By Wilfred Kushure
I wish to comment on the story about a prophecy on a Mugabe win which came out in the Herald of April 22 2013 as follows;
‘The indigenous prophets from the apostolic sects have previously made accurate prophecies on the political developments in Zimbabwe with the most notable one being the 1934 prediction by Johanne Masowe church leader Shonhiwa Masedza.’ Reported Tinashe Farawo in the Herald of April 22 2013.
‘As prophets, we would like to reveal the word that has been delivered to us through the spirit. We now know the winner of the next harmonised elections and it is President Robert Mugabe.’ A Bishop Johannes Ndanga is reported to have said in the same story by Mr Tinashe Farawo.
Johane Masowe/Masedza would not have agreed with the politicking 100 ‘prophets’.
Johane Masowe would not even have agreed with the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP – national office), Heads of Denominations (an inter-church body which includes ZCBC) and the Evangelical Alliance, who put out statements urging people to vote YES at the recent referendum for the Draft Constitution.
Johane would have easily dismissed the ‘prophets’ utterances as cheap. It does not need 100 overzealous people let alone standing on the spiritual platform of prophecy to get into a trance, come out of it, shake heads and conspire.
In a true Spiritual environment of a God driven truth, it would have taken one honest prophecy and one humble announcement about the future of our country. This does not need 100 people.
I have already discussed the irony of voting or even encouraging a ‘YES’ vote that provides for the killing of fellow humans. I have recently discussed the evil of government whereupon I sighted the wrong of organized authority which statisticians confirmed killed an average of 10,000 people per day in the last century, ‘with government approval’.
Therefore if as churches you publicly stand to support and encourage to vote for a document with such evil pronouncements, it is wrong.
Back to the Mugabe ‘prophets’. Modern day ‘prophets’ are of very dubious status. They are ordinary people in our midst who have equal human experiences like everybody else. Sad to say but the current trend of prophecy and current type of prophets has many times been proven very much below par.
In fact to a greater extend it is announcing public shame to the whole world if Zimbabwe were to be known to be regarding the current crop as true Prophets. It boils down to that some 100 people sat down and agreed that they want to vote for Mugabe. Period.
There was honestly nothing ‘prophetic’ about that ‘prophecy’.
Johane Masowe/Masedza would have laughed it off. He would never have stooped this low. He would not have used God’s prophetic powers to enter the ring for some politically shallow individuals. Johane would have cursed the perpetrators, announcers and spectators of this shame.
Anyone can see that it’s a campaign trail superimposed on the gravy train of modern day ‘prophecies’. One is easily reminded of the Diesel n’anga episodes and the tsikamutanda gymnastics of our day and easily compare this to the folly of the 100 Mugabe ‘prophets’ collusions.
Again the name of Johane Masowe/Masedza is used to carry the headlines and give credence to wrong things. And that is wrong and I will not sit and watch.
Johane Masowe is not part of this and I will show you the teachings of the Masowe Spiritual Leadership on the shape of our politics in Zimbabwe. We are not spiritually as shallow as them. Much better things have been revealed to us and we know better.
Johane knew well enough what should come instead of Mugabe. And he told us.
By mentioning ‘Johane’ I am also including the total spiritual teachings of some of our great prophets to date, i.e. Isaaca, Abrahama, Emanuel and Johane Masowe/Masedza himself.
The type of ‘spiritualism’ as displayed by some of these ‘prophets’ dragging prophecy into the political ring is shameful.
As a Mupositori wekuMasowe I have been taught and noted that in fact Mugabe was a mistake from the very beginning. And I say this in my personal capacity but deriving from a religious perspective.
Our land (Ivhu) was the primary objective why people waged a war for independence. Our land is what people suffered for and Ivhu was every Zimbabwean’s dream when people took up arms under the spiritual leadership of our great prophets.
What came out at independence was a great betrayal by Mugabe.
We stand accused today as a generation of gullible cowards with nothing to show to our children for the last 33 years of Zimbabwe but Mugabe and the ruins of industry and life. We now have people as old as 33 years who were born and bred to think that Zimbabwe means Mugabe and Mugabe means Zimbabwe.
And these same people have their own kids who could be around from ages 16 downwards that constitute almost half our Zimbabwean population. These also were born and grew up with Mugabe’s grip on power and influence. To them even the culture of Zimbabwe revolves around a Mugabe and his hegemony. And among these people are the majority of these 100 ‘prophets’. It is sickening.
