THE STATE AND
AFRICAN INDEPENDENT CHURCHES IN BOTSWANA PART IV Wim van Binsbergen |
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3. Pastors and bureaucrats: qualitative aspects of church-state interaction in the context of the Botswana Societies Act
The
quantitative analysis, however tedious and preliminary, has
offered us at least a basic profile of the Botswana African
Independent churches: their large number; their range of
membership with the general tendency towards small especially
urban churches of only one congregation; some elements of
comparison with regard to cosmopolitan and other churches in the
country; and their behaviour in the face of the Societies Act.
The figures cited (233 African Independent churches having on the
average fewer than 800 members each) show the extreme organizational
fragmentation of these religious organizations, which
certainly invites analysis (e.g. in terms of leaders ritual
and organizational entrepreneurship, and of group dynamics among
the adherents) but does not in itself preclude the convergence of
these many differently named churches in matters of theology,
liturgy, healing, functioning in the wider society (their
co-operation at funerals is particularly manifest) and perception
by the general public. One very important finding is that the
Botswana state does not have a total grip on these churches:
dozens of them were never registered yet function on a modest
scale; a similar number saw their registration cancelled yet some
of these, too, can be assumed to continue functioning outside the
law.
Let us now turn to a qualitative analysis of actual interaction
between state and African Independent churches.
Given
the authoritarian, populist consensuality of the Botswana state,
the idiom of co-optation should little
surprise us and will be discussed first. Co-optation can be seen
as one of the possible strategies to contain and control, rather
than offensively prohibit and ban, organizational foci in the
civil society rival to the state. We shall see how it functions
even with regard to ethnic issues which in Botswana may not
create quite the same level of disruption as in many other
post-colonial African states but which still are far more
prominent than an inspection of the social-science literature on
the country would suggest.
A
more obtrusive strategy, which is deeply embedded in the
Societies Act and the institutions it has created, is that of the
imposition of a formal bureaucratic logic
upon the churches. This is clearly a form of state encroachment,
but one which can also be seen as an essential service rendered
by the state, in the interest of church adherents who have no
positions of power in their organisation, and offering outside
venues for arbitration and protection of interests. The peculiar
impact, of this bureaucratic streamlining, on church nomenclature
will be briefly discussed. Also we shall pinpoint some of the
numerous cases of bureaucratic overkill,
when the Registrar of Societies, not by virtue of any specific
legislation but simply tempted to ride his own hobby horses and
make the churches feel what state power is like, imposes demands
upon the churches which run so much counter to their doctrine,
liturgy and general orientation that they have to present an
official bureaucratic front, a compromise to bureaucratic
discourse, which may greatly deviate from actual church practice.
Finally, the case of the wealthy and powerful Guta Ra Mwari
church show us where this may lead: to the limits to effective
and positive state intervention in the internal affairs of
churches. The bureaucratic forms imposed under the Societies Act
become mere empty shells, and the states relative
powerlessness vis-ā-vis the symbolic, financial and physical
power generated in that church is only too manifest.
Co-optation and the use of a
non-statal idiom circulating in the civil society
We have said
that co-optation and the use of a non-statal idiom circulating in
the civil society (concretely: state officials publicly and
officially adopting the discourse of ministers of religion)
constitutes one of the strategies open to the Botswana state in
its interaction with rival foci of power in the society,
including African Independent churches. One example out of many
is the speech which the Minister of Social Welfare, culture and
Registration, under whose department the Registrar of Societies
falls, pronounced on the occasion of the opening of the
nineteenth branch of the Spiritual Healing Church, in Tutume
(North Central District), July 1987, at the invitation of the
churchs Archbishop Rev. Motswasele. Having arbitrated in a
series of vicious conflicts involving this church in the previous
years, relations between the Cabinet Minister and the Archbishop
would appear to have become quite cordial. The Cabinet
Ministers speech reads as an inside account, and a PR
statement (not on behalf of the state but of the church) at that.
