When religious beliefs clash with journalism principles

I heaved a sigh of relief when Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first black President of the United States on January 20, 2009. I am a black Zimbabwean, but it was not the fact that Obama was black that excited me. It was the exit of his predecessor, George Bush. 

I had nothing against Bush, either. But I felt relieved when Bush stepped down because his departure was the fulfilment of a prophecy that had dogged me for six years pitting my journalism principles against my religious beliefs.

I had been a journalist for over 30 years then. I was, and still am, a member of the Zion Christian Church, a Zimbabwean-based Christian organisation that has spread its wings to neighbouring countries as well as to the United Kingdom and the United States.  

A prophet from our church had said way back in 2003 that despite the country's economic woes, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe would outlast his “enemies” who were calling on him to step down and had imposed sanctions on him and his top lieutenants. 

The prophet did not name the “enemies” but Mugabe’s main adversaries at the time were John Howard of Australia, Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and George Bush.

Mugabe had become one of the most hated men in the world. British academic and Guardian columnist George Monbiot said, according to the world’s press Mugabe was the most evil man on earth, besides Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Osama Bin Laden of Al Qaeda.

His crime was that he had taken land away from whites. Mugabe was a monster because he had usurped the natural order.

“The seizure of the white farms is both brutal and illegal,” Monbiot wrote in the Guardian. “But it is merely one small scene in the tragedy now playing all over the world. Every year, some tens of millions of peasant farmers are forced to leave their land, with devastating consequences for food security. For them there are no tear-stained descriptions of a last visit to the graves of their children. If they are mentioned at all, they are dismissed by most of the press as the necessary casualties of development.”

He continued: “Ten years ago, I investigated the expropriations being funded and organised in Africa by another member of the Commonwealth. Canada had paid for the ploughing and planting with wheat of the Basotu Plains in Tanzania. Wheat was eaten in that country only by the rich, but by planting that crop, rather than maize or beans or cassava, Canada could secure contracts for its chemical and machinery companies, which were world leaders in wheat technology. The scheme required the dispossession of the 40 000 members of the Barabaig tribe. Those who tried to return to their lands were beaten by the project’s workers, imprisoned and tortured with electric shocks. The women were gang-raped. For the first time in a century, the Barabaig were malnourished. When I raised these issues with one of the people running the project, she told me, ‘I won’t shed a tear for anybody if it means development.’

“The rich world’s press took much the same attitude: only the Guardian carried the story. Now yet another member of the Commonwealth, the United Kingdom, is funding a much bigger scheme in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Some 20 million people will be dispossessed. Again this atrocity has been ignored by most of the media.”

According to Monbiot, the reason was that: “These are dark-skinned people being expelled by whites, rather than whites being expelled by black people. They are, as such, assuming their rightful place, as invisible obstacles to the rich world’s projects. Mugabe is a monster because he has usurped the natural order.”

As a black Zimbabwean who had grown up in Rhodesia, I agreed with Monbiot’s argument to some extent. Mugabe was being punished for trying to right a wrong. The figures told the story. The outcry in Zimbabwe was about the fate of 4 000 white farmers. No one had shed a tear for 40 000 black farmers in Tanzania. And there was dead silence over the future of 20 million Indians.  

At the same time, after 23 years in power, I felt that Mugabe had overstayed his welcome. The problem that bothered me, however, was who should get rid of him? To me, it was simple. It had to be the people of Zimbabwe. They had elected him to power. They should vote him out. 

The moment someone else stepped in, I felt quite offended.  Somehow, I just felt that anyone who tried to help was implying that Zimbabweans were so stupid that they did not realise that Mugabe was oppressing them. They were so daft that they could not even vote him out.  

But more importantly I always had these questions hanging at the back of my mind. Was Mugabe, as an individual entirely to blame or it was the Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front as a party that had to blame?  Agreed Mugabe was the leader of the party and the government and therefore shouldered all the blame, but I just thought there was too much focus on one man and not the system.

The other question was why were all these foreigners trying to help us? Did they not have enough problems of their own at home? If so, what was in it for them? Surely there were no free lunches in this world. As they said in my language: “Inyasha dzei kupisika mwana wemvana madzihwa?” (Why should someone be so concerned about the child of a single mother as to wipe off his running nose?)

This is the introduction of my kindle book: When religious beliefs clash with journalism principles,which is available only through Amazon. The book is not about the church or about Mugabe but about my experiences in the Zion Christian Church. If,  in the process, this helps to spread the word about the ZCC then I would have done my part because the church and its leader Bishop Mutendi are not only preaching the Word of God in Zimbabwe and across the World but they are also promoting the development of Zimbabwe, which former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere said was the Jewel of Africa. As it is said in Isaiah 2 vs 2 "that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it" so will Zimbabwe. For my fellow Zimbabweans who have no means of buying this book online, I will be serialising it on this blog, bit by bit. So follow this blog.