A mangled version of democracy

IN 2003, a restless 30-year-old Kenyan taxi driver, Paul Mackenzie, had a moment of epiphany — His was a much higher calling than shuttling ordinary wananchi (the hoi polloi) hither and thither, and he had to save lost souls through preaching the gospel.

But, in his other life, before his sister bought him a jalopy to start his taxi business, Mackenzie had a largely colourless life as a pushcart vendor, who sold flour for a living.

This all changed in 2003, when he claimed he had received a calling to become a preacher.

After freelancing at the Malindi Fellowship Baptist Church, he later founded his own — Good News International Church — to launch his mission.

Bishop Lazi can tell you that religion can be an awesomely potent force, as it is mainly transacted using faith — an unquestioning and absolute belief — as the lingua franca.

It can make those who wield it infallible, especially when they claim the words and commands they speak and issue are not their own but are directly from God.

With charisma and eloquence, these individuals can be indescribably powerful.

And Mackenzie was this — and more.

He had spellbound congregants eating from the palm of his hand.

But his was no ordinary gospel, as he preached an apocalyptic message that effectively converted his followers into doomsday preppers, who believed the end of the world was nigh.

Claiming he was God’s messenger, he encouraged them to give up their earthly possessions, shun education and technology, avoid hospitals, throw away their national identity documents and prepare for the end of the world.

As preposterous as this might sound, they actually believed him.

Unfortunately, fate and circumstances serendipitously coincided to give Mackenzie’s end-of-the-world claims credence when the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020.

His followers subsequently moved to the 325-hectare Shakahola forest to begin preparing for the apocalypse.

They began to starve themselves — or fast — to death as a ticket to “meet Jesus”.

Hundreds perished.

Concerned by the unfolding tragedy, some Kenyans tipped the authorities, who moved in to investigate what was happening.

Nothing could have prepared them for the macabre secrets of the Shakahola forests, as they stumbled on mass graves.

By last week, forensic teams combing the site had exhumed 336 bodies.

More remains are expected to be recovered.

As Bishop Lazi writes this, some of the people who were rescued are still refusing to eat. In fact, they are still incorrigibly determined to starve themselves to death.

And some of these people were not your ordinary Tom, Dick and Harry, but men and women who had a high station in life.

Among the victims, for example, was Beatrice Ajenta Charles, who quit her job as an air hostess with Qatar Airways, sold her belongings and joined Mackenzie’s followers.

Incredible!

Mackenzie is now a guest of the Kenyan state and is awaiting his day in court.

Religion, politics and cults

It is fair to say that somewhere along the way, Mackenzie’s church had turned into a cult.

You see, there is a very thin line between religion and cults.

It reminded the Bishop of an American pyscho called David Koresh, who believed he was the Messiah.

Like Mackenzie, he also founded his own church called The Branch Davidians.

Likewise, they were convinced the apocalypse was imminent.

In eerily similar circumstances, they also moved to Texas to prepare for doomsday.

In 1993, they were raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after rumours that they were stockpiling weapons.

After a 51-day standoff, 80 cult members died in an inferno, which could have been started by the members.

Over the years, psychologists have been investing a lot of effort to understand cults and cultists.

Dr Janja Lalich, an expert in cultic studies and Professor Emerita of sociology at California State University (US), has some interesting insights into how most people are vulnerable to the psychological grip cultists can have on the human psyche.

She is convinced that cults use “both formal and informal systems of influence and control to keep members obedient with little tolerance for internal disagreement or external scrutiny”.

Critical thinking is often frowned upon, while absolute faith is rewarded.

“You internalise the ideologies, the beliefs, the goals and wishes of the leader and you take on total devotion to the leader. Once you have internalised all that, you, in a sense, become a little microcosm of the cult . . . you know exactly what you are doing and how you are supposed to behave,” observed Dr Lalich.

Most revealingly, she added, it is a myth that only “stupid weird crazy people” get tied up with cults. A brief personal background of Dr Lalich would suffice to explain her interest into this field of study.

In the 1970s, she spent close to a decade as a member of the Democratic Workers Party in California, which was a radical Marxist-Leninist group.

However, with time, she realised that it had all the hallmarks of a cult, as members could not freely express themselves, while former members were either harassed or attacked — or both.

Lucky for her, the group was eventually dissolved.

So, yes, political groups can, indeed, be cults.

In any case, there is a fine line between religion and politics.

You see, politics can be a religion and religion can be politics.

