DEFINE DEMOCRACY - SOME CHURCH LEADERS

MBABANE - Some church leaders have challenged  Lawyer Sicelo Mngomezulu, to first define democracy to them before he could call upon them to preach it in their churches.

Mngomezulu, who is one of the legal representatives for the incarcerated Members of Parliament (MPs), had called upon church leaders to preach democracy in churches when addressing the nation, on Swaziland Democratic News after the adjournment of the MPs case last week Wednesday. The clergymen said there was no way they could preach about something they themselves did not understand. In random interviews, some clergymen said they were confused as to what democracy the lawyer was talking about. It should be noted that even though they shared almost similar sentiments, some opted to remain anonymous in fear of victimisation while others declined to comment.

The church leaders said congregants were too smart to not just listen to them without seeking clarity when told about democracy. “If you are a leader standing before a congregation, you should be able to articulate and provide answers to every question once you decide to preach on a subject. Every lesson should be accompanied by comparison and examples. We are old and we have seen the world. We have never seen any country boasting about its democracy. What we see are cries across the world,” said Archbishop Mncina, who leads over 80 Zion Church branches in the Hhohho Region.  

Mncina said anyone wishing for him to preach democracy in his church should first furnish him with a list of countries with a better end when it comes to democracy. He said good leaders did not preach to confuse people, but to give them direction. He said it would be better if anyone calling for them to preach about democracy was to give them a list of fully democratic countries as a reference. He said good things were copied from those who did good.

Challenge

“My challenge when it comes to politics is that, we sometimes employ words which do not mean what we are saying. We need to understand the type of politics we are talking about. Politics could be biblical and social, among other things. In my understanding, the word politics is a Greek Latin and is divided into two. ‘Poli’ means alone and ‘tics’ means you benefit alone. If we were to look at the true meaning, we can agree that politics means a way of allowing someone to brainwash others for personal gain,” he said. He made an example of an aspiring MP, who appeared for the first time to the people and gave them bread so that he/she could be elected into Parliament. He said people voted for that individual just because they had allowed themselves to the brainwashed.

He said as far as he was concerned, the word democracy was used everywhere with different meanings. Mncina said it would be good for whosoever was calling churches to preach about democracy to unpack the democracy related to churches. He said in the absence of the real definition of democracy in church, he found it hard to stand before the church and preach it.
Mncina stated that churches did not preach oppression and rebellion, but prepared people for Heaven. He said preaching about Heaven did not mean they forced them to repent. He said it was for that reason that some people decided to go to hell even if they were preached to.

Mncina highlighted that the church had been confused by the burning of public and private properties and attacks on individuals who seemed opposed to the call for democracy.
“Why would people be threatened and have their properties burnt for their differing opinions if we really want democracy as a country.  Does it mean I have to be attacked for exercising my right to freedom of speech, expression and opinion? These are the things we need clarity on judging from the current situation before we can preach democracy in churches,” Mncina added.

Democracy

Apostle Jeremiah Dlamini said there was no way he could preach democracy in church without a proper explanation from those advocating for it. “We have seen the vandalism of crucial structures such as shops, schools, tinkhundla centres, police stations, heavy plant machinery and individual homesteads since the call for democracy started in Eswatini. We cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the vandalism and burning of properties has seen a large number of people losing jobs. We had also seen pupils being lured into boycotting classes, something which has a negative impact on the education sector. Is this the democracy we should preach in churches?” asked Dlamini.

He said the pro-democracy forces should come out clearly if they had any link to the disturbing events, which he said caused a major setback for the country.  He stated that to the best of his understanding, it was not a crime to have a following, resulting from one’s good work. He said what people needed to do was to convince emaSwati about their leadership qualities as opposed to perpetuating violence which had been characterised by the burning and threatening of those with differing opinions and further burning their properties. Dlamini said what emaSwati needed to understand was that people who ended up being the top brass only needed the masses to push their agenda, which was termed democracy.

“I have been privileged to travel to different countries. I have never seen a top brass enjoying the benefits with the masses. The masses always complain because the people whom they entrusted with the positions show them their true colors once they secure the higher pinnacle,” he said. “You can go all over the world, the people who are complaining about the manner in which they are being governed are the very same people who spent their time and risked their lives fighting for change,” he said. He continued to state that he held the old gospel which said men should head families, pastors head churches and kings head countries. Dlamini stated that education did not matter and could not be used to undermine positions that were not created by man.

He said those who wanted to force things to happen by threatening and burning other people’s properties were inviting curses from God. He said God was yet to deal with those who attacked innocent people in the name of democracy. Dlamini said preaching democracy in churches would result in churches being viewed as supporting the ongoing violence, yet churches were calling for peace.

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