We understand that today people are brainwashed to exalt Mugabe as the king of the Land redistribution. They exalt him for ‘giving land to the landless’. They say that he is a liberator because he is giving his people land? I do not agree.
It is not Mugabe who is giving land to people. People are taking back their land despite Mugabe. People fought for their land and they won it in 1980! They were supposed to get their land in 1980. Mugabe delayed that because he chose to negotiate the cause of our war.
With almost 50% of the country’s arable land in the hands of 6,000 commercial farmers by 1979, and white farmers, who were less than 1% of the population, owning 70% of the best farming land, Mugabe’s accepting a “willing buyer, willing seller” plan as part of the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, among other concessions to the white minority regime was the first biggest ‘moment of madness’.
I think he knows that.
Because of that Mugabe plot, land redistribution was blocked for a period of 10 long years. First Mugabe allowed 20 seats to be reserved for whites in the new Parliament, second he agreed to a ten-year moratorium on constitutional amendments.
From a spiritual standpoint, this was utter rubbish. Our people did not die in that war for this ‘sellout’ gesture!
We do not need Hondo yeminda today. We had an actual Hondo yeminda from the early 60’s to 1980. That war was for Ivhu/Minda/Land.
The second Chimurenga was sufficient Hondo yeminda to give us back our land/Ivhu and not a stage-managed repeat of the same against fellow Zimbabweans and minority racial groups.
Mugabe is our greatest regret. He is the greatest mistake of our Zimbabwean history. As I narrated before, we were warned by prophecy long before he even joined our war that he is trouble (murume iyeye achakushungurudzai…)
Johane would never have blessed a negotiated parliament decorated by a racial proportionality such as never seen during the colonial era. He would never have blessed a reconcilliated settlement that was not by choice but by a manufactured failure to emphatically beat Ian Smith both by gun and by pen.
The spiritual teachings of baba Johane would have rubbished this off. This according to Johane’s spiritual teachings was a great betrayal. Johane would never have agreed with Mugabe. The spiritual teachings of baba Johane would never have wanted to see Mugabe in office for a day.
Because of the Lancaster House negotiated failure we came back to a ‘free’ Zimbabwe and got drowned in 1. Gukurahundi 2. Murambatsvina 3. Election rigging genocides.
We hear that even Tongogara always reiterated, ‘His people’s need for “land, land, education, land” … in his last interview’. That was Tongogara, the person who commandeered the 2nd Chimurenga war. Not the present day armchair gunmen who are trigger-happy against their own people.
Today Mugabe jumps and shouts all over that he is the champion of black empowerment and indigenisation.
Everybody jumps and celebrates the lie from the one who in 1994 was rewarded by the Queen of England by being made the Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath for his concessions, and a great loss to all of us.
Johane loved unity among people. He taught us love and forgiveness. He would never have seen eye to eye with Mugabe under whose reign so much murder was committed of our own people after the war, in a supposedly free nation state.
Tongogara ‘…spoke openly in favour of unity between Zanu and Zapu. Mugabe was adamant, however that Zanu should go it alone in an election, saying Nkomo’s Zipra had not shouldered the burden of fighting.’ It is also reported in Against the Grain: Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Newsman.
“Mugabe referred to unity with Zapu as sharing the spoils with those who had not shouldered the burden of fighting,” says one Wilfred Mhanda.
This was an insult to the people of Zimbabwe. Looking back, we would have avoided Gukurahundi if one man, Mugabe, had agreed to see sense in that Zimbabwe wanted unity in 1980. But no, he wanted his own crafted ‘unity’ after apedzesa vana vevanhu.
The aspirations of Josiah Magama Tongogara is what Johane taught us. Why our gallant fighters and sons and daughters of the soil came back from war as a divided force i.e. Zanu & Zapu boggles peace loving minds. The mastermind of that is none other than Mugabe.
According to a report by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe’s Fifth Brigade under Mugabe killed between 10,000 and 20,000 people 2000 of whom were killed in the first 3 weeks of this ‘moment of madness’.
Shedding so much blood of your own people under whatever circumstances is satanic. It would never have been anyone’s suspicion that the ‘independence’ which Mugabe was telling us would one day come back to haunt such large numbers of our own brothers and sisters in especially Midlands and Matebeleland.