After sketching the history of the church since its inception in
the village of Matsiloje, near Francistown, in 1950 with the
appearance of the prophet Mokaleng Jacob Motswasele (cf Lagerwerf
1982), the church is now claimed, by the Cabinet Minister, to
have 18,000 members in 1986.[1]
To me, Chairman, this is an
indication of the churchs accomplishment in bringing souls
to Christ. It is also an indication of good progress under good
management.[2]
The Cabinet
Minister then proceeds to sum up the socially beneficial projects
of the church, including the Boikango Bible Training Institute,
an inexpensive day care centre in Mahalapye (and yet in
other Day Care Centres parents pay P60 or more per month![3]), Paje Primary School, a Mothers
Union started by the mother of the present Archbishop, in which
connexion
I was gratified to learn of
the active involvement of the church in the society beyond the
spreading of the gospel.[4]
Typical
(since it reflects a standard insistence, on the part of the
Registrars office, with regard to unhealthy conditions of
baptism which ought to be avoided)[5] is the Cabinet Ministers praise
of the churchs baptism pools:
On realizing the number of
reported deaths due to drowning during baptism, and also I
presume as a response to health campaigns, the church decided to
build baptism pools in Mochudi, Mahalapye and Mmadinare.
The Mahalapye pool, not surprisingly [since church headquarters
are located there] is the most up-to-date with dress rooms for
women and men.[6]
The Cabinet
Minister ends, not with a statement on how the state sees its
relationship with the African Independent churches, but with a
minutes silence for those founding members of the church,
including the prophet, who died in the years 1964-1983...
Bureaucratic
interference beyond the letter of the law
A totally
uncritical, pious, statement such as the Cabinet Ministers
at the occasion of the Tutume branch of the Spiritual Healing
Church would little suggest that at less public and festive
occasions, in the familiar recesses of the bureaucracy, the
Registrar of Societies imposes the most far-reaching demands on
churches, particularly during the phase when they are still
applying for registration. At this stage, and under the sanction
of non-registration, a host of conditions are imposed which often
are far more specific than the Societies Act stipulates.
In fact, registration is a societys right
under the Societies Act:
6.
(1) Every local society shall, in the manner prescribed and
within 28 days of the formation thereof or of the adoption
thereby of a constitution or of rules, regulations or bye-laws,
make application to the Registrar for registration or for
exemption from registration under this Act.
(2)
(a) Subject to subsections (3), (4)
and (9), upon application being made for registration, the
Registrar shall register any local society.
(b) exemption only by Minister
(c) issue of certificate,
which shall be prima facia evidence of
registration or exemption
Moreover,
the Act is very specific as to the conditions under which
registration may be refused:
6.
(3) The Registrar may refuse to register, and shall not exempt
from registration, a local society where he is satisfied that
such local society is a branch of, or is affiliated to or
connected with, any organization or group of a
political nature [my emphasis] established outside
Botswana.
(4) The Registrar
shall refuse to register and shall not exempt from registration a
local society where
(a) it appears to him that such local
society has among its objects, is being used for or is likely to
pursue or to be used for, any unlawful purpose or any purpose
prejudicial to or incompatible with peace, welfare and good order
in Botswana, or that the interests of peace, welfare or good
order in Botswana might otherwise be likely to differ prejudice
by reason of the registration of such local society.
(b) it appears to him that the terms of
the constitution, rules, regulations or bye-laws of such local
society are in any respect repugnant to or inconsistent with any
written law;
(c) he is satisfied that the
application does not comply with this Act;
(d) he is satisfied that the society
does not exist; or
(e) the name under which the society is
to be registered or exempted
(i)
is identical to that of any other existing local society;
(ii)
so nearly resembles the name of such
other local society as, in the opinion of the Registrar, to be
likely to deceive the public or the members of either society; or
(iii)
is, in the opinion of the Registrar, repugnant to or inconsistent
with any written law or otherwise undesirable.
