We need to cast off the siege mentality

f our various racist, tribalist and gender “forts”? How can we get out of our siege mentalities? This is our biggest challenge.
We have too much been schooled in the politics of suspicion, of hatred and destruction. We have cultivated and perfected strategies of working in secrecy – guerrilla warfare type. We must begin to practice a new culture of trust, of building, of love and universal solidarity. We need to develop new skills of appreciating what others have started even if it is not perfect. If we want transparency, we must begin to practice it ourselves. And we must create those spaces that will help us to develop the virtues and capabilities for the new culture.
I believe a society guided by Cornel West’s principles of prophetic thought and the social teachings of the church is the way forward. I recognize the dangers of both engagement and non-engagement. I now should call it “prophetic engagement” thanks to Jonah Gokova and Bishop Levi Kadenge. There really is no reason why those who engage should fight those who have decided to disengage and the other way round. Logical contradictions are not the same things as are political strategies.
Christians need to learn to appreciate each other more as they contribute in the search for a solution to our moral and spiritual crisis. The struggle must be the site for building the new virtues for the new society. The time for simplistic binary oppositions are over!