UK archbishop wears collar again after Mugabe’s fall

The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, put on his white cleric’s collar on Sunday for the first time since cutting it up ten years ago in a highly symbolic protest at former president Robert Mugabe’s rule.

The Uganda-born cleric, the second most senior clergyman in the Church of England, made the dramatic gesture on live television in 2007, and stated that he would not wear it again until the Zimbabwe president was gone.

After Mugabe left office this week, Sentamu appeared on the same BBC program where he was handed the pieces of his collar, only to pull a new one out of his pocket and put it on.

“I think the lesson for Zimbabwe is the same. They just can’t try and stitch it up. Something more radical, something new has to happen in terms of the rule of law, allowing people to get jobs,” he told the Andrew Marr show.

He added, “I promised when Mugabe goes I (would) put my collar on, so I have no choice but to put it back on. And Mugabe has gone but the new president has to remember something more new than simply stitching up a thing will work.”

Sentamu said Zimbabwe needed a kind of truth and reconciliation commission like that seen in South Africa – and said Mugabe should ask for forgiveness.

“Mugabe at some point needs to say, ‘people of Zimbabwe, 37 years (ago) I took on a country that was fantastic, I nearly took it to ruin. Zimbabweans forgive me’,” he said.

On the BBC show ten years ago, Sentamu held up his collar and snipped it into bits with scissors.