It is another wonderful Friday, isn't it? Well. I think it is.
While it remains sad that last week we did not have an article, I must admit that I was relieved to note that no single soul enquired about the thing. That was nice. No guilt whatsoever. Prior to that missed article, however I had promised to give my readers something about the comments by some blue zealots. Yeah. That thing about the age of the Pope and more importantly the reaction it triggered.
If you haven't been living under some sort of huge rock or in the stone age, you might have heard the audio or watched the video clips of some DPP official (Deputy Director of Youth, I think) who in his defence for Prof Mutharika's fresh bid for presidency amidst calls for him to step down due to old age, decided to compare the Malawi leader to the leader of the Catholic church. His argument was that the Pope is very old and in fact older than APM, thus warranting the president another mandate. His age is optimal, in other words. To spice the remarks up, they good man even went on to call out one senior party official who is a Catholic before voicing out his views.
The week following the rally saw the audio and video clips of the speech become the subject of discussion in the social media, and more so on my favorite Whatsapp. Being a Catholic faithful myself, I got to see them reaction as it unfolded in the various church Whatsapp groups and status updates of fellow staunch Catholics who were outraged by the fact that a politician called out to their leader. Fair point, right? Maybe not.
An interesting angle to the discussion came up when the same issue was debated on a rather neutral forum. This is one professional forum where discussions on politics and religion are tolerated thus the story found a niche for discussion. While most sympathized and sided with the Catholics on the issue and condemned the blue zealot in question, a small sect pointed out that the whole issue had been blown out of proportion and that people needed to swallow a chill pill and get the issue over with. Some even pointed out that people (including the offended Catholics ) needed to stop playing double standards over issues as they had earlier joined the bandwagon in trivializing the issue of the "dancing Dorica" a couple of weeks earlier.
The dancing Dorica. This was a Mighty BeForward Wanderers supporter who came to the stadium dressed in the full suit of the Seventh Day Adventist women's guild kit for a game. The issue triggered some reaction from the SDA faithful but others jumped to the defence of the guy saying that Adventists needed to swallow a chill pill over the matter. Some even produced a picture of an Argentine supporter who showed up to the stadium in a papal attire, a thing that went without incident. I will leave you to decide whether that was a relatable comparison.
Back on the Whatsapp group, I found myself miserably failing to resist the urge to comment. My view? Both issues (ya Dorika komanso ya a papa) were greatly overreacted to. Ana a Ekelezia ndi Mipesa all needed chill pills.
My first (and probably only) argument is that these people needed to know who they were dealing with. I think that would have probably helped with the situation. With due respect to the fact that religion is a sensitive issue, we should have considered the fact that the very people who we accused of trivializing our religious regalia and leaders do not share the perceived seriousness of religion. Perhaps that could be the only explanation especially in the dancing Dorcas scenario. As for the political slur, all of us who have seen the DPP rise from the ground up know what sort of party it is; full of zealots who are ready to do and say anything to please their political masters and gain favors from above. Such people would do anything from insulting political opponents to responding to prayers and taking a swipe at a religious leader wasn't something that was too far out of reach. We all could have used a little application of this knowledge.
The other thing we should have thought before reacting is that of whether the reaction was proportion to the damaged caused; if there was any. I am not too sure about how highly the Dorcas "kit" is regarded among Adventist faithfuls but one thing I have learnt from the papal age saga is how far Catholics are willing to go to defend the image of their leader. On the other hand, I found myself asking people how they thought the Holy Father would have reacted if the news had gotten him first hand. I personally do not think that he would have written long articles explaining how wrong it is to compare his age to that of a secular leader who is seeking reelection. I might be wrong but I think the Pontif would have let this one slide and prepared yet another unrelated homily for delivery through that famous window of his facing the St Peter's Square. My point is just that I thinkpeople were mounting a serious defence for something that didn't need any defending whatsoever.
Having said what I said about the reaction, I have to point out that people need to draw lines between religion and everything else considering the sensitivity that surrounds religion. We might joke about some things without offending each other but issues to do with religion seem to haven't some heightened effect when it comes to offending people. Perhaps it's time our politicians learnt which lines to cross and which ones to tread along. Here is one politician who went on the podium and gave strong opinions without knowledge of how papal succession goes and how they control for age in the same.
Along the same lines, football issues should remain football issues and replica jerseys which are the most suitable attire for football should be the thing of choice when it comes to football events. Zinazi zingatiyambitsire civil war.
By the way... There was a special program on the Catholic broadcaster, Radio Maria in response to the whole thing of the age "insult" directed at the Pope. There were a lot of issues raised but the one I loved was that politicians need to know what to comment on and what not to avoid shooting themselves in the foot. Whether we needed a special program for the issue is another issue that is subject to debate.
All in all, let us all learn to tame our tongues and excitement while mastering the art of keeping our reactions in check.
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