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Posted: September 17
Oskar Wermter SJ wrote me from Harare, Zimbabwe about the situation in that troubled country. Oskar is originally from Germany but has long worked in Zimbabwe as a journalist. He also headed the diocesan radio production studio. He writes:
Zimbabwe is in deep trouble. Things will get worse before they get better. But just as peace came to this country when we had almost despaired of it at the end of the war in the 1970s so we trust that change will come this time too, though the peace that came contained already the seeds of our present violence and turmoil. There is no total liberation this side of the coming of the Kingdom. But there is no totally hopeless situation either.
I used to write on social justice issues in the Daily News for several years, recently on a weekly basis, every Wednesday. Now the paper has been banned, we do not know for how long. A collection of articles published in the Daily News and a few other papers was recently published as a small book by Paulines Publications Africa, Nairobi, Kenya: Politics – For Everyone and By Everyone, A Christian Approach.
These are hard times for the media and media workers. The Zimbabwe Jesuit Province has revived, against all the odds, its little house magazine MUKAI – VUKANI, Jesuit Journal for Zimbabwe which I am editing with the assistance of a young fellow Jesuit, Samson Munashe Nchanamilo SJ and supported by an editorial board. The second issue of the new Mukai (no 23 altogether) is just about to come from the printers. If you are interested let me know and we include you on our subscribers’ list. We even have a few copies of no 22 left.
We need to lay the new moral and spiritual foundations for a future Zimbabwe. Of particular interest is a new constitution. And we will have to think now about how to do deal with the political crimes of recent years and their perpetrators. It seems that the “forgive and forget” policy of 1980 was not such a good idea after all. ,
These are the things we have to think about, rather than moaning and groaning about the shortages of petrol, food and banknotes plaguing us at present. While anti-media laws do not invite you to start new initiatives, we have to think of the future. They can suppress the voices of the people for a time, but not forever. Many press publications, including some published by the church, have bitten the dust, and broadcasting just cannot develop in the present hostile climate. But we think very hard about community radios for Zimbabwe anyhow.
Yours sincerely,
Oskar Wermter SJ