Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi, head of the Zion Christian Church in Zimbabwe, is no admirer of United States President Donald Trump. But recently he told Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa to think like Trump. The reason. He was impressed by Trump’s definition of nationalism and felt Mnangagwa should adopt that for Zimbabwe.
Trump was asked to define nationalism by Laura Ingraham of Fox News on 29 October. He said: “It means I love the country, it means I’m fighting for the country. I look at two things, globalists and nationalists. I’m somebody that wants to take care of our country, because for many, many years, you know this better than anybody – our leaders have been more worried about the world than they have about the United States and they leave us in a mess – whether it’s the wars, whether it’s the economy, whether it’s debt, whether it’s all of the things that they’ve done, including putting in the wrong Supreme Court Justices and we’re – we’ve really put two great ones in – no, I’m proud of this country and I call that ‘nationalism’; I call it being a nationalist and I don’t see any other connotation than that. Now, as soon as you make any statement nowadays with the political correctness world, they make a big deal. I’m not a globalist, but I want to take care of the globe, but first I have to take care of our country. I want to help people around the world, but we have to take care of our country, or we won’t have a country…”
Bishop Mutendi, who shares the same birthdate with Mnangagwa, 15 September, though he is three years older, said Mnangagwa should adopt Trump’s definition of nationalism because too many Zimbabweans were disparaging their own country.
But more importantly, the Zimbabwean church leader said as a nationalist with his country at heart, Mnangagwa should talk to the opposition for the country to move forward because if he did not do so, others who had ulterior motives might do so.
“Torai zvana mutaure nazvo, mugare pasi muhwerekete nazvo. Zvikatogwa navatogwa hamuzozvogoni. Imi rambai muchingotaura nazvo chero zvichiita sepwere ndizvo zvinoita vanhu vakuru, Nyoka huru haizvirumi. Torai muhwereke muwirirane,” he told Mnangagwa at a church conference at its headquarters at Mbungo about 50km east of southern town of Masvingo.
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