Give voice to your faith
ARE Zimbabwean men falling into legal obscurity or perhaps they already have? There was a time when men were indispensible in the legal lives of women, but many things have changed and continue to. This is confusing to a lot of men who feel and complain that women are becoming too powerful and eating into ‘their’ space. They complain that their rights as men are being taken away unfairly because women are getting too many legal concessions and rights — far more than they should, it is believed. These gripes are the expressed grief and powerlessness of losing grip on long held cultural and social privileges which have traditionally given men power over women. It must be stated that giving rights to women so that they have power to decide and chart their own lives is not the same thing as taking men’s rights away. Taking privileges away or indeed according the same privileges to women is not the same thing as taking men’s rights away.
The conversation obviously goes deeper than Zimbabwe’s own legal development. It began with the women’s suffrage movement in the Victorian era when women began fighting for political rights and for equal access or even just some access to things they were deprived of like employment, remuneration, birth control and rights to determine choices for themselves and their own bodies.
So much has been fought for in Zimbabwe over the years culminating in Sections 17, 56 and 80 of the 2013 Constitution which buttress and cement the equal status of women in all spheres of life. All forms of discrimination against women are now illegal and criminal offences under Zimbabwe law.
It is the law that at least half of all public sector posts have to be occupied by women. Only that the political will is lacking, so there is still more fighting ahead to achieve this objective. When this parity is finally achieved, men will feel aggrieved yet all that will have happened is that women will have taken up their rightful share formerly occupied by men.
It is very easy to forget and take basic women’ rights for granted yet there was a time women did not have them. The rights women enjoy now were not given on a silver platter, but thanks to the many
I never believed Mnangagwa could run this country as well as I could, but people never listened. Mnangagwa knows how Mugabe ran this country, because he was part of that team — Opposition Alliance for the People’s Agenda president Nkosana Moyo forgotten pioneer and present Zimbabwean women’s rights activists ordinary women now enjoy them to the point of taking them for granted.
The civil rights movement in America in the 60’s to a smaller extent, and to a greater extent the Pan African nationalist movements on the continent greatly influenced the status and future of black Zimbabweans, the women not excluded. Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 and black majority rule were preceded by a protracted guerrilla war in which black women had fought and struggled alongside men in the same if not worse horrendous conditions in the trenches of Mozambique and Tanzania and the rough backwoods of Zimbabwe.
At independence, it was ridiculous and just not feasible to return women to the pre-independence past where they were regarded as children and relegated to domesticity and supportive menial roles. In keeping with this, the new government under the still sincerely Marxist Leninist Robert Mugabe quickly established a dedicated Women Affairs ministry under the helm of 25-year old war veteran Joice Mujuru. Two years later in 1982 the now repealed Legal Age of Majority Act was passed. For the first time in the country’s history, black women were deemed adults when they turned 18 and accorded all the rights and privileges of
For us to know this thing, that is malpractice, it is because some have complained to us, otherwise we won’t know. If you go to the shops, there is an implied exchange rate that they are using. — Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya adults that only men had enjoyed.
Before the Act, black women had been legal perpetual minors like is still the case in ultra-conservative patriarchal countries where women have no legal status. Black women had required the services of male guardians like close male relatives — husbands, fathers or brothers or adult sons to perform legal acts they were forbidden to do on their own. Even today, women are still disadvantaged and discriminated against in many regards but the advances made must never be taken for granted because there was a time it was not dreamed possible to have them. The repealed Legal Age of Majority of Age Act enabled African women to get married without the consent of their fathers or male relatives. It has been possible since 1982 for black Zimbabwean women to enter into civil marriages without lobola being paid for them. There is nothing new that the proposed Marriage Act is seeking to introduce save that it will no longer be a requirement for marriage officers registering customary marriages to ask for proof that lobola and customary marriage rites were performed before issuing the customary marriage certificate.
Women no longer need male guardians to apply for passports and birth certificates for themselves and their children especially if the children are born out of wedlock. Women can acquire immovable or other substantial property in their own names. Women can choose traditionally male-associated careers and open bank accounts on their own etc. Not too long ago it was impossible for a married woman to file a police report against her husband for domestic violence.