St Annas Church is now a well-established African
Independent church in Francistowns Donga township. The
church applied for registration in 1979, enlisting from the start
the services of the local law firm of Mosojane & Partners. In
addition to the usual technical-legal criticism of the draft
constitution the following objections were phrased by the
Registrar against the constitution:
(a) Clause 9 which is about
spiritual healers. I would be grateful if you could remove this
clause from the constitution. The healing of [sic]
churches is greatly causing concern to medical authorities in
this country for such reasons that [sic]
(i) there is proved risk that such
churches through their healing activities may delay ill people to
seek competent medical advice while there is still time
(ii) That the constitutions of healing
churches never specify who [sic] to be held
liable in case of death.[7]
Healing is
practiced in virtually all African Independent churches in
Botswana (Staugård 1995, 1986), and the experience of
traditional healers associations in Botswana is that they
are highly regarded by the government. Somewhat to my surprise
therefore, the law firm accepted the point on healing, but their
reply is not without an edge; with regard to liability they say:
We have enough laws in this
country which adequately cover such situations.[8]
Further
points are made in subsequent correspondence, in which the law
firm, on their clients behalf, seeks to recover some of the
ground that the Registrar has claimed as falling under his
competence:
We also observe that you
require that the Bishop should be a person capable of performing
the duties imposed by the Societies Act. Is this a necessary
provision in the Constitution of a Church? Do you seriously
require that before a man become a Bishop he should first of all
have studied the Societies Act?[9]
And again
eight months later, when (little surprising, after such letters)
registration is still not forthcoming:
...our clients as well as
ourselves are not satisfied that we understood what is really
required, for instance, we do not know what qualifications for a
Bishop are acceptable to you. No minimum qualifications have been
laid down in the law. Freedom of worship is enshrined in our
constitution not only for the educated but also for the
illiterate.[10]
In order to appreciate this obstinate and sarcastic stance of the
lawyer involved it is useful to know that not only is he a
Kalanga ethnic activist finding pleasure in the kind of
confrontations that Tswana abhor, but also a major politician in
the Botswana Peoples Party (BPP), a major opposition party
for which he was presidential candidate in the 1984 elections. As
a lawyer, a politician and a ethnic activist he has a keen
understanding of the authoritarian consensuality of the Botswana
state, and seeks to challenge it at whatever occasion, often with
a very witty choice of words; the reading of his letters written
on behalf of Francistown-registered churches greatly added to the
pleasure of my work in the Registrar of Societies office.
Nor does his case stand on its own. Challenges of the Registrar
of Societies authoritarian and unfounded action vis-ā-vis
the African Independent churches can be found in the
correspondence by other law firms on behalf of their clients. And
I suppose Mosojanes attitude may owe something to that of
his predecessor in the BPP, that partys founder Matante,
who shortly before his death referred to the Permanent Secretary
of the relevant Ministry
...complaining that the
Registrar of Societies was interfering in the internal matters of
the church. He was objecting to the acceptance of the new
constitution submitted by Mr Molapisi...[11]
Finally, on 14 January 1981, St Annas church is registered,
two and a half years after its first application. No specific
clause on healing is retained in the constitution, but under the
aims and objects we still read:
(d) Spiritual Healing
through the Powers of the Lord Jesus Christ.[12]
In other
words, the Registrar did not succeed in suppressing the
churchs healing concern from the public record. However,
two other striking clauses among the aims and objectives suggest
that the contact with the Registrar of Societies has not remained
without its impact:
(e) to protect all members
of the Church from all forms of exploitation.[13]
(f) to work together with other
organizations such as Village Development Committees,
Parent-Teachers Associations etc. and hand in hand with the
Government.[14]
Phrases like the latter crop up time and again in constitutions
of African Independent churches. Thus the first clause of the
constitution of the Guta Ra Jehova church (GRJ) reads[15]
1. A person entering Guta
Ra Jehova should produce his Passport, Registration Certificate
or Identity Card and Marriage Certificate. G.R.J. co-operates
with the Government. Single women should bring their
Fathers or Guardians Identity Card for recording.
After this, each should confess his or her sins to God. You then
go and sit in line. Guta Ra Jehova sings for you.
Clearly, accommodation to the state and the desire to be
seen accommodated to the state , is one of the effects of
the registration procedure. Probably, however, these phrases
should not be taken as signs of actual submission to the state,
but as verbal attempts to create, through lip service, as much
freedom from state intervention for the church as its leadership
feels is necessary. In the case of Guta Ra Jehova this did not
really help: the church saw its registration cancelled, partly as
a result of failure to submit annual returns. In other cases,
when cooperation between church and state is put to the test of
protracted arbitration procedures and the division of church
property after schisms, tempers can fly high and threats may be
exchanged back and forth between the Registrar and the clergy:
threats of being declared an unlawful society from the former
side,[16] of being punished by the divine powers
or the sorcery attacks of the religious leaders from the latter.
