Saturday 14 July 2007

From Pius V to Pius Ncube

I'm interested in the deeply courageous Archbishop Pius Ncube's efforts to rid Zimbabwe of Mugabe's less-than-decent government. It all depends, however, on who wins in the end.
I mean that there is a parallel, though not an exact one, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. While not as rapacious as her father, Henry VIII (I just read in a footnote to More's Utopia that he executed 72,000 people for theft alone, and restitution was made to him, not the victims), she nonetheless made life very unpleasant for her Catholic subjects, who were yet required to swallow the idea of Gloriana and the Virgin Queen. And yet, to this very day, there is a certain discomfort among English Catholics about the fact that some of them supported the idea of the Spanish Armada. This is played down, and even denied in some quarters, and yet Ncube's plea that foreign forces come to the aid of Zimbabwe's suffering people is not that dissimilar. My sympathies are with Ncube, I have to say, and yet, even though I am not English, I still instinctively hesitate (a product of my English education, no doubt) to say that a conquering Armada would have been a good thing.
Funny old world.

4 comments:

WhiteStoneNameSeeker said...

Father, I blogged on Archbishop Ncube's call to Britain myself recently.
I think he is a brave man.
I'm going to be studying the Amada with my dd for home ed next term.

Britain - it could be argued- owe the people of Zimbabwe because of Rhodesia (my FIL lived in Rhodesia). I don't know. But I think the good and brave archbishop must be desparate if he is asking Britain for help. He must know the help wont be forthcoming-and yet he asks.

It's such a terrible situation. Starvation in Africa's bread basket!

EC Gefroh said...

He is a brave priest. I am linking to this one too Father. Mahalo.

Anonymous said...

i need to brush up on my history!

Anonymous said...

Many moons ago I was taking a course in recent history of African nations. I don't remember zip about the course, except for this one thing: the Nigerian professor teaching it said: "You modern American students don't realize that in my country a coup isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes the civilian government is so bad we are happy for a military coup." He said this in 1978. I don't know what he'd say now.