The Lord’s Army
Books as vehicles sometimes take you places you’d rather not go. In our reading up on Mozambique’s civil war we recently came across strange intersections of conservative American culture and Mozambique’s devastating civil war. What should have been a no-passing zone became a chance for misguided heroics on the part of American Christians via their subscription to conscription and a paper trail that leaves us ashamed.
Some background:
Threatened by the success of Mozambique’s fight for independence from its colonial oppressors, 1980’s apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia began to look for a way to undermine Mo’s fledgling black government.
They found constituents in the political prisons of Frelimo, the current Marxist-Leninist-leaning government. The savory characters they drew from the prisons were groomed for what became Renamo, the rebel group whose “pro-democracy” front was mostly an excuse for Western aid.
Ninety percent of Renamo’s volunteers were actually kidnapped Mozambican youths with little interest in any political ideology. In the rebel raids, “Renamo attacks closed or destroyed 822 of the 1373 existing health units in the country,” as well as leaving “32% of primary schools destroyed by rebel forces” (Carolyn Nordstrom, A Different Kind of War Story, 1997).
It was while perusing Carolyn Nordstrom’s A Different Kind of War Story that we discovered the role the End-Time Handmaidens of Jasper, Arkansas played in the war. Upon further research, we came across this NY Times piece.
Because of Renamo’s supposed anti-communist politics, right-wing Americans tagged the insurgents as “freedom fighters.”Advocates’ misguided faith in these so-called freedom fighters meant the demolition of Mozambican health care and schooling, instead of the sun-drenched suburbia supporters hoped for.
Groups like the End-Time Handmaidens of Jasper were busy providing war lords with more than doilies to wipe their faces. It must have looked like Renamo forces had ordered the full armory of God when the flow of field radios and Bibles started pouring in from the West. Though much of the religious fervor may be attributed to deception and misinformation, “patriotic duty” does not justify any person’s responsibility to march in line to the tune of an ideology that leaves orphans in its wake.
Not even sweet old ladies in Jasper, Arkansas can dodge the blame.
To put it nicely, Christians aided in the destruction of this country. This is why the idea of a “good missionary” feels like mission impossible to many in Mozambique. Since we’ve been here we have seen a country whose infrastructure has recovered appreciably in less than two decades from thirty years of war. And it’s tragic that some Christians, whether actively or unwittingly, rooted for ruins.
Reconciliation takes even longer than rebuilding cities. This is why Malo Ga Kujilana stands as a resource center and as a bridge between past and present, the Christian West and the Islamic Mozambican.
Because there are unintended consequences when we are handmaidens to an ideology instead of our fellow human beings.