If she was not laughed out of the police station for reporting a domestic issue, the best the police would do if they considered the beatings serious enough was to slap the husband on the wrist with a caution. The woman would be sent back home and advised to be nice and try not to upset their husband so much all the time. lRead full newsday.co.zw article on www.
l Miriam Tose Majome is a lawyer at Veritas and she writes in her personal capacity.
However, it is most unfortunate when men of the cloth begin to use the pulpit to advance a nefarious agenda for detractors of our country. Those who want to enter the political realm are welcome to do so. They must come out and form political parties
— President Emmerson Mnangagwa
WHAT brings people to a born again state is confession by their own mouth. What’s believed and spoken yields results. What’s uttered comes from the heart. It’s therefore critical to have the right stuff in the heart. This is influenced by what is heard as well as seen. What we hear depends on what we tune our ears to. Equally what we visualise is propelled by what we focus our eyes on. Voices that we allow to speak into our lives will ultimately determine our course of life.
A believer should also make a wise choice on what she/he subjects her/his eyes to. Who we associate with eventually affects our beliefs. If our circle is made up of mindsets of negativity and pessimism, we are bound to struggle.
Let’s closely look at the following verses. Romans 10:8-10: “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
As a believer or even if you are not saved yet, you have to fall in love with this portion of the Bible. By it you will be saved and brought into victorious Christian living. You will not struggle with depression, guilt or any self-defeating dogma.
To be saved you need the word of faith. This word is brought into your heart by preaching and will steer you to speak it. With your mouth you will confess Jesus as Lord. If you believe that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. The effect of this is to make you believe you’re righteous in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21 declares: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
The mouth speaks the righteousness believed in your heart and you’re saved. You are, therefore, born again; new creation and saint. After hearing the word of faith, believing it and confessing it, you’re created in Christ. Our faith to salvation is brought about by hearing the Word of God as free gift of God as written in Ephesians 2:8-9, Amplied, "(8) For it is by free grace (God’s unmerited favor) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ 's salvation) through [your] faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [of your own doing, it came not through your own striving], but it is the gift of God; [9] Not because of works [not the fulfilment of the Law’s demands], lest any man should boast. [It is not the result of what anyone can possibly do, so no one can pride himself in it or take glory to himself.]"
Furthermore Romans 10:17 points: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So we commit to hear the Gospel of Christ which is the Grace of God. If we’re saved by hearing the word of faith then we live by hearing the word of faith. Romans 1:17, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” Dear reader give voice to the Faith of Christ which is in your heart. Let the words of faith come out of your mouth to create your world.
We confess Lord Jesus to be saved and we keep speaking Jesus. Should challenges and undesirable things pop up, we continue to speak the way we were brought to salvation, i.e confess Jesus and all that He stands for such as Light not darkness, abundant life not death and healing and health not sickness.
If your thought pattern is right and have clear conscience you will witness tremendous results. Jesus had a correct thought pattern. Let’s look at the raising to life from death of Lazarus. John 11:4243 record, “[42] And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. [43] And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” He believed well and spoke well and Lazarus came out of death. So even now you can decide to come out of any situation, be it poverty, sickness, divorce, debt or unemployment.
The Bible urges us to follow suit. 2 Corinthians 4:13 teaches, “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore, speak,” You have to speak life. As a believer, you shouldn’t be overwhelmed by situations and circumstances. Your preoccupation should be right mindset and good and progressive thoughts. Your thoughts make you. We are usually overwhelmed when we don't give ourselves to Bible reading, studying, meditation thereof and accompanying prayer and resultant confession and declaration.
Proverbs 23:7a tells us, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” We, therefore, create the right atmosphere and conducive environment for manifestation of our victory in Christ. We check what filters into our domain. A believer should be aware of the wisdom of Proverbs 4:23. It says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” What we desire, but yet don’t see, we bring it to manifestation by speaking it. Romans 4:17 encourages us, “(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.”
Please note that we call by our mouths into reality what we see in the nebulous realm. Bring it to the fore by speaking it; Christianity is a speaking faith. Give voice to your faith. Utter out the destiny in you to arrange and rearrange circumstances to your advantage. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. Grace and peace be multiplied to you through knowledge.
lAll Bible quotations are from the King James Version unless otherwise stated.
Fellowship with Pastor Makarimayi on Facebook and on www.twitter.com/PEMAKARIMAYI.
l