he issues that came up in the registration of St Annas
Church are typical, and repeated in many of the files of the
Registrar of Societies office. Despite Mr Mosojanes
remonstrations, the Registrars insistence on minimal
qualifications for the clergy of African Independent churches
obtained the (mere) appearance of formalization when it was
included in a guidance letters by means of which the Registrar
has sought to reduce correspondence on church registration, by
offering what comes close to a model constitution for African
Independent churches an extreme example of the alien
imposition of a bureaucratic logic. The first circular of this
type[17] phrased this requirement in the
following terms:
9 Appointments of Ministers and [sic]
Religion including Bishops, Deacons, Evangelists [sic]
Lay Preachers and others
Please state that qualifies [sic] member to
become a head of the Church, Bishop, Minister, Deacon,
Evangelist, Preacher or any other positions of clergymen. State
academic qualifications and their minimum qualifications in
theology. State how they are elected and appointed to those
positions and provide for their terms of office. Please note that
it is also important to indicate which body or bodies are
empowered to ordain such members as Ministers and to suspend or
withdraw the right to Ministry from a member so ordained and
revoke the appointments.[18]
The guidance
volunteered by the Registrar of Societies is a strange but
for Botswana rather usual mixture of paternalistic
meddling and sound practical advice. The letter concludes as
follows:
I take this opportunity to
state that Churches are allowed to make any other provisions they
consider essential for their operation in addition to the
required provisions stated above. You are also advised to do the
following:
1) Elect members of the governing body or of any other committee
who you beleive [sic] are able to perform
the duties assigned to them including the keeping of proper
records of meeting and members. The respective members should be
able to manage your financial affairs and property, and perform
duties imposed on them by the law.
2) Churches are also advised to undertake measures to
ensure that members are not baptised in ponds, dams or rivers
which are polluted. Stagnant water should be purified with proper
chemicals by those who know when and how they are used.
[emphasis added] Measures should be taken to ensure that what is
given to the sick causes no harm. There has been a number of
cases reported about people who died as a result of administering
harmful things to them or giving over [sic]
doses.
3) Hand over the property or whatever has been acquired in the
name of the former Church if you are breaking away.
4) Choose a different name from the names of the registered
Societies. No new name should resemble the name of any registered
Society in any way.
When you submit your application please
ensure that you bring along with you or send the certificate of
your clergymen showing their theological or bible training.
Please send certificates under registered cover. Copies will be
made and originals returned, and submit copies of minutes of
meetings when your constitution was adopted and when your
office-bearers were elected.
Yours faithfully
Registrar of Societies[19]
Controlling the nomenclature of
churches
Churches and
other societies are registered under a particular name, and on
this label depend all other juridical aspects of the interaction
between churches and the state, or between churches and members
of the public. The bureaucratic logic requires names of
organizations to be clearly distinct and free from possible
confusion.[20] As a result, the registration process
often involves an alteration of a churchs name at the
Registrars demand.
Let me cite one illuminating example out of the many that are
available in my notes. At the far traditional end of the Botswana
Independent churches exists the Hosanna Religious and Traditional
Association, registered on 16 April 1981.[21] In a first reaction to this
associations application the Registrar of Societies
replied:
Your society is a religious
one and that should be reflected in the name.[22]
Within three
weeks this suggestion was adopted by the society, offering as the
new name Mwali Religious Traditional Hosanna
Association,[23] but registration was to meet with
further conditions. In a long letter the Registrar of Societies
cites a great many technical legal objections against the
self-styled constitution which had accompanied the application
incidentally, along with letters of recommendation from
headmen in the North-East district but the principal
objection lies not there:
Your constitution is not in
order due to the following:
(1) Your preamble has no relevance to
your society. You will recall that during our long discussion in
my office, you reiterated that although your Association believes
in the miracles of divine Mwali, you also practice customs handed
down by the ancestors. This explains why your society is
religious (although it is not a Christian society) and
traditional. You can leave out the word Mwali and call your
association Hosanna Religious and Traditional
Association.
