Armed forces are known for their abbreviations and acronyms. Organisations tasked with defending their countries against foreign aggressors must be efficient and, when necessary, fast in all they do, beginning with communication.
South Africa’s armed forces, including the post-1994 South African National Defence Force (SANDF), are no different. Consider the long list of “South African Military Abbreviations and Acronyms” (accessible here) published in 2009, and probably outdated today.
One acronym SANDF leaders appear to be ignorant about or dismissive of is FORB, which stands for Freedom of Religion or Belief.
What is FORB?
FORB was institutionalised in a universal human rights framework for the first time in 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December that year. Article 18 of the UDHR reads,
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
As far as universal human rights frameworks are concerned, FORB was defined more substantively 18 years later, when the UNGA adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 18 of the ICCPR expands on the definition of FORB included in the UDHR.
Importantly, for the purposes of this article, the ICCPR definition of FORB adds, among other stipulations, that “No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his [or her] freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his [or her] choice.”
The right to FORB is also established in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Article 8) and Section 15 of the South African Bill of Rights, respectively.
Section 15 of the Bill of Rights reads, “Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion”, and that “Religious observances may be conducted at state…institutions, provided…they are conducted on an equitable basis; and…attendance at them is free and voluntary.”
FORB in the SANDF
On paper, taking the lead from South Africa’s Constitution (if not from any international legal frameworks), the SANDF officially recognizes and supports FORB. Whether SANDF leaders are aware of the SANDF’s official position or respect FORB is a different question altogether.
The “Religious Policy of the Department of Defence” [available here, on the Department of Defence (DoD) Chaplain Service website] cites the Defence White Paper, which reads,
“[T]he SANDF shall respect the right of its members to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion; it shall promote freedom of religion; and it shall cater for the different religious views of its members on an interdenominational basis. Religious observances shall be conducted on an equitable basis, and attendance at such observances shall be free and voluntary.”
Any critically minded and honest SANDF member will testify to the disconnect between policy and practice that characterises the organisation, including when it comes to religious affairs.
Equitable and voluntary religious observances?
My experience of religion in the SANDF, first as a Military Skills Development System (MSDS) recruit at the Oudsthoorn Infantry School in 2010, and later, as a lecturer at the South African Military Academy (SAMA), from 2011 to 2021, encouraged in my mind, the image of an organisation that doesn’t respect the rights of its members to FORB.
I recall how, during BMT (Basic Military Training) at the Oudtshoorn Infantry School, commanders threatened a fellow MSDS recruit with physical punishment if he failed to attend the only religious gathering on the base that recruits had access to – a Christian church service that the Unit Chaplain led on Sundays. My fellow recruit happened to identify as Muslim.
As far as I’m aware, civilian staff at the SAMA were never reprimanded or threatened with discipline for failing to attend religious observances during my tenure at the institution. I can’t speak for uniformed members (staff and students). However, it was customary for Unit meetings, which all staff were required to attend, to include religious observances. These were always led by a Chaplain who identified as Christian.
The CSANDF annual Easter Service
A post on the “SA National Defence Force” social media page, dated 14 April, includes an infographic designed by the SANDF Chaplain Division, announcing the Chief SANDF Easter Service, scheduled for yesterday, 16 April.
The CSANDF Easter Service is an annual event on the SANDF calendar that, according to a DoD-issued media invitation, is intended to “foster a sense of community and spiritual growth” in an organisation that “values its spiritual heritage and the importance of faith in the lives of SANDF members”. As an aside, it would be interesting to find out what the DoD means by the SANDF’s “spiritual heritage”.
The 2025 Easter Service programme, circulated via WhatsApp, includes musical items based on Christian Scripture and an “Easter Message” delivered, not by SANDF Cpl Gen, Brig.Gen (Fr) E.T. Masweu, but by CSANDF, General R. Maphwanya.
