[Ugnet] The political economy of our Easter Sunday mass

[Mitayo Potosi]

Dear Mr Onyango-Obbo,

It is strange that it takes French priests to pray for peace in Rwanda, Burundi and DRC.

Africa's clergy, apparently, have better things to do; like dining and making merry.

Rev Father John Mary Waliggo would rather be advising the regime in Kampala on the best  sly methods of human rights violations.

The bankruptcy is astounding !!

As you know, Kagame and Museveni killed the Archbishops of Lumumbashi, Kisangani, Goma and of Mbujimayi.

A certain Italian Father Giovanni organized a plane load of Italian Christians, who came for a solidarity mass with the people of Goma.

Meanwhile Nigeria's Cardinal Francis Arinze was scheming, in delusion, to become Pope.

Did he bother to speak up about the 5 million Congolese killed by Kagame and Museveni ?

What about Desmond Tutu or our Cardinal Wamala, etc.......?

Instead Tutu has never stopped raving mad about Mugabe taking away land from white farmers.

But Brother Obbo, things here in Canada have changed. In any discussion on human rights violations, Museveni's Uganda is the ready case to quote.

I was taken back yesterday while reading the editorial of a student newspaper. The content was on something else but still their disgust was with Museveni.  I couldn't believe it !!  It is the same in all media.

All the best, dear friend.

Mitayo Potosi

OPINIONS & COMMENTARIES EAR TO THE GROUND | Charles Onyango Obbo

...

The political economy of our Easter Sunday mass

April 19, 2006

One of my all-time favourite films is Educating Rita, a 1983 flick that traces the relationship between hairdresser Rita (Julie Walters) and Dr Frank Bryant (Michael Caine), shaggy alcoholic university professors, both of whom have reached a dead-end in their lives and need a new direction. Wanting to broaden her horizons, she joins the Open University to study English Literature and is assigned to Dr Frank Bryant. Bryant is initially disinterested and condescending, but is soon brought out of his self-pitying life by Rita's simple honesty and enthusiasm. In the end, Bryant succeeds beyond his most optimistic expectations. For all his efforts, we all expect that Rita must thank the professor. And she does. Toward the end of the film as she is about to leave for Australia, Rita tells Bryant that there is something she had always wanted to give him, and grabs and plants him a chair. Because sexual tension had developed between them, you expect that surely our man is going to get a kiss. But no, she whips out a pair of scissors, and says she had always wanted to give him a haircut. It is the kind of brilliant turn that you expect from director Lewis Gilbert. This, however, is not about Educating Rita. It is long-winded introduction to the unexpected outcomes of Easter. Mass at St Paul’s Traffic was thin in Nairobi on Sunday Easter. The regular faithful had attended morning masses and were now partying. The distractions of the morning had left me unable to attend the big morning services, so even at our house I was home alone. But God loves all his children, so there are always afternoon masses to give us a last opportunity to redeem ourselves. Like watching Educating Rita, I expected the afternoon mass to go a certain way: Thinly attended by folks recovering from hangovers, and a boring priest in charge of proceedings. I was therefore not surprised when, at 10 minutes to 3pm, I pulled up at the Nairobi University Chapel, St Paul's, and found that there were only five other cars in the parking lot. On an ordinary Sunday, if you come to St Paul's late for mass, you will have to leave your car nearly 200 metres away. The church was barely half full. That too, I had expected. However, the mass started on time. No, five minutes early. That, I didn't expect. Then, unusually, there were four European priests conducting the service. It's rare to have that many priests, and expatriate ones at that, conducting a service at St. Paul. Then, I was totally blown away to discover that the service was in French - with only the occasional rendition in English. Praying for peace As the famed Sunday Nation humorist Whispers (the late Wahome Mutahi) used to say, I am neither too clever nor too foolish, so though I am largely illiterate in French, I realised quickly that this was a service for refugees mostly from the DR Congo (you could tell from some of the men wearing their trousers at their chests), Rwanda, and Burundi. These were the people who live on the margins of mainstream English and Kiswahili-speaking Kenyan society in prayer. In contrast to the well-heeled worshippers of regular mass, they looked extremely modest. The little "angels" who usually dance along with the choir were barefoot! A young man got up and prayed sorrowfully for peace to return to their countries, and went an emotional notch higher in wishing that their host country remained peaceful. You could understand why. As a refugee, these people knew what it means to be stateless, and for that reason they were terrified of the tenuous existence they had established being scuttled by the tension-filled fractious contest that Kenya's multiparty politics tends to be. As for presence of the four European priests, they tend to be hooked on causes more than African priests - AIDS, orphans, refugees, prisoners, and so on. The African priests at St Paul's enjoy a celebrity status, so I guessed that influential members of the community might have invited some for lunch; the type who have a place preserved for them at the front pew, and live in the leafy suburbs. But then again, maybe not. Whatever the case, the Europeans priests and the refugees were joined in a common destiny - they were outsiders. So, when mass ended they all went into a big recreation tent at the back of the church for a modest reception. For many of the refugees, it would probably the best meal they eat for a long time, and the closest thing to a family celebration they will this year - until perhaps Christmas time. I didn't expect the service would turn out this way. But maybe it's for people like these, that the modern church has most relevance. I had never experienced something like this in church. From now on, it's the fringe afternoon issues-driven prayer for me. And, yes, in case you were wondering, they still passed the collection bag round. It wouldn't be a Catholic church, if it didn't have this charming and contradictory earthiliness. [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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