 |
| Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora |
Secretary for Primary and Secondary Education Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango officially launched the national pledge this week amid concerns from Christian parents that its content violates the liberty of conscience.
The pledge is designed to encourage a patriotic work ethic among students and upholds honesty and hard work, while affirming freedom, justice and equality as national values.
The idea of a pledge has been welcomed, especially considering that genuine patriotism seems to be in short supply, particularly in the country’s corruption-riven corporate and political sectors.
However, the content is currently the subject of religious and civic controversy.
Christians have emerged as the main dissenting party, contesting the pledge on grounds of liberty of conscience.
Reasons for opposing the pledge differ among parents, teachers and church leaders, but opponents concur that it was necessary to consult and solicit contributions for the pledge from the cross-section of stakeholders.
Opponents to the pledge, as it is presently constituted, say that debate must have preceded the pledge instead of being deferred to the “post-mortem.”
By virtue of the national significance of the pledge, Christians argue, the Primary and Secondary Education Ministry must have opened the door for citizens to directly contribute instead of presenting a document which was no longer on the table for deliberation.
Solomon Saungweme, a pastor with the United Methodist Church, said the pledge is a welcome idea but its content is not reflective of and sensitive to the climate of opinion because key stakeholders were excluded from the authorship of the document.
“Government, parents, teachers, traditional leaders, religious groups and other stakeholders must have been involved in the crafting of the pledge,” Saungweme said.
“A national pledge is ideally common ground where we hold things that are most assuredly believed among us about Zimbabwe. The diversity that is upheld in the pledge must have been reflected in the authorship of the same. Given this missing dimension, the current pledge falls short of its ‘national’ adjective.
“The idea is not just to make people pledge; rather people must be convinced and convicted about what they are saying. In the church we say ‘I believe, therefore I speak. Belief and conviction cannot be played down,” he said.
Meanwhile, the conservative tendency of Zimbabwe Christians is jittery that the pledge will be the ministry’s instrument for supplanting the Lord’s Prayer from schools.
Zimbabwe is a secular democracy but Christianity is the majority religion, estimated at above 70 percent of the country’s population, and prayer has been an enduring feature in schools, apparently as a trace of the missionary factor in the country’s educational sector.
The pledge does not acknowledge a particular faith but opens with an invocation of God and affirms allegiance to different national symbols.
“Almighty God, in whose hands our future lies, I salute the national flag,” opens the pledge, now mandatory for children to recite at assembly.
“United in our diversity, by our common desire for freedom, justice and equality. Respecting the brave fathers and mothers who lost lives in the Chimurenga/Umvukela and national liberation struggles.
“We are proud inheritors of the richness of natural resources. We are proud creators and participants of the richness of our natural resources. We are proud creators and participants in our vibrant traditions and cultures. We commit to honesty and the dignity of hard work,” says the pledge.
Parents opposed to the pledge argue that it is a prayer which elevates secular symbols such as the national flag and deceased liberation war heroes, which scenarios they equate to idolatry and ancestral worship.
As such, opponents to the pledge argue that presenting it as a compulsory requirement violates the liberty of conscience, a value provided by Zimbabwe’s Constitution.
Critics have also invoked a constitutional line of attack that “no person may be compelled to take an oath that is contrary to their religion or their belief”?
Some have gone so far as to suggest that “Almighty God” is being merely invoked as a mediator to these “secular symbols,” hence going against the scruples of religious people who regard God as the supreme authority.
Others are challenging the ministry on the basis that implementing the pledge is essentially requiring an oath from minors.
A Harare man last week unsuccessfully applied for an urgent interdict against the pledge.
Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku turned down the application but directed the registrar of the Constitutional Court at the most convenient date. The hearing has been provisionally set for June 29.
Primary and Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora argues that the wording of the pledge is drawn from the preamble of Zimbabwe’s Constitution and is not call to paganism.
“There is no other God that is acknowledged in the school pledge, neither does the school pledge demand worshipping or bowing to any other god,” Minister Dokora said in his opposing affidavit.
“The new framework is premised on among other things, values, so eloquently described by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Education and Training (CIET) chaired by Dr Caiphas Nziramasanga as missing from our education system,” he said.
Minister Dokora maintained that the pledge is not a prayer but simply a commitment which begins by acknowledging God.
