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It is said in the Holy Book that in the beginning was the Word, that the word was with God, and the Word was a god.
This verse/s from the book of John hold a meaning so deep that its depth may be thought of as complex, but the truth is that the meaning thereof the is very simple: watch your words for from them stem the truths about the power of what you can reach and achieve in life if you learn to say the right words; what you can lose if you say the wrong words over your life and the lives of others.
We often have our own interpretations of who God is, and the meanings we attach to God are many and varied.
For some He lives in a heaven somewhere in the netherworld beyond the sky, and is possessive of an “all seeing” eye and a book of minute by minute records on the lives of every individual existent in the world.
I agree with the view, but from what I have come to realise, God is everywhere, at all times, and He is listening to whatever words we say to each other.
What constructive words we say lead on to harmonious living, and those caustic words we utter without thinking at the end of the day come to sow seeds of discord in our lives and the lives of others, leading to the world being an unpleasant place to live in.
The tendency is to forget the power of our words, to forget that the power of life and death is found on the tips of our tongues.
I am thinking of the words of the most memorable patrons of peace in the world, from Jesus Christ to King Moshoeshoe, from Mahatma Ghandi to Martin Luther King Jnr, Nelson Mandela to Steve Biko.
Their words served as the salve that assuaged the pain of the world, they served as patches that mended the fabric of a humanity torn apart by strife and war.
And I think of those poets of Africa whose words unite us in song and dance, melding us into one peaceful and united circle of existence as taught in the Batwa communities of the mighty Congo.
I am thinking of the poets of Africa whose words unite us, whose words gathered us in the pre-independence days, whose words still go on to unite us.
A brief biography of Herbert Wiltshire Pfumaindini Chitepo states that he was born on June 15th 1923 and led the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) until he was assassinated on March 18, 1975.
Although his murderer remains unidentified, the Rhodesian author Peter Stiff says that a former British SAS soldier, Hugh Hind, was responsible.
Chitepo became the first black citizen of Rhodesia to become a barrister. He was born in Watsomba village in the Nyanga District of Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
His family came from the Manyika clan of the Shona people.
He was educated at St David’s Mission School, Bonda, St Augustine’s School, Penhalonga and then at Adams College, Natal, South Africa, where he qualified as a teacher in 1945.
The stories of his life on the web are very brief and whatever information it is one gets on this rightfully honourable figure of African politics and the best poet I have come across is very vague.
I personally declare him the best African poet because I had the opportunity to read his Soko Risina Musoro (A Tale Without A Head), and upon comparison with the many poets whose words and verses, I have found none more masterful, none more subtle but explicit in the expression of the words of an individual’s life; the poem is a clear portrait of who we are as Africans and human beings, and one cannot help but follow the tale without a head to its end and then reread it.
The voice of Herbert Chitepo has wrongly been silenced; it is the voice of the pioneer who taught Africa how to think.
It is honestly hard to find his works, but I encourage the children of Africa to go out in search of Ntate Chitepo’s words if we are to make any meaningful progress from here onwards.
The words of our scribes, of our politicians, our philosophers and analysts should strive towards maintaining the continuum of human unity; party or ecumenical divisions will not serve us well: they will not do us right if they are focused on division on the basis of belief and creed.
It is an honour when one sees a popular figure commit to improving the lives of those segregated or marginalised by their colour or state of being over which they have no control.
The physically disabled, the expatriates, the émigrés, those with albinism, and those with rare or common medical challenges should not be limited to only the squalid quarters of human existence.
These people should be included by and through all means into the core decision-making processes in any part of the world, because they like everyone else form the human race, and their contribution to the progress of humanity is sufficient enough to keep the wheels of time turning.
We therefore would be wrong to consider them as useless and therefore not worthy of mention.
That émigré walking around selling brooms and other useful house wares is not a man or woman that cowardly ran away from the war on the home front.
Times are really hard on the continent, and we should come to the realisation of one simple fact; being compassionate will help our continent come out of the dark depths into which history plunged us into.
Being inconsiderate of the basic need to feed in order to live is plainly callous and inhuman.
Take the foreigner into your keep and from their experiences you will learn on how to map the right way towards true and harmonious human progress.
Believing the old lie that vainly teaches the children ‘this is my homeland and mine alone’ will surely lead to the demise of this continent, and it will hamper its progress; for in every stranger you meet lie the answers to questions you have always wanted answered.
Of a royal bloodline that spans the vast breadth of our history, Salif Keita was not meant to sing, for his work is in opposition to the customs and the traditions of his land.
However, the laws of nature oftentimes ignore human rules, and this saw this giant born with albinism soar to heights of stardom on the wings of his sonorous voice.
Salif Keita’s music is sung in his native tongue and other languages, but one can hear exactly what message it is he is trying to pass across, and lately, his message has been one of the promotion of the rights of people born with albinism.
His message addresses the plight of our albino brothers and sisters who have to deal with the double edged problem of being born with a skin condition that makes living under the hot African sun hard, and then being hunted like animals because some witchdoctors believe their body parts bring good luck.
I watched those documentaries on the inhuman treatment of albinos in Tanzania and Kwa-Zulu Natal, and I could not help the tears of shame brought by the realisation that the constant wars for human rights have done very little in making us aware that all of us are equal.
I see people born with albinism in our midst; I grew up and lived with them in the various communities I lived in over the course of my brief life.
I have never understood why their difference in pigment should set them apart as unique, when they are in reality viscerally similar to you and I.
Our conceited belief/s that some difference in physiology is a mark of uniqueness is in its plainest terms foolish, because the truth is that the body is an external aspect of the human being, and the mind of the human being accounts for far more than what many choose to place on the pedestal; our perishable body.
The lesson contained in one of the lines of his song is very deep when it comes to revealing the multiplicity and the fragility of our humanness:
I am black, but I am white . . .