The point may seem slight but it is of the greatest importance:
without any reference to powers conferred by the law, the
Registrar of Societies succeeds in deleting the crucial
catchword, Mwali, from the societys name, and offers advice
on the societys interpretation of its own goals and
orientation. In a context of Tswana (particularly Ngwato)
cultural hegemony in Botswana, where the sizeable language group
of the Kalanga and the associated ethnic identity are constantly
in the defensive, this deletion is highly significant: it
excises, with the word Mwali, a major symbol of
Kalanga traditional convergence and of multi-ethnic
identification across the Botswana-Zimbabwe border. The Registrar
of Societies uses his prerogatives to prevent a minority ethnic
identity in Botswana to manifest itself publicly at the national
level and gain respectability and recognition there. Of course
one has to realize that 1978 was at the height of the Zimbabwean
war of liberation, when border communities were considerably
harassed as a result of hostilities spilling over from the
Zimbabwean side; at the time, of course, relationships between
the Mwali cult and the freedom fighters were close.[24]
In the end the society had to enlist the no doubt
expensive professional services of Mr Richard Lyons,
Attorney, Notary and Conveyancer. After further
correspondence in which the Registrar of Societies insisted
that, in the societys draft constitution, the provision
for the management of property was insufficient, the society was
finally registered in 1981. With the exception of 1983, when a
reminder had to be sent by the Registrar of Societies, it has
duly submitted its Annual Returns and the file reflects no
further difficulties between the office and the association.
Although the underlying ethnic and
political element in the registration of this society is
unmistakable, its being mixed with traditional and international
concerns may have been at least as important as its involving the
Kalanga. For in a politically apparently far more sensitive case,
registration this time of a cultural association
did not meet with much objection: that of the Society for the
Promotion of the Ikalanga Language,[25] an initiative of students at the
University of Botswana, and ever since its inception a source of
heated debate both at the national and at the regional,
Francistown level. In a letter dated 19th September, 1983, the
Registrar of Societies did request specific cosmetic changes that
did not affect the societys obvious nature as a focus of
ethnic mobilization. In response to a clause on the teaching of
Kalanga in schools, he commented:
According to the present
government policy on education only Setswana and English
languages are taught in schools and used over the radio. Could
you please[26] amend this clause to ensure that it is
in line with the spirit of the present government policy (...)[27]
And while
the constitution of this ethnic association wisely opened the
membership to all Batswana,[28] the Registrar, as in ethnic collusion
with the applicants, comments sweetly:
Could you substitute the
word Batswana with Citizen of Botswana to avoid any
misinterpretation. May I be informed why the membership is not
extended to any interested person.[29]
This
contrasting evidence on the handling of ethnic aspects of
voluntary associations would suggest that the strategy of the
state via the Registrar of Societies is not so much to
prohibit but to control: to exercise influence upon
these associations precisely by encapsulating them in a
bureaucratic structure rather than debarring them from the
sort of recognition, stable internal structure and outside
accessibility that functioning under the Societies Act might
produce.
After this ethnic excursion, let us return to African Independent
churches. Their proliferation of names, and the remarkable
variability these names turn out to have even in the hands of
supposedly legal specialists like the Registrar and his staff,
has already mentioned in section I of this paper. While the
professional variability suggests that the legal formalism
characterizing the discourse of the Registrar of Societies is in
itself not an aim in itself (in the sense of Webers
bureaucratic logic) but an idiom for something else that needs
further investigation, the point I now want to make is that this
proliferation of names is in itself partly a result of the
churches being captured within a bureaucratic logic, where each
church through its name can only occupy one fixed and unequivocal
niche in the nomenclatural space.
The names of the African Independent churches in their endless
permutation of always the same few elements such as in
Zion and Apostolic, or the name of a biblical
figure preceded by the epithet Saint (usually
abbreviated to St), show that these churches largely
draw from a common pool of imagery and identity reference. A
detailed formal analysis of the list of well over two hundred
names in the data set, such as I intend to undertake in the near
future, is likely to yield clusters of reference and imagery by
which church families stand out and testify to a common recent
history of ideological innovation and organizational fission. A
strikingly permutational logic appears to be at work when we
overlook the entire list: often distinctiveness in nomenclature
(and hence as an organizational body) is achieved by the
insertion of additional naming elements which give the impression
of a productive series, e.g.