Professor Jonathan Moyo is convinced that CCC, which was born out of the MDC-A, has all the makings of a political cult.

Incensed by incessant personal attacks on him and his family members by CCC followers for daring to criticise their political party, he wrote a long thread on Twitter on July 27 last year.

“Sadly, @nelsonchamisa’s MDC-A cult is now his #CCC cult!” alleged Prof Moyo.

“On the back of vile slurs of his social media supporters, @nelsonchamisa hates ideology, values, a constitution and structures; and hopes to evade accountability to ward off rivals, as he pushes his ‘God Complex’ in his #CCC base. Now Nelson says he’s been chosen by God!”

He was not finished.

He added: “Bereft of ideology, values, a constitution and structures — on the back of his God Complex backed by the pentecostal-like cult politics of his base — on March 5, 2022, @nelsonchamisa said he will sign nomination papers for all #CCC’s 2023 candidates, numbering some 2 428. Absurd!” The political scientist’s insinuations — if they can be called that — were apparent. Whether his observations are accurate or not, only time with tell.

What is democracy?

Matthew 7:15-20 gives us a moral compass.

It says: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them.”

As we prepare to choose political leaders whose actions, reactions and decisions would most likely consequentially influence our lives over the next five years, we necessarily have to interrogate the content, form, character and behaviour of individuals and political movements that are canvassing for support to form the next Government.

Last week, the Bishop indicated that the process by which and through which political parties chose their candidates was of public interest as it would show how they would marshal and run the complex machinery of Government.

While ZANU PF, which went through an elaborate process of primary elections to choose its candidates, took the opportunity to showcase its organisational capacity and heft, MDC-T’s Douglas Mwonzora bottled it by failing to field a decent number of aspirants for the National Assembly.

Presidential hopeful Robert Chapman copped out at the last minute, while CCC’s Nelson Chamisa took us to medieval times through a curious candidate selection process that entailed party supporters queuing behind a candidate to determine who could pool the biggest numbers.

But interestingly, in most cases, even those who attracted the most numbers were not the ultimate winners, as a select few in Harare, led by Chamisa himself, had the prerogative to handpick preferred candidates.

The whole process was a shambles, as it resulted in double candidates — triple candidates, in some cases — in more than 10 constituencies, as the Bishop had warned last week.

We are always reminded that transparency, accountability and the secrecy of the ballot are major tenets of democracy, but we are seeing the opposite of this in CCC’s political processes and practices.

And having a few self-appointed officials — Nelson Chamisa, Fadzayi Mahere and Gift Ostallos Siziba — running what is supposed to be a national movement through their whims and caprices, without the guardrails provided by any regulatory or institutional framework, is not only worrying but also extremely dangerous.

Law lecturer David Hofisi raised exactly the same concerns in an article in February last year.

“Trust in an individual’s proclamation,” he wrote “can never substitute the institutional voice of the people themselves.

“Thus, calls for the citizen to be at the centre will ring hollow unless the foundational documents of the CCC constrain its leaders and strengthen the role of institutional structure, constitutional conformity and democratic accountability.”

What we saw last week was antithetical to what we have come to know as democracy.

The whole debacle of the candidate selection process actually de-centred rather than recentre citizens, whom it purportedly represented.

And attempts by the CCC leadership to disingenuously explain away the confusion in their ranks by blaming other political parties cannot cut it.

But, as the Bishop said before, this was never about the people — the citizens, as they call them — but Chamisa’s Machiavellian enterprise to build a political movement he calls his own, shorn of Morgan Tsvangirai’s roots and legacy, and accountable only to
him.

This is why old remnants from the MDC, like Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, Thokozani Khupe and Job Sikhala (through his proxy Freddy Masarirevu), among others, have been put to the sword and left out in the cold.

These are the birth pangs of a Chamisa Chete Chete (CCC) brigade.

What is, however, worrying is Chamisa’s seeming propensity to sacrifice democracy on the altar of political expediency, particularly in the quest for absolute proprietorship of the political movement.

If a political party cannot execute a simple process such as filing nomination papers, how then can it be expected to preside over preponderantly weighty affairs of the State, including engaging with an unpredictable, volatile and fluid world, where competent statecraft is not only needed, but also demanded?

And all the while, their supporters, who are self-professed democrats, sheepishly lap up to everything their leaders do, even when the red flags are screamingly apparent.

We must be wary of the political culture and leaders we are breeding.

We simply cannot accept a mangled version of democracy.

Bishop out!