The unity accord of 22 December 1987 never brought back the lives of the dead. The genocide was avoidable if Mugabe was committed to unity in 1980. The unity accord does not wash away the blood of our Zimbabwean people from our door steps.
The unity accord was therefore an academic manoeuvring that lacks the spirit of the sadness of the era. We were betrayed.
Freedom means people have no government genocide and mass murder. Freedom is supposed to be a solution to genocide and mass murder. But in our case we have had Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina and the 2008 election genocide.
Free people do not make war on each other, they coexist, support each other and the greater the freedom, the less violence between them. Any right minded Christian would shudder to associate themselves with such, like what the 100 ‘prophets’ did. No practising Christian can appreciate violence and murder.
During Murambatsvina Mugabe raided his people’s homes and Housing Schemes resulting in 10,000 urban poor homeless from that “Operation’’. Among the most affected were the poor, war vets and Vapositori.
He has never come back to apologise and knowing the measure of his pride he will never do so. He has ignored it as if it never occurred. But once again the ‘independent’ people of Zimbabwe quietly suffered the horror perpetrated by Mugabe and his government.
About Murambatsvina, Johane forewarned us about the wrath under his rule and advised that we better keep a distance and resign to rural areas (murume iyeye achakushunguradzai.… Vazhinji muchachema. Dai matsvaka misha mabude mumaguta).
Murambatsvina was a war against the informal sector in Zimbabwe. Johane Masowe is the majority of that informal sector population. Baba Johane vakati tisashandire kesari (formal employment).
Mugabe was well aware of that. He waged a war against the defenseless Apostolic Christian community whose doctrine forbids us to seek formal employment.
Magaba, Chikwanha and the informal structures in the outskirts of the formalised arrangements is our abode because baba Johane said so. And exactly those areas were Mugabe’s target during Murambatsvina. Baba Johane would have cried.
Some of us who are in Spiritual Religions do not get easily swayed by the winds of temporary myopic zeal and celebrate the wrong.
Spiritual teachings can reveal to us that Zimbabwe has had, has and will have better heroes of our freedom than Mugabe. We have better things to do than campaign for Mugabe’s win through solicited false prophecies.
We know that Mugabe did not start our war of revolution as many pseudo politicians want people to believe. Remember David Guzuzu, Arthur Maramba, Christopher Chatambudza, Simon Chingozha Nyandoro, Godfrey Manyerenyere, Godwin Dube and Chubby Savanhu of the famous Chinhoyi battle.
Remember the Zipra freedom fighters facing thirst and hunger while loaded with artillery across the treacherous and crocodile-infested Zambezi river and the ruggedness of the Zambezi es-carpment in the 60’s.
Talk of Charles Mzingeli, Benjamin Burombo, Joshua Nkomo, Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo, Josiah Magama Tongogara, Lookout Masuku, Jason Ziyapapa Moyo and you are talking of the origins of our war.
Zanla was led by Hebert Chitepo from early 60’s until ’72 then General Tongo. Mugabe joined the war of liberation from detention. It must be fairly noted that Mugabe in fact only joined the 2nd Chimurenga.
That war has its fathers and prophets not the modern day pretenders and ‘prophet’ money mongers. Mugabe joined the struggle a decade after the war had already started. And 11 years after the 28th April 1966 Chinhoyi battle of Chubby Savanhu, Guzuzu and team.
He was even a suspect when he reached Mozambique. He was reportedly restricted to some odd locations away from all the trusted cadres. He was not trusted by the Mgagao trained cardres who he later connived to purge. Cadres in Zambia were suspicious of him and Tongogara was angry with Tekere for ever having brought him over.
We are told of an academic and timid Robert Mugabe combing the bushes led by Edgar Tekere to join the struggle in Mozambique.
A Mugabe who even Samora Machel did not trust, ‘’ I respect Mugabe, but he does not measure up to this scale of military operation and planning. He does not belong as a soldier’’ Samora Machel is reported to have said, once upon a time.
We read that Rex Nhongo/Mujuru was already there, the likes of Serbia, Teurai Ropa and other serious, clever and brave girls were already accomplished and active when Robert Mugabe joined our war from detention.
A Mugabe who is reported to have been doubted even by the late great Army General Josiah Magama Tongogara as in, ‘You are the one who brought a sell-out here’. A Mugabe who even doubted the essence of our war after the Chimoio massacre as ‘’…not worth the cost”.