church name |
formal representation of that
name |
Africa[n] Gospel Church |
B+A |
Africa[n] Born Full Gospel
Church |
B+C+D+A |
After the Birth of Christ Full
Gospel Church |
E+D+A |
where
A = Gospel Church; B = Africa[n]; C =
Born; D = Full; E = After the Birth; [...] optional addition
Note: formally speaking C and E could
be regarded as transformations of each other
Table 5. Three examples of church
nomenclature
We note that
the permutational potential has been far from fully utilized; the
unutilized paths suggest that theoretically one could expect
further churches of this family to be named as
follows (reading de dendrogram from top to bottom):
Africa[n] Born After the Birth of
Christ Full Gospel Church (ABCDE)
Africa[n] Born Gospel Church (ABC)
After the Birth of Christ Africa[n]
Born Gospel Church (ABCE)
Africa[n] Full Gospel Church (ABD)
After the Birth of Christ Africa[n]
Full Gospel Church (ABDE)
Born Full Gospel Church (ACD)
After the Birth of Christ Born Full
Gospel Church (ACDE)
After the Birth of Christ Born Gospel
Church (ACE)
Full Gospel Church (AD)
Gospel Church (A)
After the Birth of Christ Gospel Church
(AE)
While some
of these permutations are freakish (partly because of the
intuitive interchangeability of After the Birth of
Christ and Born; however, some of the names in
the data set are equally freakish in appearance), most would make
perfectly acceptable names for African Independent churches in
the Botswana context; the fact that none as yet appear in the
data set may even cast further doubt upon its completeness!
This example could be augmented by dozens more. One is strongly
reminded of the logic of group differentiation by the binary
opposition of group-associated symbols (names of groups; names of
deities, saints, totems, animal species, food taboos associated
with each group) which has played such a large role in the
analysis of social organization (cf. Lévi-Strauss 1962; van
Binsbergen 1985). Even such frequently used elements as
Zion, in Zion and Apostolic
among the African Independent churches in the data set, which are
apparently saturated with theological meaning and which have
played such a major (but often misleading) role in the
classification of African Independent churches, can often be seen
to be used in just this sense of differentiation between groups
which otherwise, in nomenclature, membership, doctrine and
history, would appear to be adjacent. One major point of
interaction between these churches and the state lies precisely
in this contrasting nomenclature, and reinforces the
permutational tendencies signalled here.
Thus the nomenclature of the African Independent churches should
not exclusively be viewed from a point of view of specific
contents. There is the tendency among analysts to take the church
name as a deliberate statement of the groups location
within a broad spectrum of church types, of doctrinal and
organizational variation: Zionist,
Apostolic etc. A closer examination of the hundreds
of African Independent churches in our data set would suggest
that the use of these broad inclusive labels in the church name
is often ornamental, and does hardly imply specific doctrine and
liturgy. The churchs specific, contrasting identification
through its often highly complex name serves not so much to
situate that church in a broad category encompassing scores of
churches, but to offset it against adjacent, very similar
churches, with which that particular church often has a
relationship as parent/child and of sibling/sibling in the
context of church fission. In this respect the church name serves
the same function as the specific church uniforms, church flags,
the specific combinations of colours featuring in these textile
artifacts, badges,[30] emphasis on cotton threads of specific
colours to be used in healing, imposition of food taboos on
certain animal and plant species. All these are devices to mark
group identity and group boundaries, in a context where (because
of the relative absence of doctrinal and liturgical differences,
the considerable shopping around of peripheral
members, and the fissiparous activities of the church leadership)
boundaries between churches are weak and need to be constantly
reconstituted.
The
imposition of an alien bureaucratic logic and its social
gains
Registration
involves the church in a process of accommodation vis-ā-vis the
state, in which as a condition for registration the state manages
to impose upon the churches a bureaucratic logic that is often
irrelevant and alien to their original orientation. Names chosen
for such good reasons as personal preference, a prophets
dreams, their time-honoured emotional and symbolic power
(Mwali!), distance from yet recognizable association with a
parent body from which one has broken away, are put to the test
of bureaucratic adequacy, ethnic and linguistic acceptability,
juridically unequivocal identification. Offices, election to
which is supposed to be governed by divine inspiration or
hereditary succession, have to be re-defined so as to fit in
with, e.g., the democratic spirit of the Botswana
constitution. Unspeakable conflicts which ought never to
arise in a living, inspired church have to be considered and
catered for long before they inevitably do arise. Repressed
aspirations of capital accumulation through religious
entrepreneurship are confronted by the Registrars
insistence on provisions for the management of movable and
immovable assets. The widows penny collected at church
gatherings has to be subjected to audited accounts...
