Unplugged with Lenin Ndebele: The religious bad guys

Back to Marx the “opium of the people” statement is most likely the only Marx quote that most people are familiar with.
Marx read how humanity exists and in his philosophy he meant to say that religion’s purpose is to create illusory fantasies for the poor. Economic realities prevent them from finding true happiness in this life, so religion tells them that this is OK because they will find true happiness in the next life. Although this is a criticism of religion, Marx is not without sympathy: people are in distress and religion provides solace, just as people who are physically injured receive relief from opiate-based drugs. Please read on, this is not an academic thesis but a probe into what has become the norm in the society we live in.

Back in the 80s right up to the 90s Ekasi there were movies showing at community halls ebhayi fossilised word for “bioscope” meaning cinema in English. In all these movies there were bad guys and good guys. The most popular ones were the Bruce Lee, Chung Lee and whatever Lee movies — kungu fu was the thing.
“Your great grandfather killed my great grandfather two hundred years ago (Nza nza! Sound track). Now I kill you.” That line would get cheers from the audience because the supreme action would be about to begin.

As usual the good guy would win at the end of the movie and the bad guy would have shortlived victory.
The way these movie story lines were crafted was to teach us that no matter what we do good always prevails. Well until later years when bad guys such as Jet Li would get away with victory.
That is what we find in religion these days. There are bad and good pastors, prophets out there and they take advantage of the way Marx saw religion — as the opium of the people.

The most unfortunate thing is that most of the victims we hear about and read about in the newspapers are women. They are so vulnerable and the bad guys in religion take advantage of them. In the 90s there was a church gathering that earned the bad guy tag. Remember Wapusa Wapusa or “touch me here, touch me there?”
Those in the know claim that the pastors declared that they had special powers and everyone in the congregation was to pray in a dark room and free sampling would take place.

So even the unluckiest of guys would rub himself on some bossom no matter what. That is a mean feat considering that no music show to date can have more women than men in attendance. Not even a ladies night outing at a nightclub can attract more women than men.
If you were to probe each and everyone one of those poor women taken advantage of you will find out numerous reasons that led them to such a congregation. The women go there out of need having tried everything in their power to find a solution to the hard knocks life would have thrown at them by whatever circumstances.

This week in the press there is a prophet who has slept with many women using one storyline of having healing powers in his anatomy. He has been doing this for years and getting away with it. The guy has slept with women of all classes from maids, company executives, lawyers, grand mothers etc on top of that they would pay him for it. The guy we are told had clients flocking to him I think he should take the Nsukuzonke nickname away from Warriors great Peter Ndlovu on and off the pitch. So lucrative was his agenda to an extent of going nationwide.

“I only use my **** when treating people. I rub it with a specific medicine for that particular disease and insert my manhood into the woman’s privates,” said the prophet.
Imagine a woman that you know having a tough time looking for a job or enrolling at a college, what does she do? Goes to the magic stick professor for a healing session on top of that keeping it a secret only telling her close friends who are having problems of their own to try the guy! The friends try the guy and become hooked to his false promises and return on numerous occasions for various problems that do not need someone to stick something into one’s body to solve.

You should see these religious bad guys do their thing. They speak in tongues uncontrollably, harsh words come out of their mouths about their clients being evil or sleeping with snakes and goblins.
Their tongues are so fast that even Busta Rhymes songs become easy to memorise. The next thing to do is to speak softly and slowly as they tell their already tired and terror stricken female clients to remove their clothes so that the snakes in their bodies are removed through you know what.

When the prophet is done that is when some but not all realise that they had been duped and that is when the bad guys are busted. Just like the saying a player plays for so long but is finally played out. That is the case with these prophets.