Damascus moment for apostolic sects, big relief to GBV

THE recent successful inclusion of apostolic sect churches in the campaign against gender-based violence did not only provide a marked relief to the country’s fight against the flagrant abuse of women and children’s rights, it was purely a Damascus moment that the nation was eagerly waiting for as previous engagements had proved difficult and painful.

Their inclusion is expected to end genderbased violence (GBV) as well as the verbal, physical and legal conflicts that usually arise between the Government and some members of the apostolic churches who were known for resisting interventions by the former in dealing with health, educational as well as moral issues affecting the country, its development discourse and its demographic structure.

Most importantly it would end maltreatment of the girl child and women and drastically reduce the cases of GBV that were glorified as normal and were rampant in apostolic communities across the country.

Apostolic Women Empowerment Trust (AWET) — a group formed with the aim of empowering apostolic church women with information said they accomplished their first male engagement session during the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence that started late last month.

The eight-day marathon programme oriented over 330 male apostolic delegates from eight different districts namely, Bindura, Centenary, Makoni, Chipinge, Beitbridge, Gwanda, Umzingwane and Bulilima.

According to programme co-ordinators, they had an overwhelming response from all the districts with more than 20 apostolic male church members attending, exceeding the targeted number of 10 for each district.

AWET administrator Ms Hope Dunira said the outreach programme was built on a vision to sensitise the male apostolic church members through identifying champions of change in various communities.

“These champions of change will disseminate information and be peace makers, role models and protectors of the girl child in these communities. This will be done through social and economic activities with the objective of ending gender-based violence and child marriages in the apostolic communities,” she said.

Ms Dunira said the 330 male champions from eight districts were equipped with comprehensive knowledge on GBV and child marriage, including information on service and service providers. A community orientation manual was also produced.

She said there were many other sociocultural, political and economic practices and cultures that have been investigated and classified as GBV and everyone was encouraged to be aware of those practices so that the fight to end GBV was effective.

The apostolic men said they wanted to lobby and advocate, for positive change within communities and apostolic men from the various inter apostolic denominations.

Apostolic Christian Church of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) president Johannes Ndanga bragged at the achievement saying the apostolic sects were not being ambitious by calling for the 365 days of activism against GBV as against the traditional annual 16 days of activism.

He said those that claimed to be dreaming of marrying young usually under-age girls should now start dreaming marrying widowed women and single mothers.

He called for more initiatives that sought to economically empower women so that they were not abused in the name of marriage to be put in place.

The apostolic sects have launched community groups at ward level in the country’s provinces whose work is to advocate for human rights and providing assistance to victims of child marriages as well as reporting perpetrators of abuse to police.

Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development minister Nyasha Chikwinya applauded the work done by ACCZ saying convincing apostolic sects against their religion practice was a milestone achievement.

She called on traditional leaders, churches, police, courts and all stakeholders to work together to achieve zero tolerance to GBV.

“While recognising the work done by ACCZ in convincing the apostolic churches against all forms of GBV and supporting Government initiatives aimed at developing and raising the standards of life we urge a co-ordinated multi-sectoral approach to the problems that we are faced with as a nation.

“We are, however, sure to get where we want to be where there will be zero tolerance to GBV. Everyone should have a role to play. All the stakeholders should be engaged and there should be no room for passengers,” said Minister Chikwinya.

Prior to their mega climb down, the apostolic churches were reluctant to give heed to the advice by the Government to end such practices as child marriages, dropping children out of school and refusing their women congregants access to medical services.

They remained a problematic constituency and were derailing efforts by the Government and its development partners in dealing with issues such as mortality as well as basic children’s rights such as the right to education.

Some of the staunch apostolic sect children had no birth certificates making it difficult for Government to plan for them since they were not known to exist since it was difficult to enumerate them.

Some would die of curable diseases simply because they were not allowed to visit the hospital and access medication. It was regarded as pagan. For to them, the Holy Spirit through faith was supposed to cure all ailments including a broken leg, hand, burns, cuts and wounds.

The Government would always try to enforce the children’s right to health when immunising children for the popular six killer diseases in mobile immunisation clinics and a number of the apostolic children who were denied treatment succumbed to the diseases while some were affected in more ways than one by such diseases such as polio.