But the result is not just an encroachment upon charismatic
authority and informal, traditional forms of
organization. The power which is being generated in African
Independent churches in Botswana is not only a diffuse
orientation in the wider society, offering people subjectively
meaningful alternatives and prohibitions in such fields as
worship, healing, consumption of food and drink, patterns of
recreating and reproduction. We are also, and primarily, looking
at a highly successful mode of generating spiritual, therapeutic,
financial and often also sexual power within the internal circle
of the church, between leaders and adherents. Like all structures
of power in any human society, the African Independent churches
of Botswana are potential structures of internal extraction and
exploitation. Perusal of numerous files of correspondence at the
Registrar of Societies office, as well as personal
interviews with the government officials involved have convinced
me that they see the states responsibility largely on this
point. This converges with Lagerwerfs view:
One of the rights bestowed
upon Botswanas citizens with Independence was freedom of
religion. This right greatly enlarged the possibilities for
diversification [of the independent churches] , since neither the
chiefs nor the established churches could interfere anymore [ sic
] . So it was not long before many independent churches emerged,
either as local branches of a South African or Rhodesian church
or, increasingly, as breakaways [ sic ] from
the independent churches already existing in Botswana. For
various reasons (...) this development became of great concern to
the government, finally leading to the Societies Act of 1972
which aims at the effective control of societies, including
spiritual and healing churches (...). The latter were not always
at ease with the governments attitude and underline their
wish to be in line with the governments aims of
nationbuilding [ sic ] (Lagerwerf
1982: 46).
We may be
critical of the authoritarian way in which clear, standard,
legally sound formulae are imposed also in situations where the
churches own draft constitutions, however conspicuous as
the work of legal laymen, might yet be adequate while retaining
the essential flavour of original expressions of identity. But at
the same time exploitation and conflict do occur, with a
regularity and a vehemence which makes it often difficult to see
a sinister plot towards state encroachment behind the
Registrars insistence on good legal handiwork.
Moreover, such insistence is in the professional and personal
interest of this officer since, under the Societies Act, he and
his Minister (of Social Welfare, Culture and Registration) are
responsible for adjudication, and the allocation of assets, in
case of severe conflict tearing an association apart. It is not
only the registration of new churches takes up the time of the
Registrars office, and to which with the exponential growth
of African Independent churches has created a considerable
backlog of pending applications; perhaps as much time is spent on
the handling of minor and major conflicts. For the researcher
this has the advantageous implication that precisely church
conflicts are reflected in extenso in the Registrars files.
However, I must reserve the discussion of selected cases for
another paper.[31]
The extent to which financial and symbolic power are generated in
Botswana African Independent churches can be gauged from the
following example, that of the Guta Ra Mwari (City of God)[32] church (GRM) which was registered in
1974, soon after the enactment of the Societies Act.
Guta Ra Mwari (City of God)[33]
This church,
originally established in Francistown as a branch of a Zimbabwe
organization founded by the prophet T. Tayali in 1961, is one of
the African Independent churches in Botswana whose assets have
rapidly grown to impressive heights. The church first applied for
registration in 1973 and since 1975 its audited accounts are
available in the Registrar of Societies files. From the start the
church laid much emphasis on the financial offerings members were
to make. At the moment of confession, the sum of R 9.20 had to be
paid,
and this confirms your
confession. And you are allowed to offer some thanksgiving
offering thereafter and God will give you according to your power
in return.[34]
These gifts
come in the place of Sunday collections.[35] In a later draft constitution the
financial aspect is spelled out in a way reminiscent of a
commercial enterprise a road show perhaps:
On your confession you have
to fulfill [ sic ] the will of God, the
Creator[36], by offering as follows:
a couple $ 10.00 [added in ball-point: R10.] [37]
when a husband or wife comes later, $1.20 per month
single adults $10
children
over 16 year of age accompanied by parents $1.20 (R 1.20) and
under 16 free
children under 16 years without the company of their parents $10
(R 10)
b. There is no credit on reception and
all offerings will not be refunded.[38]
The church
claims a monopoly of healing as far as the adherents are
concerned, although the draft constitution leaves them a nominal
freedom to visit the hospital (when they are not within the
reach of GRM services)[39].