We may believe that we are different, but we are not, we may judge each other on the basis of colour and ethnicity, but those aspects do not mean we are different: we are common in more ways than we are different. I believe this is where the wisdom of King Moshoeshoe I is revealed; he successfully formed a nation of many different tribes and clans; ours is a nation that successfully united Bantu and Nguni successfully into a people that speak one language.
The lesson the albino child from the ancient kingdom of Sundiata Keita are in tandem with the philosophy that unites us as a nation; do not think of the San as a mere underling, he is your kin U se ke ua re ho Moroa, ‘Moroa tooe’: we are common despite our different backgrounds, and the black can be seen because there is the white, and the white is brightened when there is a background of black.
I thought I could write more on the issue of the voices that speak on behalf of our people, but there are many voices delivering one message of peace.
The best one can do is emulate what they say in their message, follow the kind of lessons they teach, and have the constant understanding that all of us are more alike than we are different.
Whatever it is that tells us we are “unique” is separatist and should not be followed, that pride parade many of us go on in the name of religious righteousness or political correctness will only serve to set us apart and to render us useless; for we can only work better united.
Our voices united in the name of human harmony and world peace can bring about human prosperity and the welfare of the world, and we can in every essence break down the walls of Jericho if we shout together.
Realising that the individualistic lessons taught on the many walls of our media are tools meant to entrench us in slavery, will help to break us free from the chains of servitude and bondage manned by a few conceited individuals bent on fickle fiscal profit, and a fascination with themselves and the images their countenances reflect in the mirror.
One could try and teach humanity lessons and shout themselves hoarse, the reality however, is that human beings instinctively know what is right, that caring for others and being kind to others is good: we just pretend not to know that caring for the concerns and the rights of others makes us more peaceable figures.
The words we say often undermine the interests of others, offend others, and in the process of our speaking forget that our voices echo our true sentiments.
What we speak echoes into eternity, and I guess we should from this moment onwards be more considerate in the selection of the words we use.
Where the truth needs to be told, let us speak of it with the fervour of the preacher, but the words we use in the course of revealing such a truth should be of a nature that does not negate the realities of hierarchy within our different societies.
There are many constant references to “rights” in the various debates we hold, but one rarely hears of a reference to “responsibilities” in such discourses.
If it is your basic right to express your concerns and you feel you need to exercise it, do it with the full awareness that it does not infringe on the rights of others.
Careless talk in the name of rights has led to the division of entire communities; it plants seeds of social discord that upon blossom bear bitter fruits.
I have thought of voices I have heard and one among them comes back, time and time again reciting a piece of poetry:
Je ne suis pas etranger (I am not a stranger)
I am like you
Je ne suis pas la peste (I am not a disease)
I am your blessing
Come to remove your cursings

