There are many reasons for South Africans to feel great despair, but the lives and legacies of the people bestowed with National Orders give citizens hope and inspiration.

This is the view of University of the Western Cape (UWC) scholar, Professor Sarojini Nadar, who counts it "an immense privilege" to serve on President Cyril Ramaphosa's National Orders Advisory Council.

The Council processes nominations of deserving South Africans and foreign nationals and advises the President to assist him in the execution of the awarding of the Orders. Prof Nadar, a Desmond Tutu (SARChI) Research Chair in Religion and Social Justice, was approached by the office of the Presidency to serve on the Council for five years from March 2022. 

"Our country has a deeply troubled past that plays out in the present in quite concerning ways. There are many reasons we have to feel great despair as a nation," Prof Nadar said.

"I think that the lives and legacies of those whom we honour provide citizens with hope and inspiration to strive towards making South Africa better for all. Serving in this role makes me proud to be South African, to represent our university in this way, and to contribute to social cohesion and nation-building." 

As advisors, the job of Prof Nadar and her 10 colleagues is to bring their individual and collective experience, expertise and wisdom to bear on the nominations and to advise the President on the best possible candidates for the awards. 

"The President, as the Grand Patron of the awards, has ultimate decision-making power, so our job is only to screen the nominations and make recommendations," she said. 

Among the 29 top scholars around the country inaugurated as Members of the Academy of Science of South Africa last year, Prof Nadar has a wealth of experience and expertise to make an enormous contribution to the Council.

She is a transdisciplinary researcher interested broadly in how religious beliefs impede or support imperatives for social justice. Her own research focus has been more specifically in the field of gender-based violence: sexual, physical and epistemic. She is on five international journal editorial boards, including the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and she is also the editor-in-chief of the African Journal of Gender and Religion. 

But she was as humble as ever about what makes her suitable for the role. 

"I am sure there are several more suitably qualified people than I am to advise the President! What I can say is that I have drawn on my many years of working at the intersections of critical race and gender theory to voice some reasoned dissent about certain candidates and, of course, also to support others.”

She would like to see more diversity in the awarding of the National Orders.
 
"I would like to see more women and people of diverse sexual and gender orientations get recognised for the contributions they have made to this country, and would encourage communities to put forward nominations, when the calls go out."