After a long presentation by Church leaders — one by one and each representing a denomination — the message was stark and clear: our avowed ideology of Marxist-Leninism was unacceptable to the Church! When our turn came, the then Prime Minister, Cde R G Mugabe, rose to respond. He gave a long lesson in history, covering colonialism and the racial inequities it created, and the Liberation Struggle which that colonial rule triggered. Later, he closed in on the issue of our choice of the ideology of Marxist-Leninism, expatiating what he understood it to mean. He also justified the Patriotic Front’s choice of it as an appropriate ideological framework for a post-Independent Zimbabwe as it sought to heal the wounds of a long colonialism, and in its quest to develop the country on egalitarian principles. He also drew parallels and similarities between our ideology and the values espoused by Africans under African communalism.
At the end of this long lecture to the clerics, he said: “We all came through Churches, to the number; we were raised by different denominations of the Christian Church, all of us in positions of leadership. I myself was raised by the Jesuits. We are practising Christian, practised Christianity even as we waged the Armed Liberation Struggle. Ours was a just war, itself a notion developed by the Church.”
What followed next was dramatic. Cde Mugabe dipped his hands into his pocket and fished out a worn-out rosary. He said: “This rosary has been with me throughout the war. It guided my faith and prayers daily; it still does to this day; will do so, right to my last days in this life!”
You can imagine the utter consternation from his audience at the sight of a worn-out rosary. The audience included the late Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa! Looking at the stunned clerics, the then Prime Minister declared: “If, as you say, Marxist-Leninism is godless, I say here and now: Give it a God!” That intervention changed relations between the State and the Church, laying a firm foundation to a partnership which endures to this day.
Our struggle was led by a leadership raised by the Church. That Struggle was a just one. The State to emerge from it — the First Republic — was a God-fearing one. Its successor, the Second Republic, is God-fearing, and is built on values espoused by the Church. Our interaction with various denominations of the Zimbabwean Church is routine, and is predicated on a firm belief in a complementary partnership of State and Church. I cannot count the number of times I have held meetings with Church leaders; or even the many Church meetings I have attended and addressed, across denominations.
Last week was a turning point in this enduring relationship. As I addressed congregants at the historic Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield, I told my God-fearing audience that our twin mantras of “Nyika inotongwa nevene vayo” and “Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo” were incomplete, and fell short of the Holy Trinity at the heart of the Church, namely that of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. To complete that Trinity, we needed something spiritual added. I then declared that “Nyika inonamatirwa nevene vayo!’’
This new mantra we have added to our other two mantras, to form a credo of the Second Republic, comes from the heart. It is deeply held. All our politics, our policies and our programmes remain incomplete and unfulfilling until and unless we give them God.
My meeting with Church leaders of our country and, as happened late last week, from our Region are meant to ensure that our politics are rooted in God. This is vital as our nation goes for polls. I continue to call on our Church leaders to pray for peaceful elections: before, during and after those elections. We should never tire of sermonising for peace in our land; indeed, praying for peace for our land; pray in our national languages and through our idioms, in our hearts and minds. God will hear us.
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