Our voices should echo a message of harmony, and we should borrow from those voices in our history whose messages were of true peace and harmony.
For our words will make this a better place to live in than it now is; our voices will set the wrong right.

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Insight

Shining Like Stars: Part One

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Last week, in a piece titled “Hope Springs Eternal”, I wrote about the relative values of (leftist) political commitment and Christian faith in a world that is beset with violence, poverty and oppression. Now I’m offering a review of a book by Lindsay Brown titled Shining Like Stars: The power of the gospel in the world’s universities, which explores the work of evangelical students in propagating the Christian faith in some of the world’s most dangerous countries, such as Columbia, China, Russia, Sudan and the DRC. Countries where despair seems to be a pretty rational response to the lives that huge numbers of people are forced to lead. I shall concentrate on cases where that effort to spread the Christian faith is allied to a commitment to agitate for better political and social conditions.

As an aside, I begin by quoting Will Shoki, editor of the invaluable online opinion journal Africa is a Country. I know I’ve mentioned him at least once in previous weeks, but that is because they are so good. In a piece Shoki wrote for the edition of March 4th this year, he records the Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s reference to “the courage of hopelessness”, whereby “it is only when we despair and don’t know anymore what to do that change can be enacted.” Shoki adds: “I have never been quite sure what this means — in fact, I have never been quite sure what Zizek means about anything.” Which is to say, Zizek is a pretty difficult read, but his work is a nut it’s well worth cracking.

Be that as it may. Let us turn again to the question how, in a harsh world largely run by greedy, selfish, murderous brutes, a dedication to the message of the gospels and a commitment to political and social transformation can be a joint life-saver.

Lindsay Brown, the author of the book I’m reviewing, was for many years General Secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). Towards the end of his book there is an Appendix in which he lists around 150 student organisations worldwide that are affiliated to IFES. Many countries where IFES-allied groups have a strong presence are only nominally Christian, many others (for example, China and the Gulf States) are hostile to the gospel. In Lesotho — where neither of these impediments holds — the relevant body is called the Scripture Union of Lesotho, Tertiary Ministry (SULTM); as Brown’s book doesn’t touch on Lesotho, I’d be very interested to hear from my readers about the activities of SULTM.

The first chapter of Shining Like Stars is titled “Never Underestimate What Students Can Do.” This begins by recounting the story of Daniel and his three fellow captives in Babylon under the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar, the story that ends with three of the young Jews being saved by their faith when they are cast into the burning fiery furnace. Then there are reminders of the long history of evangelism in western Europe, followed by the observation: “world mission is less and less about westerners going elsewhere to serve Christ, but about believers from everywhere going everywhere . . . for example, during the twenty years of civil war in Chad its displaced students, sent by the government to study in other countries, founded IFES movements in Niger, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Burkina Faso.”

One of the first of many testimonies the book contains is, however, from a female British student of Russian, identified simply as Elizabeth, who travelled as an evangelist to one of the -stan countries, former Soviet republics of Central Asia (which of the former -stans this was isn’t specified). It was a perilous but highly successful mission. Elizabeth records: “My birthday was fun. I had five cakes and three parties. They really know how to make cakes here!” Not much peril involved in that, you might say. But then Lindsay Brown notes that many sensitive words in Elizabeth’s testimony have the letter “x” inserted in them and explains that this was to escape electronic surveillance.

And so it seems being an IFES evangelist can be a bit like being James Bond, except more graceful. The second chapter in Brown’s book is titled “Our Sovereign God and Human Courage” and that’s where I’ll pick up the story next week, as well as detailing the activities IFES evangelists organize to attract students to the gospel. And then — after all, the chief focus of this piece — how they strategise evangelical work in relation to the advocacy of political and social transformation.

