A conversation with Hicks Sikazwe
SOMEWHERE in 1974 a relative of mine was getting married. An overnight party was organized on the eve of the wedding. That was in a Chingola township called Old Airport in the Copperbelt Province.
Around midnight beer ran out. It needed to be replenished. A decision was made to go and buy from a bar. That time the only overnight bar available was an outlet called Kabondo (I hope the name is correct) it was in an area called Kabundi East. To get there you needed to walk for at least an hour because you had to pass though Kabundi North suburb, then climb a hill to roll down in Kabundi East.
On our way back we decided to take a shorter route which went through a graveyard and would get you to old airport in half the time than before. There was a debate on whether or not that was a safe passage. The lads who were carrying the beer insisted we go the cemetery way. So we did.
I was surprised that when we plunged into the cemetery even the colleagues who were drunk and had been talking the loudest went speechless. Stealthily, we meandered among the graves so quickly and went out. It was agreed we should not reveal to the party that the beer they were about to enjoy passed through a graveyard.
But in the morning, since I was the sober one I let the cat out of the bag. Some of the imbibers claimed no wonder they got so drunk. The beer had been cursed by ghosts.
In Africa majority of people fear death. In villages for sometime it was taboo for anyone to use a route near graveyard after 18:00 hours. For many years children would never be allowed to get to the cemetery to witness burial rites.
Even today some people cannot look at the body of a dead person. Even at my age I am reluctant to get anywhere near a mortuary. If by accident I was found in a situation where I have to be part of a group that takes a body into a morgue, I ensure to be at the tail end so that by the time we get to the mortuary space has run out for me am cut off at the door, meaning I am automatically left outside.
It is worse for human skeletons. Very few people have seen them. Maybe those who study in the medical field. After the skeleton find in Lusaka I talked to a lot of people, even up to 50, asking how many had encountered a human skeleton. Majority said they had only seen it in films. It is for that reason in today’s maiden article of the ‘Conversation’ we look at cults, skeletons and the modern way of praying.
Traditional churches over the years have included the Catholic Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh Adventists (SDA), The United Church of Zambia (UCZ), earlier known as the Free Church of Scotland, the Anglican Church and a few more. The mode of praying by the above organizations has not emerged any controversial.
It is the birth of the Pentecostal Movement that has ushered in a new era. The system of praying includes night overs in church buildings. In recent years, they have been spending nights in mountains as well.
Prayers include chanting, shouting loudly into microphones, music and dancing. It was after the birth of the Pentecostal Movement that claims of pastors raising people from the dead spiked. Other claims are that the churchmen heal the sick, they make the lame walk and the dumb speak. But there has been no evidence to prove this. Digital television and the internet have made the movement grow and claims appear normal.
In 1982, an evangelist with his organization called Christ for All Nations held healing sessions in the Zambia International Trade Fair grounds in Ndola and thousands flocked there. I was then writing for a church newspaper, the Mirror later called the National Mirror. So I covered the event. I did not see anyone healed. Controversial Catholic priest Father Umberto took a physically challenged person who could not speak, nothing happened. Father Umberto detailed the narrative in the popular Catholic magazine, Icengelo, of which he was the editor.
Even religious history testifies that the only person that so far managed to resurrect someone from the dead was Jesus Christ whom legend says brought back Lazarous to life. Jesus himself was found to have walked out of a tomb presumably brought back to life by God.
After Jesus no one, not even any of his disciples, has been on record to bring back a person to life. Whatever has come after that are not only claims but lies. Sadly, this is the faith the Lusaka woman who allegedly kept the remains of the husband in the house seems to have been tied to.
According to police the woman, the children and so far a neighbour prayed and applied anointing oil on the skeleton with a hope that the husband would come back to life. Religion in Africa especially after the advent of the Pentecostal Movement has left devastating effects on citizens.
Harrowing poverty and desperation have driven people to believe that they can go to sleep at a mountain to pray and get money, a husband, a wife, a job, food or luck. Today, it is common to come across images on social media of preachers selling female underwear and telling those who cannot conceive that after wearing such a garment they would have a baby. Along the way cults have emerged destroying innocent worshipers and their moral fibre.
Sex scandals, witchcraft, financial thefts are bound in most of these organizations. As a result they have damaged the name of the Church, even those faith-based institutions. Bu it is important to acknowledge that not all Pentecostal churches are bad eggs. There are many genuine ministers among them who continue to preach the gospel in a normal way without using cheap lies and extorting money from their flock.
Hicks Sikazwe is the author of Zambia’s Fallback Presidents, Wasted Years and Voters in Shadows. He is former Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Times of Zambia and now a media and communication consultant based in Ndola. Comments 0966/0955929611, 0974613941 or hpsikazwe@gmail.com
