wfn.org | WCC NEWS - South Africa recognizes Programme to Combat Racism

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World Council of Churches 7 Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 16/06/2004 - pr-04-09

 Former director of WCC's Programme to Combat Racism receives highest South
 African order

 Baldwin Sjollema, first director of the World Council of Churches' (WCC)
 Programme to Combat Racism (PCR), received the Oliver Tambo Order from
 South African president Thabo Mbeki on 16 June 2004 in Pretoria.

 A sociologist from the Netherlands, Sjollema was decorated for his
 commitment to the South African liberation movement and to the struggle
 against apartheid in particular.

 The Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo is the highest South African
 honour bestowed on foreigners, and is named after the African National
 Congress (ANC) president from 1967-1991, Oliver R. Tambo, who played a
 central role in the struggle against racism and apartheid. Created in
 2002, the order is bestowed annually; this year's special ceremonies
 marked the tenth anniversary of South Africa's first democratic elections.

 Among the other persons honoured this year were UN general secretary Kofi
 Annan and the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari. Posthumous
 orders were bestowed on Martin Luther King Jr., Patrice Lumumba, Julius
 Nyerere, Eduardo Mondlane and Salvador Allende.

 The decision to thus honour Sjollema is a formal sign of South Africa's
 recognition of the WCC's efforts to support the liberation movement in
 South and southern Africa since the PCR was founded in 1969.

 PCR's main aim was and is to define, propose and carry out ecumenical
 policies and programmes that substantially contribute to the liberation of
 the victims of racism.  Although it attempted to deal with racism as a
 world-wide problem, much of its attention and energy during the apartheid
 era was focused on Southern Africa.

 One of PCR's most effective tools has been a WCC special fund to combat
 racism, from which annual grants are made to racially oppressed groups and
 organizations supporting the victims of racism. The fund is supplied by
 voluntary contributions from churches as well as from local ecumenical and
 support groups all over the world.

 In South Africa, the ANC received several hundred thousands of dollars
 from PCR in support of its educational, social and health programmes
 during the 1970s and '80s. In total, more than 12 million dollars have
 been distributed by PCR to anti-racism work around the world since the
 1970s.

 As significant as the grants were the WCC's ethical and financial
 decisions. For example, the WCC Central Committee decided at that time to
 sell the Council's existing holdings and to make no further investments in
 corporations that were investing in or trading with South Africa; the
 Council also supported a call for withdrawing money invested in banks and
 companies which were fuelling the military might of the apartheid regime.

 "Was it legitimate for the churches to be concerned about economic and
 political issues?" Sjollema asks in retrospect, "'Yes' was the answer we
 gave. Churches and Christians had to be mobilized to make their witness
 against apartheid and in support of the struggle for justice for all God's
 people."

 The theological basis for PCR's work is the conviction that, as Sjollema
 says, "any form of segregation based on race, colour or ethnic origin is
 contrary to the gospel and incompatible with the Christian doctrine of man
 and with the nature of the church of Jesus Christ."

 PCR's efforts were highly appreciated by Oliver Tambo: "I was at a
 missionary boarding school in South Africa and I was taught the gospel,"
 he told Sjollema once. "If there is one thing that I have understood, it
 is that the gospel is about the liberation of people and I feel very
 strongly that you in the PCR are contributing to doing just that."

 From its very beginning, PCR was one of the most controversial among WCC
 initiatives. While there was strong support from many member churches,
 there was also criticism, especially over its support of liberation
 struggles in Southern Africa.

 Although PCR became the place where policies and programmes were
 formulated, the implementation depended to a large extent on churches and
 Christians in close cooperation with the anti-apartheid movement at the
 local level.

 Thus, the South African Council of Churches (SACC), churches and
 Christians in Africa itself became the main actors in the fight for
 radical change while PCR continued to support those who were taking
 matters fully into their own hands.

 "Millions of people were engaged in the struggle against apartheid all
 over the world," Sjollema says. "Together, we made a small contribution to
 the overall struggle which was fought first and foremost by the people of
 South Africa themselves."

 With the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa, PCR and other
 anti-racism programmes began to pay more attention to the need for
 advocacy for the rights of Indigenous People and of racially and
 ethnically oppressed minorities, like the Dalits in India, around the
 world.

 Baldwin (Boudewijn) Sjollema was born in 1927 in Rotterdam. He graduated
 in sociology at Utrecht State University and joined the WCC in 1957. He
 worked first as director of the WCC Refugee Office in Vienna (Austria),
 then became Migration secretary at the WCC in Geneva before being named as
 the first director of the newly created Programme to Combat Racism (PCR).
 In 1982, he left the WCC and to direct the International Labour Office
 (ILO) Anti-Apartheid Programme. Sjollema is now retired and lives in
 Switzerland.

 More information on the WCC Programme to Combat Racism at:
 http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/racism-e.html 

 More information on the Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo at:
 http://www.info.gov.za/symbols/nationalorders/ortambo.htm 

For more information contact:
	 Media Relations Office: tel: (+41 22) 791 64 21 /  61 53
	 e-mail:media@wcc-coe.org - http://www.wcc-coe.org 

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in more
than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.