To be concluded

Chris Dunton

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Insight

Hope springs eternal

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Given the abysmal state of the world today, what is it that keeps one going? I mean, just look at the mess we’re in. The cowardice of world leaders faced with the challenge of climate change —world leaders most of whom are, of course, in thrall to capitalism (for when it comes to our mismanagement, that’s what really rules the roost). The appalling violence in Ukraine and the Middle East. The apparently endless misgovernance of countries as diverse as Lesotho and Nigeria. How does one not give into despair?

Me, I have an interim resource and a vastly more profound one. The former is my commitment to left-wing socialism, a conviction that life on earth can be vastly improved by following the principles of Marxist-Leninism (not — an important qualification — the corrupt form of those principles that moulded dictatorships such as the Soviet Union). The second resource is faith in the message of the Gospels, the embracing of our Lord Jesus Christ. For with this, the ills of the world pale into insignificance. Which is not — I absolutely insist — to refuse the responsibility of political commitment to ease the suffering of millions on earth, a duty we have while we’re still stuck on the bloody place.

Of those two resources, one allows a limited, constrained kind of hope, the other a hope that is boundless.

To expand on the notion of hope, recently in these pages Bishop David Ramela quoted the great Czech author and political leader Vaclav Havel, who became President of his country after resisting Soviet oppression in acts of dissidence for which he was imprisoned. Havel, as quoted by Bishop Ramela, wrote: “I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure that everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart . . . I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big as life itself.”

Hope as distinct from optimism? Well, a couple of references here. First, the great Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (like Havel, imprisoned for his beliefs, in his case by Mussolini’s Fascists) wrote of the need to maintain “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” In other words, any reasonably intelligent person knows that things are going to screw up, but must act as if this were not the case. And another Marxist, the British critical theorist Terry Eagleton (the mentor of your columnist, incidentally, when he was an undergraduate — and ever since) has written a fine book, Hope Without Optimism. I shan’t go into that here, but shall review it in this column in a few weeks’ time.

Turning to the relationship between political commitment and the Christian faith, the evangelist preacher Robert Sheehan once commented: “Many Christians put more weight on political programmes and economic packages than on the power of the gospel in the nation. Do you?” The answer, I would hope, is “no”, but “quite a lot of weight all the same.” And I’m going to sign off this week with a lengthy quotation from the New Testament—namely, Ephesians 2: 14-22—which has to do with the relationship, in the time of Paul’s evangelism, between Jews and Gentiles. It is a passage — to refer to my piece some weeks ago on the Gaza crisis — that one would like to read to the Hamas leaders in Palestine and to Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu before banging their heads together.

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordnances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. And that he might reconcile them both to God in one body, through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together for a dwelling place in God in the Spirit.”

Joining, harmony, hope.

Chris Dunton

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Insight

Reading and emotion

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What does a good piece of writing do? How does a piece of writing evoke emotions in you? Well, reading is a good art that can stimulate and sharpen our sensibilities. In this instalment we focus on the emotional journey triggered and enabled by good literature. While other books may educate us and sharpen our cognitive abilities, that is the abilities to think and solve problems, reading literature of fiction does more; it stirs our emotions and sharpens our affective capacities.

By affective capabilities, we refer to the abilities to feel and tune in to our emotions and sensibilities. Life, after all, is not only about heart facts and reason. Life is about feeling and experiencing and the ability to put ourselves into other people’s shoes. Reading literature is so liberating and humanistic! Reading art in all its many genres grounds us in the varieties of human experiences and engenders in us tolerance, understanding and empathy.


Stories have a way of taking us on journeys real and imagined which stories transform us from the inside. These stories allow us to visit far-flung places and meet new people and feel their environment. Art has a way of mending bridges because through stories we come to understand people who may seem different from us. And at times we may have felt hatred and dislike for them and their way of doing things. But through reading about them, we hear their stories. We experience that which they are experiencing. We begin to see them from the inside out, and we get to know what lies underneath their skin, so to speak. That’s why they say that we can only begin to make sense of the world once we have reduced the whole world to stories. Let’s write a small story together and ascertain how it would move us. Let’s go.


