Why do #Zimbabweans Pray So Much?

By Takura Zhangazha*

A friend warned me about writing on religion. His argument was that you cannot win against it.  Be it Christian, Muslim or African tradition in preferential populist order. 
I thought about this for a while.  And with my basic secular perception of Zimbabwean and Southern African society I realized that indeed our Gods or perceptions of the same will always matter in our lifetimes. 

This is because there are many angles to religion.   With most of these angles of perceptions being related to our births or our deaths. 

At the same time, in the same instance, my friend asked me, why does religion matter so much for us in Africa. 

I wanted to reply that in our context it is the legacy of colonialism that makes, for example, Jesus a colossus in our lives.   

I also wanted to explain that it is our mothers, wives and sisters that remain the beating heart of our religious consciousness.  The latter for the fact of not only how they were brought up. But also because of colonial practices of what was then referred to as ‘cleanliness’. 
The emergent question however is why do Zimbabweans pray so much? 

It is a rarely asked question.

Midnight prayers, so called pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Christian rock bands in the middle of the night, consultations with various prophets or na’ngas and the recognition of Friday prayers for Allah. 
Zimbabweans are a very prayerful people.  For many pragmatic reasons.

The foremost being the fact of our desire for belonging beyond the state. That is to create meaning out of our own existence beyond the fact of waking up and going to the toilet or the risk of going to jail. 

We pray to belong and to be.  If the church did not exist we would not have either that social circle of friends nor that elder/priest who assuages our social and in part life/mortality fears.

The primary challenge however emerges with the emergence of assumptions of politics and religion being combined elelements for individuals to assume they are Godsent.
And cdes reading the bible as a convenient political manifesto. Almost as though they want to instrumentalise it for political and economic capital as most have done in the last four years.  Be they pastors or politicians.

I probably need to make it clear.  I have no problems with the freedom of worship and religion that we all share in Zimbabwe.  Even in naivety and the fact that it may give your life a new meaning.  Either via a prophet or traditional healer. 

What astounds me though is the general religious naivety with which we approach our everday existence. 

We assume there is a witch or wizard that is affecting our lack of adequate wealth.  We also assume that there is a person who is working with some prophet or traditional medicine to prevent us from becoming rich like those that live the former white suburbs. 
Religion is integral to how Zimbabweans view themselves.  

A majority of us were brought up as Christians and in admiration of a white image of Jesus. This is a cultural and by default spiritual reality.

What we have to understand in our prayerfulness is that there is a political economy to religion.  Both historically and in the present.  The mainstream churches are not established by faith.  

They are established by an accompanying historical and repressive colonialism. 
The newer Pentecostals ones are established on the back of the global cultural imperialist project of not only the CIA but also an assumption of black people’s inferiority complexes. 

That’s why we have so many of these new pastors demonstrating not only faith but also their wealth. And a definitively white Jesus. While claiming to be the way the truth and the light on his behalf.

The big issue is relatively abstract.  Karl Marx was correct when he said “ religion is the opium of the masses.”  In Zimbabwe’s case, it is not the opium, as it were.  It is the false reality deliberately, in part organically imposed on the masses 

.For what is clearly political convenience.    Wherein fake assumptions of wealth and wealth generation are pushed out by people who do not understand the harsh reality that is neoliberalism. 

Educated or uneducated.  And on this I revert to Kwame Nkrumah who taught us that if you educate an African Woman You liberate an African Nation” .   We do not have as may progressive female cdes as we had before.  Moreso because they have found ideological homes in Jesus. 

 But religion is part of our everyday social fabric.  Even when you don’t mean it to be at a personal level, you will inevitably encounter it. 
That is why Zimbabweans pray so much.  It is by default.  Almost like you have no historical, contemporary or future option.  But to pray. Insh Allah.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)