Before the sham election that put Robert Mugabe into power for another five years (for one, the election took place on March 29, but the result was announced a month later, only for Mugabe to use state violence to bully the opposition into withdrawing and for him to win an unopposed election), he told a group of businessmen in Bulawayo: “Only God, who appointed me, will remove me.” In an op-ed in Canada’s Globe and Mail — that country’s New York Times but with better politics and better Africa coverage — writer Daniel Morgan explains how Mugabe’s taps into his countrymen’s spiritualism. We also learn that Ian Smith and his racist regime had their favorite spirit medium. Excerpt:
On June 14, Mr. Mugabe told a crowd of supporters: “We are prepared to fight for our country if we lose it the way it was lost to Mbuya Nehanda.” Editorials in the state-run Herald newspaper regularly claim Nehanda’s endorsement of government policies. For many people accustomed to consulting a spiritual medium for everything from weather forecasts to medical ailments, the divine sanction resonates.
See here. [HT: Africa Works.]
Filed under: politics , Globe and Mail, religion, Robert Mugabe, spirit mediums, Zimbabwe
Since the first Chimurenga which was promoted by the spirit mediums of Mwari, religion has played a major role in Zimbabwe. The Shona mediums convinced the Ndebele that if they rose up Mwari would protect them and make the bullets turn to water and if they didn’t rise up there would be more famine, disease, etc..
The more things change the less things really change.