In an interview with Star FM, Dokora addressed issues of faithful retention.
“The preamble to that Constitution has given us the terms. We have simplified where the Constitution said as forbears. The Constitution, also in the preamble, commit to honesty and the dignity of hard work, that’s all we are committing to,” he said.
“And we said if we say ‘we’ for the little ones, they might get lot so we sought editorial authority to say we should be saying so I for the junior and secondary schools so I commit to the dignity and honesty of hard work who doesn’t want to commit to honesty, who doesn’t want to commit to the dignity of hard work?” Minister Dokora challenged.
Apparently, the minister is fighting on two fronts. Other dissenting opinions are altogether against the invocation of God from secular motivation.
“Maybe we should have started earlier because there are others who say ‘Why acknowledges God? We are on our own here on earth.’ Then I said look ‘It’s not me. We are finding ways to teach a value system so if you have problems with the pledge, means you have problems with the constitution,’” he said.
“So what you take to the High Court or what you take to the Constitutional Court it not the pledge but it’s the Constitution. And, of course, the Constitutional Court is where the experts are and they will be able to help us all but otherwise the words are taken from that preamble,” Minister Dokora added.
Thando Nkomo and academic with the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) said there must be a balance whereby Christians should respect the desire of the nation to have a pledge, while Government desists from forcing force people to recite a pledge which violates their conscience.
“Zimbabwe is a secular nation not a theocracy. Citizens are fortunate that they have not been put in situations that compel us to deviate from freedom to exercise religious beliefs and practices. When a country enacts laws that seek to curtail worship, then we can get worried,” Nkomo said.
“If some people feel that the pledge is a call to paganism, then they should not be forced to participate. Forcing someone to act against their will is a suppression of liberty of conscience,” he said.
Nkomo said it was ideal to consult and solicit content from different stakeholders like parents and teachers before coming up with a pledge.
“The content of a nationally binding pledge should have been debated and agreed upon. Policies should come from the peoples. Leaders must not come up with policies without consulting the people who elect them,” Nkomo said.
“When we came up with a new national anthem, there was involvement and transparency. That’s why people did not have problems with it,” he said.
Pastor Simba Manyika of Christ National took issue the content of the pledge which he said “starts with God and ends with ancestors.”
“As parents, we have the right to determine the destiny of our children because they go to schools at our expense. The ministry is not a chief parent which unilaterally chooses the course of our children,” Pastor Manyika said.
Another Christian leader in the charismatic fold, Gift Kanyenze said Christians have never rebelled against any national symbol but when it comes to a pledge they must equally be allowed to contribute.
“We have no scruples against the flag, the Zimbabwe Bird, constitution or our leaders. During our events, we acknowledge the Zimbabwean leaders, councilors, chiefs, headmen, district administrators, MPs, senators and other leaders,” Kanyenze said.
“The problem is only emerging because we were not consulted as parents. Given our diversity, the ministry must have opened door for everyone to speak so as to negotiate around nuances before presenting a finished document,” he said.
“As Christians we believe our children should not salute any symbol in an address to God as we are determined in our monotheism. We also consider ancestral worship objectionable,” he added.
“We are not against nationalism or the contributions of the late heroes and heroines. What we find unacceptable from our side is for the ministry to impose on our children a prayer which their parents consider amiss,” said Kanyenze.
Reports that the ministry is planning an overhaul of the Scripture Union, a voluntary Christian club, and replace it with a multi-faith programme has also flared up controversy.
Critics say that disbanding Scripture Union as it is presently constituted equates trampling on the liberty of conscience, considering that it was not compulsory.
Instead of subjecting students to a hybrid of belief systems, critics say the ministry must simply allow other faiths to convene in their own right in the spirit of religious liberty.
The multi-faith alternative precludes the observance of faith as matter of personal choice.
These issues have unnecessarily set Minister Dokora on a warpath with parents, teachers and Christian leaders who feel that the minister is out to disenfranchise them.
There are lesser chances for citizens contesting decisions for which their contributions were solicited. After all, education is ideally reflective of the values of the community which it serves.
Patriotism and liberty of conscience are not mutually exclusive. The apparent contradiction has come about because not everyone was at the table beforehand to contribute.
