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| Self-appointed priestess Gertrude Rwakatale being sworn-in as a member of parliament
Currently, President John Pombe Magufuli is
going through the baptism by fire. This is after clergy decided to take on him
after the government asked them to stop politicking and doing politics on their
rostra. Many people, especially
opponents came forth condemning the government and defend the clergy. Interestingly,
for many years, Tanzania has been maintaining the policy and politics of the
immiscibility of politics and religion. While this has been ongoing for over 40
years, those hollering today kept mum! However, there recently have been some
grumblings about drawing the line between politics and religion in Tanzania.
Some say that there is no way one can discern politics from religion or divorce
politics from religion which is right. Others think that politics and religion
must always be separated which is also good.
Thanks to the external and internal colonisation of Africa, to me,
politics and religion are the partners in many things. Refer to how African
rulers are sworn-in using foreign and hegemonic religions. Don’t they use the
Bible and Quran to make their people believe that they are bound to what they
avow? What do they do after getting in power? Don’t they tinker with and
trample on the constitutions as we recently evidenced in many countries wherein dictators are cling unto power? Why don’t they swear using African faiths while
the governments they are elected to run are African and for Africans? Isn’t
this the colonisation of the mind?
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Some clergy and opposition leaders have been hollering that the government, mainly president Magufuli, do not do them justice. Today’s piece aims at clinically looking at what’d be judiciously done. I must warn from the outset. I am not intending to be a devil’s advocate for any part of this dialogue. Nor am I intending to thrill or vex anybody. In my column, a couple of weeks ago, I touched on this issue briefly promising to revisit it as I hereby do.
Let me start with the clergy who asked President
Magufuli to repent so that God can forgive him.
Is Magufuli really a sinner; and what type of sin[s] is he supposed to
repent for? Is it wrong to reprimand such mischievous clergy who fail to use
the wisdom; and instead use judgmental languages? Does not listening to the
clergy even the people amount to a sin or a political mistake? Do we need to
repent for political mistakes or for sins? Is repenting the extemporaneous or
internal response of an individual based on his or her decision or desire to do
so? If Magufuli told a lie, I’d say he needs to repent. Isn’t he making good on
his promises of stamping Tanzania out of endemic corruption? Had Magufuli
peculated anything, I’d say he’d to repent. Had he killed, taken somebody’s
wife or committed any or all of the related issues, I’d openly and seriously
asked him to repent.
The other day, I heard one self-appointed
faker condemning Magufuli’s saying that vyuma vimekaza or money is dearth as
satanic. How? If you look at this faker and Magufuli, you wonder; who’s truly performing
satanic duties. Though clergy have the
right to say whatever they want without breaking the law, why have they always
kept mum while some of theirs cheat unsuspecting people that they can prophesy
like those we hear every day saying they saw this and that or saying chimeric
things including performing miracles while their intension is to make quick
moola?
Interestingly, who’s supposed to repent first
between those who, for example, appointed themselves clergy and the president
who was elected by the majority of voters? Whom will Magufuli listen to between
his constituency and the clergy? Have clergy forgotten that Magufuli is a
politician who is supposed to listen to his voters more than anybody? Why were
the clergy quite at the times the past regimes blessed mega scams that Magufuli
is now taking on? Why didn’t the same
holler on the top of their lungs when some of theirs were implicated in the
scandals of being the beneficiaries of some mega scandals such as Escrow? Where
were they?
Others wanted Magufuli to listen to his
people. This is a good thing to do. Again, do such clergy listen to their flocks
mainly those whom they dupe that they perform miracles while it is a big lie?
Who is supposed to repent first here? Matthew 7:1 notes that “judge not, that
you not be judged.” What’s the essence of such judgementalism and holier than thouism? It is obvious;
because some people think they are better than others; and whatever they say is
right. This applies on both clergy and politicians. Some politicians think they
know more than those they rule while some clergy think they have an upper hand
in everything. Isn’t this playing God? Tanzania doesn’t need holier than thou
but instead, it needs truth.
Source: Citizen, March 7, 2018.
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