Post-Christian Quaking II

Ecumenical News Service has a story about a South African politician who is really, really confused:

To be a member of the pacifist Society of Friends (Quakers) and a member of the South African Communist Party may seem contradictory to some of her compatriots. But Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, until recently South Africa’s deputy health minister, sees no anomaly.

Another anomaly might, for some, seem to be the fact that committed pacifist Madlala-Routledge’s has previously served as deputy defence minister. She admits the contradictions, but said in a recent interview with a Cape Town newspaper that she would “separate from any organisation where the predominant culture is opposed to my beliefs and values”.

So the “predominant culture” in the South African military is pacifist? I guess this must be their new recruiting poster:

Join the South African Army

Learn Horticulture!

She said she accepted the defence ministry position because she believed that the South African Defence Force in the post-apartheid era was oriented towards peace. Madlala-Routledge said that, in order to prepare for peace, one should not, as the traditional wisdom has it, prepare for war.

“I argued that, to achieve peace, it is necessary to prepare for peace,” she said.

What does that mean, exactly? Especially in the context of a Defense Ministry office?

As far as her membership of the communist party was concerned, Madlala-Routledge said that 19th century political philosopher, economic thinker and revolutionary, Karl Marx, whose writings underpin the communist movement, was not opposed to religion.

Rather than quoting Marx’s much quoted phrase, “Religion is the opium of the people”, which some of his supporters say is taken out of context, she cited Marx saying that “religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions”. But said Madlala-Routledge, what attracted her to the party, was “an alliance with the poor and the working class”.

She can claim that Marx is “not opposed to religion” if that makes her feel better. I doubt that many of the practitioners of his anti-humanist philosophy would agree. As for being both a Quaker and a Communist…well, there are Quaker atheists and Quaker Pagans, so why not Quaker Communists?