Christian Responses to the Crisis in Zimbabwe

n descent still do not see themselves as part of the one Zimbabwean people. The indigenous black people see themselves as black versus white, as Shona versus Ndebele (and vice versa), and as Zimbabweans versus aliens. But the time for “splendid isolation” is over, said Dr Kaulemu emphatically.
The leaders refuse to accept that there is a crisis. They blame “problems” on foreign powers, thus “exonerating us from the responsibility to resolve the crisis ourselves”.
They offer mere technical remedies for the social, political and economic crisis. They do not see that it is a profound moral and spiritual crisis. There is no respect for the human person as such, never mind his/her ethnic background or socio-economic position. Therefore there is no sense of solidarity which embraces all fellow humans. And there is no common determination to work for the common good.
As a result the young feel alienated from the political system and leave the country. “How can you have a nation state if everybody is trying to escape from it?” People feel alienated and harassed since laws and regulations recently enacted are trying to trap everybody, assuming that we are all criminals until we can prove our innocence. We are being humiliated just as we were under colonialism, a humiliation which went very deep and is still there.
So there is “no comprehensive solidarity beyond one’s own group”. “How many white people really believe that blacks are their equals? How many blacks accept whites as real Zimbabweans? How many Zimbabweans accept the Kaulemus, Phiris and Bandas (i.e. persons of foreign origin) as genuine fellow citizens? How many men accept that women and men are equally created in the image of God?”
In the past racial segregation did not allow us to see our common humanity, so we never learnt to accept each other in a comprehensive solidarity and universal, all-embracing love. But there is only one race – the human race. Has not the Church failed to teach this properly?
Independence 1980 did not break down all old “lagers” and “forts”. People do not easily give up their old enemies. Even if they fade away, people reinvent them, like the elephant who was shackled to a huge tree; when the tree fell and he was tied to a small bush, he did not move: he could not imagine a life without his old enemy, the tree.
“As township youngsters we used to smash up what was there for us.
This traditional culture of violence is still with us. Violence is everywhere. Not just the leaders promote it. Are we not in complicity with what and whom we hate? Condoning the violence on our side which we hate on the opposite side? Is the opposition really offering a new spirituality, genuine respect for people created in the image of God? Are we not professionals first and Christians only second, professionals who use Christianity for their convenience, not real Christians at all?”
What can be done? The majority avoid any real engagement with the crisis. They do not worry about the morality or immorality of it. They merely want to survive, get what they can, live and let live. Others opt for a aggressive, hostile engagement with the “enemy”, overwhelmed by “moral rage”, shunning government altogether , while running the risk of becoming as angry and vicious as the “enemy”.
The speaker opted for “constructive engagement” even with the government. The Church can never be partisan in a party-political sense. But she must be partisan in the sense that she must stand by her moral principles and defend human and social values, even if that lands her in opposition to the rulers. The Church should develop her institutional capacity for research into national issue, beyond mere theology.
Voices from the large audience expressed reservations about “constructive engagement” since expressions like “constructive criticism” are used to justify repression. The speaker, as a Christian, insisted that we must have hope and not succumb to mere anger. We must also have faith in prayer. But, said someone else, can we expect anything from this government whose “murambatsvina” campaign was, and still is, a war against its own people? In the meantime we must think and plan for the future. – Oskar Wermter SJ