Liberation Theology And The Church in Africa
backpedaled away from her commitment to violence as a method of liberation. "Because of what's happened in Zimbabwe, the increasing violence and how the Government is using violence against the opposition, I've had to question the whole use of violence," she says. "I'm not a total pacifist but I'm leaning towards it. And I keep saying, 'Maybe this is kind of the fruits of using violence.' What I see now happening is how governments, or people in power, can so easily use violence, you know, instill in the youth, 'This person is the enemy and they should be beaten or killed or tortured or whatever.' It is a very evil and insidious thing and it is so easy to instill it, particularly in young people, and what that must do to future generations-Zimbabwe is preparing to destroy itself, not just economically and environmentally, but its people. It is creating a generation of youth like those ones from the war who only know violence. And how you ever restore them to a normal life-I don't know."
The continued use of violence in Zimbabwe mimics the continued violence in other colonized countries that are now independent. Perhaps, one could argue, this is not unusual: Certainly, France and Great Britain and the United States all went through bloody periods on their way to independence and democracy. Still, now that we have examples of stable countries where people have a voice, are we willing to let a country like Zimbabwe go through years of bloodshed in order to achieve it? I don't know if we have the stamina, which is why we simply condemn and then create social engineering programs to achieve what we hope will be the desired outcome. It rarely is because social engineering frequently has unintended side effects; and then we must create more programs to fix the unintended side effects.
In the last couple of years, those of us in the Western world have been treated to hours of rhetoric outlining a strategy of violence in order to achieve safety and democracy and to protect freedom. I understand-and appreciate-the concept of self-defense, though I struggle with accepting it; and I understand-and support-the idea of a "free world" (though that is a propagandized phrase and is used as a rhetorical weapon to promote the use of violence in places like Iraq). A few years ago, however, I committed myself to pacifism, then retreated into a
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