The three supposedly official communications noted immediately above, each bearing SANDF insignia, fail to cite an instruction that Acting C Army, Brig Gen O.M. Dube’s, gave for SANDF members to attend the Easter Service, contained in a separate message (accessible here), also circulated via WhatsApp, and rejected by the South African National Defence Union (Sandu) on constitutional grounds.
Understanding the Easter Service from a constitutional and human rights perspective
Sandu National Secretary Adv Pikkie Greeff is correct in his description of the message as unconstitutional. The message involves an attempt to force SANDF members to attend a state-hosted and financed religious event, constituting not only in Greeff’s words, a violation of their “constitutional rights”, but also their universally recognised human rights, specifically the right to FORB.
In a SANDF social media post that includes an SABC interview of SANDF Chaplain General Masweu during the Easter Service, the accompanying text reads, “SANDF [SA National Defence Force] says Easter church service gathering is voluntary.” However, Chaplain General Masweu made no such pronouncement during his interview.
According to Greeff, Brig Gen Dube’s written instruction circulated via WhatsApp “also violates the principle of secularity protected under the constitution”.
Because secularism is a contested term (it isn’t explicitly defined in South Africa’s Constitution), persons and organisations engaged in debates and legislative or policy formulation and execution concerning FORB would be wise to exercise caution.
Importantly, “‘secularism’…is not anti-religion; it just aims to regulate the inherently unclear or problematic [i.e. challenging] relationship between religion(s) and the state.”
Public theologian, Prof. Dion Forster, advocates for a “religiously neutral” kind of secularity, “in which the government of a nation doesn’t have any particular religious conviction.”
Concerning this kind of secularity, Prof. Forster says, “It [i.e. the government] doesn’t promote or lay a claim or stake on any particular religious conviction, so that the citizens of a nation [including its soldiers]…regardless of their religious background or conviction, or having no religious conviction at all, may have equal rights and equal protections before the state.”
It is this ‘religiously neutral’ kind of secularity that the South African Constitution secures and promotes. Prof. Forster contrasts ‘religious neutrality’ with two other types of state approaches to religion, one of which is the ‘religious state’.
A religious state exists when “a particular set of laws are [sic] enacted or the government…supports a particular set of religious convictions or…a particular religion.”
Constitutionally (not sociologically speaking), South Africa is a ‘religiously neutral’ rather than a ‘religious state’. SANDF leadership decisions regarding religious observances within the organisation therefore contradict the constitution and are more aligned with the characteristics of a ‘religious state’, if only because SANDF members were instructed to attend yesterday’s Easter Service and God knows how many other religious meetings before then, whether in celebration of Easter or otherwise.
The question about whether religious observances in the SANDF are equitable (i.e. “fair and reasonable in a way that gives equal treatment to everyone”) raises another possible contradiction between SANDF leadership decisions and the South African Constitution.
The question of equity becomes increasingly demanding the more religiously diverse the SANDF is. However, it isn’t clear how many SANDF members identify with religions other than Christianity. A quick internet search doesn’t reveal any definitive answers.
Some sources (including those available here and here) suggest there are Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the SANDF Chaplaincy Division, if not in the broader SANDF. If this is the case, are SANDF members who identify with religions other than Christianity afforded the same opportunity that Christian members are given to attend state-sponsored religious gatherings? What I mean by “state-sponsored” religious gatherings and whether these gatherings should exist in the first place is a topic for another day.
There is no immediately available evidence of non-Christian religious observances in the SANDF on the internet. Contrary to this, consider the growing list of internet sources (accessible here) that speak to Christian religious observances in the organisation.
If it is the case that there are no minority religious observances in the SANDF, while members of South Africa’s minority religions are employed in the organisation, SANDF leadership is likely not only biased towards South Africa’s majority religion in terms of forcing non-Christian members to attend Christian religious observances, but also in terms of prioritising Christian religious observances to the neglect of minority religious observances.
Craig Bailie holds a Master’s degree in International Studies from Rhodes University and a certificate in Thought Leadership for Africa’s Renewal from the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute. He is the founding director of Bailie Leadership Consultancy. He writes in his personal capacity.
