FROM the colonial era, the church has always been used as an instrument for driving home the fallacy that whites were a superior race to blacks.
This philosophy, which unfortunately, has been internalised by many blacks is the reason colonialists still have many indigenes in their corner fighting for their cause to this day.
That is why the ‘deafening silence’ of the world referred to by the Very Reverend John Da Costa when an Air Rhodesia Viscount was shot down killing, comparatively, a handful of whites in 1978, was equally matched by a similar ‘deafening silence’ of the same Anglican Dean when thousands of innocent black women and children were massacred in cold blood by Rhodesian forces at Nyadzonia in 1976.
Shocking, but that’s the cold fact.
The reaction by this man of the cloth reflects the racist attitude of the Church as a tool of colonialism.
This is the very attitude that has guided the British and American thinking towards Zimbabwe to this day.
For these imperial powers, a ‘legitimate democratic’ Government in Zimbabwe and anywhere else in Africa for that matter, is a puppet regime that serves their interests.
That is why Chatham House and US-based National Endowment for Democracy were there when Ibbo Mandaza hosted a SAPES conference that resolved to up the regime change ante.
And with the subsequent launch of the Citizen Manifesto, it was a given that the Church would be one of the groups to take a leadership role in the regime change drive.
Many religious leaders seem to have found it fashionable to use the pulpit to preach regime change as desired by sponsors from the UK and the US.
Passages from the Bible are invariably twisted to present the incumbent Government as devilish.
And this suits the British and American imperialists’ desire to see supposedly ‘respected’ black clergy expressing their nostalgic admiration of the ‘democracy’ they found flourishing in the West.
This explains why many priests, especially from the Anglican Church, are being invited to the US or the UK regularly for dubious short courses in leadership.
The ZANU PF Government is disliked by the West because of its policies that seek to redress wrongs that favoured whites at the expense of blacks.
The redistribution of land is an exercise which can even be supported by scriptures.
No Bible verses support a situation where a person is deprived of his/her inherent birthright because of his/her skin pigmentation.
Surely what is un-Christian about empowering a people through complete control of their own God-given natural resources?
Yet these are the main issues that have seen the country suffering because of illegal sanctions, which are indiscriminate in the way they affect the country.
Do our church leaders see any reason this can’t be criticised from the pulpit, when they are comfortable to praise the lavish lifestyle in the West?
Surely the rich West, which has benefitted immensely from our resources, should not be seen to be sadistic by looking for quislings, be they from the Church or civil society, to deny us of our sovereign right to determine our own affairs.
Zimbabwe is a democratic country where elections have been regularly held at appropriate times.
Thus divergence of views, under normal circumstances, is acceptable.
Our polemic against the Church and other like-minded organisations is their advocacy for violence and organised mischief as a means of removing a legitimate Government.
But what is glaringly absent from their narratives is their alternative.
It looks like they want the Government to fall, thereby creating a power vacuum.
This is exactly what the West likes, for under such circumstances, they can either intervene directly or somehow put in place a Government that dances to their tune.
That’s when even those who were used to bring about the change would then realise how much they were duped.
By then it would be too late.