We are open eyed enough to see that Mugabe is not the kind of leader who champions our Zimbabwean cause. He does not fit in well with our religious expectations of an able ordained leader. He disqualified himself a very long time ago.
No one has so far dared challenge Wilfred Mhanda and Edgar Tekere’s war descriptions. Both of them painted a picture of a timid Mugabe who was an opportunist in the midst of a bloody revolution.
We respect him today but not as a revolutionary but as a shrewd political tactician who has managed to outmanoeuvre everyone so far. Together with which is the unexplained episodes on the long walk to freedom of mysterious deaths and disappearances of some of our own people during his reign.
We will remember him much not as a revolutionary but as a very educated Statesman and a great orator. A very cunning and vengeful character and an unassuming terror in our midst. It ends there.
Even his own uncle James Chikerema had this to say about him ‘Mugabe is a reticent, intelligent and quiet man … moody. He is too proud … ” added uncle Chikerema. Who are we to see otherwise? Mugabe has demonstrated this personality already with all the evidence awash.
Johane would never have celebrated him as a hero of liberation. He does not fit the perfect description of a revolutionary. He was a good orator and passionate speaker who pushed everybody to the measures he publicly refused to go. (we are told that he refused to even hold a gun or put on uniform during the years of our war).
Mugabe divided our people. Johane would have loved a unity among the suffering masses of the Zimbabwean black population. Not another war against defenceless citizens.
Baba Johane would have embraced Joshua Nkomo, Alfred Nikita Mangena, Dumiso Dabengwa and Lookout Masuku. He would have embraced Hebert Chitepo, Josiah Magama Tongogara, Edgar Tekere, Mayor Urimbo, Serbia etc .
Johane would have warned Mugabe to work together with all patriotic forces and revolutionary leadership in the bushes and the diaspora arena, in love for a united force against retrogression and evil.
This is where Johane predicted the war before Mugabe moves out of office. He would never have liked to see another Mugabe ruled chaotic Zimbabwe.
We do not miss the point that Mugabe inherited a regime system that is foreign to us. We understand that our spiritual forefathers would have been very angry with Mugabe. He has systematically presided over a cultural erosion which is the sorrow and regret of our religious background in our Zimbabwean culture.
Mugabe does not identify with us. He does not seem to care who we are and where we are coming from as a national culture. He behaves culturally alien and empty. He does not seem to know us and our great history.
We are the Shona of Munhumutapa from Tanganyika (The origin / centre of Earth) of Guruhuswa. We come from up there in the heartlands of origins of humanity. We belong to God.
We are not a cheap ‘roots-less’ people who do not report to anyone and / or anything. We have a clear religious identity whose calling a leader among us must listen to. We are a religious people with the Mwari religion written all over us and imprinted in our blood.
We do not kill each other. We love each other. We are a very hospitable people and we love our neighbours.
Gukurahundi is not like us. Ropa rinosvibisa nyika in the eyes of our God. We risk being a curse before the Prince of Peace, Jesus. Johane told us that as a nation Zimbabwe ‘Hatina Isu mhaka yeropa…’ and that was before Mugabe’s ‘moment of madness’.
History lessons have told us that the chiefs and kings of the colonial era betrayed out prophets. It is the chiefs and kings who betrayed the religious efforts of our time. The historical chiefs and kings fraternity now headed by Mugabe is what destroyed the culture of our religious nationalistic aspirations.
He is the culprit.
The colonial headmen, chiefs and kings were bought over by the Whiteman and fronted by the colonial DA’s unleashed a war against our religious set up and the destruction of which Mugabe has inherited, perpetuated and administered so expertly.
Not that Mugabe is ‘unelectable’ as Simba Makoni puts it. Mugabe is just not the man. This is a very crucial moment in our history as a nation. We need to reflect and mobilise all divineness to see correctly. We are past the stages and ages of fear. The future is in our hands and God will take care of the rest.
For sober Christians like some of us it is rewarding to dine and die on the side of the poor, defenceless and voiceless masses than dine and die on the side of Mugabe. It is blessing to be like Jesus and to resist evil.
Johane Masowe/Masedza would not have agreed with Johannes Ndanga’s 100 ‘prophets’.
Wilfred Kushure is a member of the Johane Masowe church and a Christian Anarchist contactable on: wilfred.kushure@gmail.com