Wakanda News Details

Why cry foul when churches speak out against injustices

Good Day Mr President:Cyprian M Ndawana His Excellency, the indignity you showed to Roman Catholic bishops when you challenged them to form a political party was lowbrow. It considerably fell short of the threshold of propriety that is ordinarily the norm for the First citizen. Methinks the utterance was an affront. Consequently, solicitude prompted me to engage you. It was a departure from the diplomacy of stately discourse. It was devoid of decorum and self-respect. All in all, it was a subtle way of flaunting superiority. It was devoid of diplomacy. However, you implicitly exposed the paucity of government leadership from whence the perpetual national crisis stems. Pointedly, the root of the national crisis is traceable to the antiquated patriarchal attitude of absolute supremacy the ruling party subscribes to. It does not brook diversity. It is suicidal to dare it. Even intra-party dissent is punished with severity. Now and then, cadres are expelled from the party on accusations of undermining the authority of the President, who is viewed as the single centre of power. A glance at the calibre of those who constitute the Political Actors Dialogue (Polad) reveals your preferred fibre and texture of opposition. Plainly, they resemble the subservience of the 18th century woman who was treated at law as the property of her father or husband. There is a firm belief that the opposition must be of mild and laidback disposition. It must cringe at the least encounter. Its temper must be ready to take impressions and be pliant rather than robust. Actually, eminence is injurious for the opposition as it angers the elite. It is out of this expectation that an opposition that does not conform to this mould faces the full wrath of the ruling party and government. As I see it, in coming up with the concept of Polad, the strategy was to have a pool of hangers on who would masquerade as bona fide opposition. Although government claims that religion and politics are not compatible, in practice, it chooses churches to embrace just as it does with the opposition. Essentially, the so-called indigenous churches’ representative body was constituted on the same basis as that of Polad. Oftentimes, government and Zanu PF blend politics with the church as and when it suits them. They engage in their political campaigns in various churches, even donning religious robes. Yet, they cry foul when the spirit leads some churches to speak out against injustices. There is no moral substance in believing that politics and the church are incompatible. It is, indeed, double standards to unleash the said indigenous churches on the Roman Catholic bishops because their perspective is not complementary to government. The sixth sense tells me that God was a distant onlooker as the indigenous churches’ clerics launched a frenzied onslaught on Roman Catholic bishops. He was as incensed with them just as He was with Adam and Eve when He encountered them naked in the garden. God was dismayed with the clerics for performing televised political rites at the inst

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