Amcu boss ‘will spank’ because the Bible tells him so

Basing his argument on the Bible, Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) president Joseph Mathunjwa this week punched holes in the Constitutional Court ruling outlawing corporal punishment of children at home, saying he would defy the law because he grew up being spanked by his parents.

Upholding a 2017 high court ruling, which made it illegal for parents to spank their children at home, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng this week dismissed an appeal by civil society group Freedom of Religion South Africa, which believed the judgment would make criminals of well-meaning parents.

Describing the ANC-led government as “anti-God”, Mathunjwa said: “Mina eyam ingane, ngiya yishaya (I spank my own child).”

“The Bible says you must spank your child and I spank my child because that is how I was brought up.

“My household is not guided and controlled by the Constitutional Court, but is a Mathunjwa family.

“God is above the law made by man.

“This country is going down because the government wants to please everyone. Everything that God reprimands, they disrespect by wanting us to worship man-made laws and not God.”

Mathunjwa, a deeply religious union leader, also quoted from John, chapter 10 before delivering his keynote address at the gathering, officially opened by Methodist Bishop Paul Verryn with a prayer.

“The verse says ‘the intention of the thief is to steal, kill and destroy’,” he told delegates.

Turning to the xenophobic violence that recently gripped Gauteng, Mathunjwa questioned why those who were attacked “were black Africans and not people of colour”.

“South Africa is not a xenophobic nation.

“If you go to any mining hostel you find South Africans, Mozambicans, Lesotho and Swazi nationals working in harmony and sleeping next to one another.

“Why is it that people of colour are never attacked and only black Africans are victims of such violence?

“The simple reason for this is that the government wants to deflect our attention away from focusing on their failures, because they have failed us.

“If this was true xenophobia, the United Nations would have long been in South Africa.

“If this violence happened on a mine shaft, police would have opened with live ammunition, as they did in the Marikana massacre.

“Nobody is bothered by the violence because it is not affecting their interests, or their share price at the New York or London Stock Exchange,” he said.

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