Why do we act like animals?

[SubTopic]

i read it this morning and realise that we as africans behave like animals.  its time we stop this kak!

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu on Tuesday night slammed South Africans for losing their "African reverence for life".

Earlier he told a gathering of VIPs that some of the country's leaders are sinners. He said he would not support a Jacob Zuma presidency because of Zuma's "moral failings".

South Africans had failed to sustain the idealism that ended apartheid, Tutu said at a British High Commission function.

'What has come over us?'
"Part of our own disillusionment is the high expectations we had. We imagined that because we had this noble cause, the vast majority of people were altruistic, were idealistic, and we thought we were going to translate that and transfer it automatically to the time when we were then free; it's not happened."

Asked about the country's political leadership, Tutu said: "They have shown they are human. We all have been afflicted by original sin."

He said South Africa had "very serious" problems, such as poverty, Aids, corruption and crime, but had achieved a remarkable degree of stability in 12 years of democracy.

On Tuesday night Tutu recalled at the Biko Memorial Lecture at the University of Cape Town: "I was privileged to preach at his mammoth funeral attended by diplomats and people from all corners of South Africa."

But Tutu said again that Biko's Black Consciousness Movement did not finish the work it set out to do.

"Why have we lost our deeply African reverence for life? Just look at what happens with a car hijacking. The scared owner hands over the keys and for no earthly reason he/she is shot dead in cold blood for the sheer hell of it; utterly gratuitously, wantonly.

"Is it not horrendous to an African, even before Black Consciousness came on the scene, for whatever reason for an adult man to rape a nine-month-old baby?

"What has come over us? Perhaps we did not realise just how apartheid has damaged us so that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong, so that when we go on strike as is our right to do, we are not appalled that some of us can chuck people out of moving trains because they did not join the strike, or why is it common practice now to trash, to go on the rampage?

"Even our students on strike will often destroy the very facilities they need for their studies.

"What has happened to us? It seems as if we have perverted our freedom, our rights into licence, into being irresponsible. Rights go hand in hand with responsibility, with dignity, with respect for oneself and for the other.

"Can you tell me why we think it is okay to litter? Many of us will chuck a banana or orange peel, a paper wrapping, on the ground next to a dustbin. Why? Why are we so unmindful of our environment?

"Of course many of us still live in poverty and squalor. But you know how, although we were poor long ago, we used to be proud of our surroundings, sweeping even the street.

"There are many neighbourhoods that make you proud, where people have cultivated lawns and planted gardens and it is all so beautiful and people who don't care are the first to want to sit on those lawns and they will often litter and leave their trash behind.

"We must tell those who do this that littering is a crime but is also a sin. We despoil God's creation of which we are supposed to be stewards, caring for it on behalf of God.

"There should be things we consider infra dig, below our dignity to do.

"Most, no, all of us here, would not even consider picking up an apple we were eating if it fell into a dustbin. It should be so with all the bad things we are tolerating, people urinating in public places, etc.

"There are shops and offices which it is a pleasure to enter. The shop a**istants are courteous, friendly, smiling and eager to help as also certain offices - but there are others where they think they are doing you a favour. There are municipal, provincial, government offices which you go to only because you really can't help it.

"They behave as those others used to behave in the old pa** offices - they are rude, inefficient and thoroughly unpleasant.

"Why, oh why, when it is as easy to be efficient, friendly and courteous? It is because we don't respect one another and, we don't because we don't respect ourselves first. We despise ourselves, we really hate ourselves and project it on to others.

"During our struggle against apartheid we refused to obey unjust laws because rightly we wanted to make South Africa ungovernable. We have achieved our goal. We are free. South Africa is a democracy.

"We have an obligation to obey the laws made by our own legislators. We should be dignified, law-abiding citizens, proud of our beautiful land, proud of our freedom won at such great cost. We should not devalue it. We should not abuse our children, our womenfolk.

"Hey, we have a wonderful country. We have produced outstanding people. The best memorial to Steve Biko would be a South Africa where everyone respects themselves, has a positive self image filled with a proper self esteem and holds others in high regard."

[churchofthe latterdayLatte]

an insult to animals to compare their behaviour to human behaviour. they do merely what is necessary and no morel.

@ mods, may I post some pics of what is currently taking place in Kivvu province (DRC) as we speak...despite what South africa and the international community continue to hail as a free and fair election. what stability is this that they speak of? these are quite gruesome, which is why i need confirmation from mods?