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The President’s address, while ethically charged, lacked a critical confrontation with the structural economic system of global capitalism and its local manifestation in market-oriented policy…
By ANWAR OMAR
At the 7th Social Justice Summit in Cape Town on Friday October 17, 2025, food security and nutrition took centre stage, with the South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, highlighting that these are universal rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the country’s Bill of Rights. He told the gathering, which brought together policymakers, legislators, civil society, traditional leaders, academics and the judiciary from across the globe that:
‘It is important for us to embrace the principle of food being a human right and a human right that should never be diluted and irrevocable. Food is about life, and life is important, and our human rights should continue to protect the lives of everyone.’
In essence, President Ramaphosa highlighted the importance of food security both locally as well as globally.
President Ramaphosa’s reaffirmation of food as a fundamental human right is both morally compelling and politically necessary, particularly in a nation grappling with endemic hunger amid abundance. His reference to human rights frameworks, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and South Africa’s Bill of Rights, rightly situates food security within the moral and constitutional imperatives of justice and dignity. Yet, such declarations, though rhetorically powerful, often remain embedded within the same neoliberal economic paradigms that perpetuate the very inequalities they seek to redress. The President’s address, while ethically charged, lacked a critical confrontation with the structural economic system of global capitalism, and its local manifestation in market-oriented policy, that underpins South Africa’s chronic food insecurity and widening inequality.
Both the SDGs and the SANDP commodify food and treat hunger as a logistical or productivity problem rather than a manifestation of systemic injustice.
The persistent failure of both the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the South African National Development Plan (SANDP) Vision 2030, which the President himself admitted are ‘way off target’, is not simply an administrative or technical glitch. It stems from the neoliberal underpinnings of these policies, which privilege market efficiency, GDP growth, and public-private partnerships over redistributive justice and moral accountability. Both the SDGs and the SANDP commodify food and treat hunger as a logistical or productivity problem rather than a manifestation of systemic injustice. The reliance on market-driven ‘solutions’ ignores the deeper ethical and spiritual crisis in global development thinking, where human flourishing is reduced to economic participation, and moral values are subordinated to financial logic.
President Ramaphosa’s call for fairness and accountability in food pricing, while commendable, remains framed within the same market rationality that privileges profit margins over moral responsibility.
Neoliberal capitalism presents itself as inevitable and neutral, yet it systematically erodes the moral foundations of our society. True economic justice requires re-embedding economy within ethical, spiritual, and prophetic principles that resist commodification of human needs. Food, in the Islamic worldview is Divinely provided, and a trust (amānah), not a commodity to be priced against profit margins. From this perspective, food insecurity is not merely a market failure but a moral and ontological failure, a symptom of injustice against the self and society (ẓulm al-nafs).
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A Qur’anic maqāsidi approach provides a transformative alternative to the President’s largely human-rights-based, secular moralism. It situates food security within a holistic framework that integrates the material, moral, and spiritual dimensions of sustainability. Rather than viewing food as an economic entitlement, the maqāsid framework recognises it as a moral obligation and a sign (āyah) of Divine sustenance. Hunger thus becomes a theological and ethical crisis that demands rectification (iṣlāḥ) through policies rooted in justice (ʿadl), balance (mīzān), and collective welfare (maṣlaḥa).
In practical terms, a maqāsidi alternative would:
1. Reframe food policy around amānah (trusteeship) and ʿadl (justice), ensuring equitable access through redistributive mechanisms rather than charity or trickle-down growth.
2. Embed moral economy principles within agricultural and trade systems, promoting ethical production and consumption rather than corporate consolidation.
3. Prioritise tazkiyyah (moral purification) and iḥsān (excellence) in governance, demanding ethical accountability from both state and private actors.
4. Restore ʿimārah (stewardship of the earth) by aligning food systems with environmental sustainability and Qur’anic injunctions against isrāf (waste) and fasād (corruption).
5. Integrate indigenous and local knowledge systems within a spiritually informed ethics of resilience and qanaʿah (sufficiency or contentment).
In essence, where the President Ramaphosa’s speech reflects a human rights ethos grounded in secular humanitarianism, the Qur’anic maqāsidi paradigm advances a civilisational ethics grounded in Divine accountability. It calls for a shift from managing poverty within a neoliberal framework to transforming the structures that generate it. Only through such an epistemological, ontological and axiological realignment can food security evolve from policy rhetoric to social justice, a fulfilment of the Truth (al-Haqq), that binds humanity to its Creator, creation, and one another.
Anwar Omar is currently completing his Masters dissertation in Applied Islamic Thought through IPSA entitled, ‘A Qur’anic Maqasidi Perspective on Food Security as a Sustainable Development Goal in the South African Context’.
