Renewing the Struggles for Social Justice:
A Primer for Transformative Leaders

Civil Society Forum’s Monograph (II)

“However conflicting claims are resolved in a society, nearly all of us instinctively understand that the common good does exist. Indeed, social justice is unattainable without a durable agreement about that – for, out of that understanding of mutual commitment and solidarity, each citizen gains her or his claim to justice. Yet the strength of such claims has eroded in recent decades in the United States and, despite the victory against apartheid, has had difficulty gaining ascendancy in South Africa. In both nations we come to discover that the reigning definitions of our political economics are undermining – or at least severely curtailing – our collective abilities to build the common good.”

Cast as an extended letter to each reader, Renewing Struggles pursues a single question. How can you and I, as citizens, help bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice – towards a fuller realization of our innate and shared sense of ‘fairness?’ And it assumes that each reader is a leader, has that spark of leadership within – and needs to exercise it on behalf of the greater common good.

‘If you wonder about such issues as the decline in our common obligations to one another…the persistence of racial and economic inequality that diminishes the life prospects for millions of fellow citizens and untold numbers in future generations… the failure to respond adequately to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in places like South Africa and the growing new epidemic of that disease in the United States, especially, its southern rural areas…the relentless poverty that defines many inner-city and rural communities throughout America and townships, both urban and rural, in South Africa, indeed, much of Africa and Asia – then this book is essential reading.”

Renewing Struggles asks you to consider what your moral obligations are as a leader – in your social circle, your vocation, your organization, your family – in response to these urgent matters. To do this, it suggests, you need to consider the consequences of what we do not just for ourselves but for our great grandchildren…to come to a deeper understanding and acknowledgement of social injustice…to worry constructively about reforming patently unjust systems…to agitate for and help shape changes that promise better outcomes for succeeding generations (if not our own), thus, to move from amazement and outrage to action. How might you use what influence and power you have as a leader to address pressing social issues…to serve others by helping to empower them?

 The book’s logic of development

The book not only challenges the reader to act, it is truly a primer on the sources of our present civic malaise – especially in South Africa and the United States. It points to sources of hope and suggests what the citizen leader can do to make a difference.

Renewing Struggles locates the problem of injustice in our societies’ increasingly narrow definition of the common good and increasingly expansive definition of selfishness, personal and corporate. It explores who is included, primarily whites, and who is excluded, primarily people of color, both historically and contemporaneously, by resulting economic and political rules. It reviews the salient facts and what it must feel like to be among those excluded. It tells how HIV/AIDS is one of the most indicative consequences of our societies’ unjust rules.

Renewing Struggles suggests how and where we might effectively renegotiate our societies’ distributive rules so that the common good becomes more expansive and inclusive. It explains why we must adopt the practices of servant leadership if we are to re-work those rules.

Its last three chapters chart how bending the moral arc of history towards justice is both restorative (reaffirming our common humanity) and transformative (rebuilding our communities). It describes how supporting the self-help efforts of low-income citizens is the critical path to achieving social justice. And it defines five ways in which you can apply your unique leadership skills this work.

In all, Renewing Struggles challenges the reader to judge its premises and, if she or he agrees, to ask ‘How can I not act?’ and ‘In what way or ways can I add my voice and gifts to struggles for social justice?’

The book’s genesis

Renewing Struggles is the product of the Binational Civil Society Forum, a conversation over five years among 68 leaders in the not-for-profit sectors in South Africa and the United States. In essence they were the brain-child of James A. Joseph, United States Ambassador to South Africa (1996-2000). A long-time champion of civil society and its organizations, Ambassador Joseph had tried unsuccessfully to convince his own and the South African governments to include a civil society section in the late 1990s’ Gore–Mbeki Binational Commission to foster collaborative linkages between the private (for-profit) and governmental sectors in both nations.

Ambassador Joseph was undeterred. At the end of his appointment as Ambassador, he became a Professor of Public Practice at Duke University’s Sanford Institute and created there the United States-Southern African Center for Leadership and Public Values (2001) and the Southern African-United States Centre for Leadership and Public Values in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town (2002). He determined that one of their joint missions would be to fill the gap left by the Commission…hence the Forum.

The Forum’s members built a camaraderie that spurred creativity and clarified thinking about serious types of social injustice endangering the health of civil society in our two nations. By the third Forum, they agreed that their deliberations must result in a product – this book.

Ambassador James A. Joseph
Renewing the Struggles for Social Justice: A Primer for Transformative Leaders