Thought for the Day, 23 June 2009

The Rt Rev. Tom Butler

The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, is in town and met yesterday with Gordon Brown. We had a foretaste of his message in Southwark Cathedral on Saturday afternoon when we hosted a gathering of well over a thousand Zimbabweans in Britain wishing to hear from their Prime Minister. My diocese is linked to four Zimbabwean dioceses and there have been regular visits in both directions for over a decade. We've lived with our Zimbabwean friends through dreadful times and so we were only too willing to host Saturday's gathering although we realized that there may be problems and the critical banners outside the cathedral put shape to them. It was obvious that some of his supporters, based in the UK, were angry that, by becoming Robert Mugabe's Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai was giving legitimacy to a brutal regime.

Nevertheless there was a real cheer when he entered the cathedral, and his speech went well enough until he claimed that the situation in Zimbabwe was much improved with schools and hospitals re-opening and that he therefore wanted the Zimbabweans in Britain to come home and help with the task of re-building the nation. This was not well received and he was greeted with a storm of booing and shouts of anger. As hosts of the occasion the Dean and I became a little anxious but when I appealed to the African sense of hospitality, reminding the gathering that Morgan Tsvangirai was a guest in our home and should be listened to with respect, the situation calmed somewhat and he was able to continue with his speech and field a series of mostly critical questions.

It's obvious that he's in a very difficult situation. He believes that, had he not accepted the invitation to share government there would have been bloodshed. He pleaded for people to put the past behind them. He's desperate to secure resources to pay teachers and nurses and other government servants but he can only do this if he can persuade the UK government that there is evidence that things are improving in what he calls transitional times. But by saying, "You must come home" he is suggesting that it is safe to do so and that removes any foundation for a successful asylum claim in the UK. No wonder a number in the audience were angry. There are more than 50,000 Zimbabweans in the UK and we benefit from their presence, yet it's true that their skills and energy are needed back home although I understand their well-founded anxieties about violence and economic chaos.

On Saturday we argued out these matters in a place of faith, a cathedral, and perhaps that was appropriate, for people of faith have been here before. When the people of Judah returned to their shattered homeland from exile in Babylon, their anxieties were great and the arguments and disputes about the best way forward were fierce. Of course some of the people in the cathedral on Saturday had real fears and worries but a country in biblical times or now will not recover from disastrous neglect without the skills of its most talented people.