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Before they come for you

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David Matsinhe
David Matsinhe

There are media reports according to which the Mozambican intelligence service plans to map and profile mosques in Maputo, in response to the gruesome attacks in the northern districts of the northern province of Cabo Delgado. Speaking to German news agency Deutsche Welle, Andre Thomashausen, professor emeritus of constitutional and international law at Unisa, mused that the Mozambican government may have succumbed to American “carrot and stick” diplomacy in the context of the global war against Islamic fundamentalism.

The carrot is dropping the pursuit of Manuel Chang, the former Mozambican finance minister wanted in New York on charges of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. Chang was a crucial figure in the acquisition of the infamous mysterious, illegal loans that buried his country in the ongoing economic abyss. If Thomashausen’s musings have a leg to stand on, then the Mozambican political gang is sending a clear message to all of us: “We will sacrifice anyone, including Muslims, to protect our gang members.”

The Mozambican Islamic community is understandably livid and is threatening revenge against the governing gang in the coming election. Given the demographic status quo, if this were to happen the governing gang would lose the vote even in Maputo and would have to spill blood to remain in power. It will spill blood anyway.

Speaking to Carta de Moçambique, Sheik Aminuddin Muhammad, president of the Mozambique Islamic Council, said: “We live in a democratic country and if the Muslim population is getting targeted it can lose trust in Frelimo [the governing party], which could affect it in the next election.”

“If Muslims begin to feel discriminated against, whereby some are treated as sons and daughters and others as stepsons and stepchildren, there will be discontent, which is bad for democracy.”

Martin Niemöller was a theologian and a pastor of the Lutheran Church in Germany in the 1930s and decades following World War 2. An enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, he changed his mind when the Nazi Party declared itself the supreme human institution, above the church. Niemöller joined other clergymen and founded the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazification of the Protestant Church. Unfortunately people like Niemöller, who first nurtured Nazism and eventually turned against it, became victims of the monster they had bred. Hitler imprisoned the Confessing Church clergymen – Niemöller is said to have narrowly escaped execution and survived to tell the tale. After the war, in 1946, he made this confession:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Muhammad is also the president of the Religious Council of Mozambique, and when it comes to religious rights this man, this Muslim, also represents Christians and other faiths. Therefore now that the gang has come for the Muslims, it behooves Christians to defend Muslims because if they do not, if they remain silent, if they think this is none of their business, then when the gang comes for them the Muslims will not be there to speak out for them. Christians must take full advantage of their own history’s hindsight, draw inspiration from the Confessing Church and protect their Muslim brothers and sisters.

Irish philosopher Edmund Burke rightly said: “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” So are those who choose to ignore it.

Matsinhe is a researcher at Amnesty International and adjunct professor of African studies at Carleton University. The views expressed are entirely his and they do not represent the views of the institutions with which he is affiliated. 

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