“He trudged on thinking how he would approach Mwandionesa. Her warm and coy smile flashed before his eye.


Slowly mustering up a morsel of self-belief, Themba trudged along the battered, winding road in the heart of a thicket of musasa trees in the Musirizwi enclaves in Chipinge, south-eastern Zimbabwe. Like a heavy burden, a gnawing sense of failure nibbled at his conscience and a sense of uselessness clung on the air with unrelenting defiance. The stain of failure, the feeling that his people and he were inconsequential had taken lodging in his entire being. That is why he found a sense of solace only from isolating himself in his flimsy cocoon of loneliness like the proverbial ostrich which buried its head in the sand. He would have an occasional home-brewed beer called chikeke and thereafter lock himself within the labyrinth and sordid visceral being.


A gaunt bird flew overhead and he heard its flapping feathers amidst the thickening doom and darkness. “Bird”, he retorted to its presence, “what would you do if you were ever crushed by the label of failure.” A soft, warm tear tricked down the rugged terrain of his face. “Makauyo went to Egoli and returned without a name to himself, Khuyumani, too, lies buried in the bowels of the soil with nothing to show” he said as if he were speaking to the bird.


As he touched the cold handle of the door to his heart clutching a small, whimpering puppy in a cardboard box, he could hear the breathing of Mwandionesa and her stabbing, moist eyes asking him without a word where he has been for the last three days. He stood for a moment which seemed like an eternity. With false bravado, he mustered a not-so-convincing, frail knock. Mwandionesa, heavy with child, slowly made for the door and slid it open. Themba did not know what to do. He loved her but he did not know how to express it, like a person bereft of a language. Mwandionesa rummaged her pots on the dying embers of a hearth and gave him respectfully a plate with sadza and a small portion of chicken. A tear escaped-one, two, and another! She broke down, a downpour of tears streaming down her lips. “Themba, ngendaa yei weidaro mwamuna wangu? Indaa yei ndiripe Dube? Indaa yei weiita mukuba wekunzerereka kungaitei imbudzi irikumakaba isina unousha?” (Themba, why do you treat me in a manner? Why do you behave as if you are a stray goat without a shepherd? If I have wronged you I am prepared to appease you”).


“Look at me, Themba,” she demanded as a visibly pregnant and swollen stomach bulged through her threadbare blouse. The puppy whimpered plaintively. With hesitation Themba went to where Mwandionesa stood. With his furrowed labour-weary hands he touched her waist and led her to their mat of reeds made of “umhlanga” as she was fond of referring to reeds. She did not protest. A glow, a faint glow burnt in her eyes as she eased comfortably on his lanky chest. She fumbled for his hand and shepherded it to the lower regions of her belly and said, “He was kicking all these days you were away.” Themba was engulfed in a flurry of emotions; guilt as well as pride. With deliberateness, Mwandionesa said, “this boy will be called Thando. Yes Thando. He will build this homestead and more should you feel that you don’t have a home.” Themba nodded in agreement.
Themba began to feel the warmth of her presence as her succulent breasts pressed against his lanky chest and slowly closed his eyes…”

What a gripping tapestry which evokes a lot of emotions! It’s a story that stirs a lot of emotions; from empathy, sadness and an inner glow in the heart at the end. As the story begins, we feel Temba’s struggles, fear and hopelessness. He seems to be carrying a huge emotional burden and a crushing sense of defeat. I hope you have also seen Temba’s bid to reassert his sense of being and purpose through his desire of caring for a puppy – we could actually feel it whimpering. And the new hope ignited at the end of the story and affirmations of hope and new beginnings! The birth of a child always brings with it new beginnings – hope springs eternal!
So here we are! Stories are so humanising. Learning to read art in all its genres evokes emotions in us. It sharpens our affective side and warms our hearts.

Vuso Mhlanga teaches at the University of Zimbabwe. For almost a decade and half he taught English language and Literature in English at high school. Send your comments and questions to: mhlangavuso85@gmail.com

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