RENTING OUR OWN HOUSE
Why do people have to sacrifice so much to become free? And why do those in power resist so much
people’s desire for freedom? These are modern
questions. For centuries, people felt
they had no choice but accept whoever it was who ruled. If they were lucky he
or she was benevolent. Often this was not so and people suffered in silence
under the weight of tyranny. Today things are different. People believe things do not have to be as they
are. Change is possible.
That is why the people of the Sudan are engaged in a life and
death (literally) struggle to attain civilian rule, knowing full well that even
if and when it is attained it is only ‘half a loaf’. Civilian rule can also be manipulated to
benefit a few at the expense of the many. There is often a further struggle –
to make civilian rule accountable to the people. The United States struggled to
attain her freedom two and a half centuries ago. But less than a hundred years
later she was involved in another bitter struggle to extend that freedom. Thousands
died. Half way through that war President Lincoln told the people:
It is rather for
us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these
honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave
the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth
of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
Sudan is not
the only country engaged in this struggle today. There are others; some further
along the way to accountability than others. I live in one country north of the
Zambezi and have strong ties with another south of it. The common element in
both countries, and in many others, is the lack of a civic sense. People do not own their country, they
tolerate it. The government owns it and
so – like someone who rents a house – they, the people, have little desire to
repair it or improve it. They do not invest, in every sense, in their country
because they do not feel it is theirs.
In the
euphoria of freedom the leaders of the new Zimbabwe set out high ideals:
ZANU
believes that the common interests of the people are paramount in all efforts
to exploit the country’s resources; that the productive processes must involve
them as full participants in the decision making processes, management and control
of those resources. (Election Manifesto 1980)
The
same people who wrote these words then are running the country now. Do they reflect
on how far they have gone along the road of achieving these goals?
And
the people, how long will they wait patiently renting their own house?
Sunday
is the feast of Pentecost when ‘what sounded like a powerful wind shook the
whole house’. The gift of the Spirit is not for our personal lives only but for
the whole human family and if it is to have an effect it must reach into every
corner of our lives – even our civic sense.
9 June 2019 Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-11 Romans 8 John 14:15-16, 23-26
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