Christianity background.

Different commissions made up of inter-faith leaders that had met on the first day of the symposium to deliberate on the sub-themes presented their draft resolutions to plenary after the main presentations. The resolutions would be forwarded to the Speaker’s Office for processing by different Committees of the Legislature, thereby making a contribution