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Opinion Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu
AT the time of writing this article, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) in and around Harare were looking for some of Johanne Masowe weChishanu members who allegedly assaulted a ZRP squadron and other people on May 30 in Budiriro suburb.The riotous incident followed the banning of that sect by the head of the Apostolic Christian Church of Zimbabwe (ACCZ), Bishop Johannes Ndanga, that very day apparently with government support.

Some ACCZ officials who had accompanied Ndanga were also injured in that attack in which some Johanne Masowe weChishanu members are said to have used their traditional shepherd’s staffs on those they perceived to be their rivals or enemies.

Among those who were attacked by the sect members were Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) journalists, Relax Mafurutu and Tichaona Meza.

Some ACCZ officials, including Langton Muchena, were seriously injured, and so also were some police details.

The Johanne Masowe sect concerned was   led by a man called Ishmael Mufani who at the time of writing this opinion piece was still on the run.

Mufani is said to have had some mental or psychiatric problem before he became the Johanne Masowe weChishanu leader.

That background apart, a look at what transpired shows the religious association’s supreme head, Bishop Ndanga, personally going to the premises of that ACCZ former member organisation to announce its proscription.

One would have thought that such an important announcement should have been made by the head of the government’s appropriate Ministry.

Two Ministries immediately spring to one’s mind: the Ministry that handles Zimbabwe’s culture (the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture) and the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Since religious activities are an integral part of every nation’s culture, the ministry concerned with our nation’s cultural activities should have played a very conspicuously leading role in this matter.

That ministry’s position could have been very much strengthened by the claim or allegation that Ishmael Mufani and his sect were against formal education. Since such a practice cuts across the grain of Zimbabwe’s constitution, the ministry concerned could and should have itself cracked the whip.

The Ministry of Home Affairs is in charge of our internal national security. Its duty could have been either the imposition of the ban and the overseeing of its enforcement or merely its enforcement, and could have left the announcement or proclamation to the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care should have also raised its voice and finger against Madzibaba Ishmael Mufani and his now outlawed sect in view of his allegedly oppressive, primitive and unchristian practices against women and children in its ranks.

The welfare of every child in Zimbabwe is supposed to be a concern of this ministry irrespective of wherever the child is. It is, for example, a discredit to that ministry that Zimbabwe has so-called “street kids.”

As for Zimbabwean women, one can only say we are now in the 21st and no longer in the 19th century. They should all wash their faces with an upward and not a downward stroke of their palms to open up their eyes, at least some of them.

Religious organisations that treat women as mere suppliers of pleasure and comfort to male chauvinists should have no place in their lives. It is claimed that Ishmael Mufani’s Johanne Masowe weChishanu sect was one such organisation, preaching religious male chauvinism.

However, to have this proscription officially announced by the head of its umbrella body instead of by the government seemed to be out of the normal or expected administrative process.

That does not mean or imply that the Johanne Masowe weChishanu members were legally or morally justified to react violently as they did, especially in view of the fact that Bishop Ndanga was escorted by the ZRP, a constitutionally established and recognised law-enforcement institution.

It was also blatantly criminal for them to physically attack journalists.  Every averagely intelligent person in Zimbabwe and in all modern states knows that all journalists are unarmed professionals whose jobs is to gather news, nothing more and nothing less. What does this mean in both fact and effect?