Congregant pregnant mothers were not allowed to visit the hospital for periodic check-ups — the Holy Spirit would do that for them — at least according to them. They would therefore deliver at home where some would die of birth complications due to lack of proper medical expertise.

And at times applying minimum force would brew fierce resistance from the sect members, sometimes even leading them to go physical all in the name of protecting their religion from national health and moral practices they think would corrupt their beliefs — their religion.

A case in point was the melee that took place in 2014 when sect members attacked police officers and Apostolic Christian Church of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) officials who had gone there to enforce a ban that had been effected on a Budiriro apostolic sect church led by Madzibaba Ishmael over a number of malpractices.

Then comes the practice of marrying and marrying off girl children among the male members usually in polygamous relationships without consent of the young girls who in most cases would not have reached the age of consent to marriage and sex.

Although medical experts strongly discourage young girls to have children saying their bodies would not be prepared for that the apostolic sects’ comic justification according to one Madzibaba Sam was that they were not supposed to marry girls who have lost their virginity. It was taboo and had the gross effect of defiling the men.

“Marrying someone who have lost their virginity is equivalent to committing adultery. Our religion forbids us to do that. The man who deflowers a girl remains their husband even if they do not marry them. Marrying a girl you did not deflower therefore means you are sleeping with someone else’s wife.

“What happens is that there are times they would think of the man who would have stolen their virginity. A lot of men may not want to admit it but that is the reason why we do not encourage men to marry women who have been deflowered,” explained one apostolic member who identified himself as Madzibaba Sam in an interview.

As if that is not enough apostolic boy children were taught to do practical hand work and the lucky ones would seldom go past Grade Seven before they start weaving door mats and making steel pots and water boiling tins that they would sell in villages and locations far and wide travelling pitiable distances on foot.

Child labour was therefore rampant in apostolic communities despite Government efforts to end all the practices that were not in line with upholding basic children and human rights as enshrined in the constitution.

Change gear — The discovery of a wondrous continent is what it felt like when some of us connected with Professor Dingilizwe Zvavanhu, a remarkable revolutionary Marxist intellectual and proestablishment activist — himself a blend of Kalanga, Sotho, and Ndau, seeming to reach out to the world in all directions. Those expecting adherence to Marxist “orthodoxy” are, however, bound to be disappointed. Orthodoxy, if understood as a closed system, is an approximation of death — and it is absolutely alien to the fabulous cultural and intellectual convergence that one finds in Zvavanhu’s discussions, where Lenin and Trotsky rub elbows with Rosa Luxemburg and Che Guevara, mingling with Georg Lukács and Ernst Bloch, not to mention Antonio Gramsci, José Carlos Mariátegui, Walter Benjamin and innumerable unorthodox others.

In our review of Zanu-PF and the conference, the Professor tells me that, “The party is only a fragmentary character and does not at all present a systematic picture of this pluralist growth of the Marxist political philosophy or of its dialectical (contradictory) development.”

He likens this conference, instead, to revisiting “some high moments of the revolutionary tradition” and also to following “some small mountain roads” within that tradition.

He clearly hopes it will be of use for those who are intent on changing the world from a Zanu-PF perspective. He focused on central aspects of the revolutionary Marxist tradition. The relationship between the French Revolution of 1789-94 and the revolutionary thought of Karl Marx is explored in all its complexity in “The Poetry of the Past”: Marx and the French Revolution.”

The succinct and illuminating “Rosa Luxemburg’s Conception of ‘Socialism or Barbarism’” suggests that one of Luxemburg’s many contributions to Marxist thought involves an emphasis on “the very principle of historical choice, the very principle of ‘open’ history” which has been an emblem of Zanu-PF. Like how religion operates, the church has a constant reference to history even on how congregates ought to behave and so should Zanu-PF.

The Homily: Finding Zanu-PF in the world The review, as usual turned to be a lecture on my part on Marxism from this intellectual god who quoted: “Workers of all countries unite!” was the most famous slogan of the Communist Manifesto — but my quashing question was, how does one harmonise this elemental internationalism with the complex realities of nation-states, ethnicity, and nationalism in Zimbabwe guided by Zanu-PF?

The way that a variety of Marxists I overtly discussed with wrestled with this is the focal-point of the seminal discussion of “Marxists and the National Question” which the past conference adequately answered toFrom here, where to?” Yet another seminal utterance from my esteemed Professor is a reference to essays