Paul T Shipale
Firstly, Muzorewa slowly entered into the turbulent Black Nationalist politics when the radical white Bishop Ralph Edward Dodge, Head of the United Methodist Church between 1956 and 1964 was deported in 1964. The deportation Order asked Bishop Dodge to leave Rhodesia within fifteen days as from 16 July 1964. The main reason was that Dodge had characteristically defied ‘white Rhodesian tradition’ by insisting on ‘eating with blacks, staying with blacks and riding on the same buses with African pastors, to the extent it was possible to become one with the people and churches he had been sent to serve’ (Mungazi, 1991:vii). In our context, Bishop Dodge was like Reverend Michael Scott in Namibia. Accordingly, Muzorewa organized and led mass protests against the Smith’s regime for taking the high-handed action of deportation.
Secondly, Muzorewa appeared as one of the principal critics of the white regime when Smith proclaimed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in November 1965.
In addition, the World Methodist Council met in Geneva, Switzerland on 18-21 August 1970 and expressed a profound dismay at Smith’s repressive measures against blacks. As a churchman-cum-politician, Muzorewa expressed a theology of combat in the context of Zimbabwe’s journey to majority rule. This is how he became a national symbol of black resistance against white supremacist policies at a time when majority of the mainstream nationalists were locked up in various prisons across the country. For instance, ZANU’s Sithole, including Robert Mugabe and ZAPU’s Nkomo and their compatriots were languishing in various Maximum prisons between 1964 and 1974 (Dickie and Rake, 1973). The ten years that the black nationalists spent in the prisons worked to delay the roadmap for majority rule for Zimbabwe.
This is the scenario under which Muzorewa emerged as a politician and his principal purpose was to fill in the political chasm and keep the fire of Black Nationalism on in the 1970s. Accordingly, together with Canaan Banana, Muzorewa emerged to form the United African National Council (U.A.N.C) in 1971. As other historians concur, ZANU and ZAPU leaderships placed themselves under the umbrella of Muzorewa’s U.A.N.C in order to resist the Pearce Commission in 1971.
Muzorewa’s mandate was to oppose British proposals in which Harold Wilson wanted to strike a deal with Ian smith. Smith wanted the sanctions that were imposed on Rhodesia in 1966 to go. Britain wanted legitimate political order to prevail in Rhodesia. But the black nationalists though were in prisons, wanted majority independence based on one-man one vote (Shamuyarira, 1965:142).
So, Muzorewa was mandated to declare, countrywide, that there was to be no independence before majority rule (NIBMAR). Muzorewa was so successful in executing his mandate. The proposed British deal flopped as blacks shot the referendum. Lord Pearce returned to Britain empty-handed. The result was that Muzorewa emerged as a populist national leader and an international diplomat.
As the armed struggle escalated in the mid-1970s, Smith capitalized on Muzorewa’s newfound image and political popularity and struck a deal with him to form an interim regime. Accordingly, Muzorewa, alongside Sithole and Chief Chirau, was involved in peace talks with Ian Smith. On 3 March 1978, these three personalities signed an Internal Settlement agreement at Governor’s Lodge in Salisbury under the portrait of Cecil John Rhodes. Following elections of March 1979, Muzorewa was elected Prime Minister of a country that was re-named Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. Though Smith wished away white rule, but it must be noted that he had not wished away white power.
The whites were guaranteed enough seats in the legislature to block any constitutional change (Martin and Johnson, 1981). This is why patriotic hardliners like Nkomo and Mugabe failed to cooperate and so denounced the Interim regime and its internal signatories: Muzorewa, Sithole and Chirau, as the ‘three blacksmiths’ as an indictment to Muzorewa and continued the armed struggle unabatedly. Besides, there was no international recognition to the Internal Settlement. Even the United Nations (UN) failed to cooperate and through the Security Council Resolution 423, the UN declared Muzorewa’s Internal Settlement as illegal (Brockman, 1994).
Largely due to the U.N’s non-cooperation and non-recognition, this compelled Britain’s Margaret Thatcher to ask all major political stakeholders to come to London to negotiate and solve the Rhodesian question. Muzorewa, Smith, Nkomo and Mugabe attended the Lancaster House Conference from 10 September to 15 December 1979. It was chaired by Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary. Amongst other resolutions, Muzorewa was persuaded to accept fresh elections. Those elections were held in February 1980. Mugabe won and became Prime Minister of a new independent country.
Contrary to what Muzorewa did, this is not what Bishop Kalangula did. In fact, it was precisely because of Abel Muzorewa, Canaan Banana and other African Clergy or ‘man of the cloth’ in Zimbabwe that the apartheid regime tried to mimic what happened in Zimbabwe and bring it to Namibia by recruiting the African Clergy or man of the cloth into politics. This is how we remember when Bishop Kalangula entered politics following in the footsteps of Cornelius T. Ndjoba.
Peter Kalangula was born at Omafo in Ohangwena Region, Ovamboland on 12 March 1926 and after studying at St Mary’s School, Odibo trained as a teacher through correspondence. In 1966 he began theological studies to train to be an Anglican priest. He studied at first at the Federal Theological Seminary in Alice, South Africa, and then at St Bede’s Theological College, Mthatha.
Peter Kalangula was ordained as a deacon in the Church of the Province of Southern Africa but was not ordained as a priest because of a strong disagreement with Bishop Colin Winter in November 1969 as he wanted a separate Anglican diocese in Ovamboland, separate from the Diocese of Damaraland. He then broke away and formed the Ovamboland Anglican Church as an African independent church, with the support of South African government officials and the Security Police. The Ovamboland Anglican Church was later associated with the Church of England in South Africa, and Kalangula was ordained a priest in 1979.
In 1973 he was nominated to the Ovambo Legislative Council as a member of the Ovambo delegation to the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference 1975–1977 and joined the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) as a member of the Namibia Democratic Party (NDP). He became a member of the DTA head committee until 1980 and participated in the 1978 elections, becoming a DTA member of the interim government from 1979–1983. He tried to persuade the DTA to form a single party, and when it failed to do so he left to form the Christian Democratic Action for Social Justice (CDA) and participated in the 1989 election under the supervision of the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) and lost.
As such, the late Bishop Kalangula was not like the late Reverend Theophilus Hamutumbangela and other African Clergy, like Bishop Zephania Kameeta who was an exponent of liberation theology and supported the struggle for independence including the armed liberation struggle. In 1975, Kameeta founded the Namibia National Convention, a group founded to promote Black Consciousness. He was arrested by the South African authorities for protesting against the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference.
Kameeta served as a member of the Central Committee of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) from 1977 to 2002. When Namibia became independent in 1990 he was elected as a SWAPO member of the National Assembly, becoming its first Deputy Speaker. In 1997 he was elected to SWAPO’s Politburo where he remained until 2002.
Unlike Bishop Kameeta, the late Bishop Kalangula was just one of those churchman-cum-politicians and generally described as a political sell-out who ‘dined and wined’ with the white status quo at the expense of the suffering blacks in the 1970s and 1980s. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of my employer and this newspaper but solely my personal views as a citizen.