After an apparently minor revision of the constitution (the main
alteration was the cancellation of a clause concerning the annual
examination of under-age members for virginity) the church was
registered in 1974. In 1975, church takings amounted to R566.58,
with R351.20 cash at bank. Already in 1976, with R500 offertory,
harvest gathering fees of R294.45 and R727.84 cash at bank, the
church could afford to make a donation to the celebration of
national Independence Day no doubt to make up for its
foreign, Zimbabwean connotations at a time that the Francistown
region was greatly troubled by the war in Zimbabwe. The annual
revenue steadily rises and is duly recorded, to e.g. in 1982:
total offertory of P20,071.12 and cash at bank of P12,986.82,
assets in the form of furniture and fittings assessed at
P1,600.46; church equipments P441.34; building P3,120.20, and
motor vehicle at P9,000. In the financial year 1985 the capital
amounted to P62,321.44.[40]
While the church was in full expansion, financially and as to
membership,[41] it came under a nasty cloud. Guta Ra
Mwari became surrounded by remarkably widespread allegations of
sorcery and ritual murder.[42] It is reputed to be particularly
popular among businessmen, who find in the church to means to
enhance their professional success. Popular rumour has it that
such success is brought about at the expense of the sacrifice of
one of the members children, preferably a first-born son,
who is to be killed in a staged car accident. Similar popular
beliefs concerning success medicine of commercial and ritual
entrepreneurs extend all over the subcontinent to at least the
Zambian Copperbelt; and with regard to Zambia at least, they were
not entirely unfounded.[43] The original constitution and other
materials do contain a few sinister hints, e.g. on learning to
accept death as the second stage, the first being
birth.[44] And such clauses as:
11. Congregation will bear
responsibilities for burial matters of registered members of
G.R.M.[45]
Members are not allowed to
wear mourning clothes[46]
begin to
take on a different implication.
It is only in 1987 that the Registrar of Societies confronted the
church, largely on legal-technical flaws in the constitution
which his office had accepted thirteen years earlier, in the
first years of the Societies Act. However, official concern does
not stop at legal technicalities:
I am concerned about the
financial burden you seem to place on your members. Could you
please indicate how often these fees are charged and what they
are really used for?[47]
A new
constitution is drafted, but this time the Registrar is not so
easily satisfied:
The proposed revised
constitution which you have submitted very recently in compliance
with our letter of 19 September 1988 was not drafted on a
democratic basis it is therefore not in keeping with the
democratic ethic of Botswana.[48]
Within a few months a detailed critique of the earlier draft is
offered to the churchs General Secretary. It is pointed out
that the church has no provision for: discipline; settlement of
disputes; procedures for meetings; voting; removal from office.
It is important that the
church in Botswana should not seem to be, or be passive [sic]
entity when the church relies on the ordinary
persons contributions [original emphasis]; when
the church raises funds and incurs debts in the name of the
people. The general body should have a substantial degree of
influence on all matters which affect them. The concept of the
CHOSEN TWELVE [the churchs governing body according to the
then prevailing constitution] would perhaps require explanation
or description in the constitution. As it stands it implies
hereditary succession or arbitrary appointments which possibly
transcends the comprehension of the ordinary members.[49]
This criticism is replied to in a sophisticated and elegant
letter,[50] which is accompanied by a new
constitution. The lively details of the earlier constitution, on
healing, liturgy, fees, sex, marriage, virginity, etc. have been
entirely replaced by a legally competent blueprint of what looks
like a well-oiled modern organization. The Registrar of Societies
is still far from convinced:
Your constitution at
article 26 totally rejects the very essence of the fundamentals
of the Botswana Constitution. Your constitution deliberately
flouts the intent of the Societies Act.[51]
She chides
the church for the absence of democratic procedures, of an Annual
General Meeting, and of a Special Annual General Meeting, adding
(somewhat overstating the law):
Note that this aspect is
not a religious function [in other words, that the Annual General
Meeting should not be a mere prayer meeting] but a lawful
requirement for management purposes.[52]
The matter is further complicated by the fact that Guta Ra Mwari
asked the Social Justice Officer, a senior official in the same
Ministry, to intervene; he finds the amendments to the earlier
constitution acceptable. Meanwhile however it turns out that the
real issue is not in legal technicalities or even financial
exploitation of adherents. The general rumours concerning the
church appear for the first time on official paper, albeit
undated (c. 1987):
We have gathered from
unconfirmed sources that the Guta Ra Mwari society is not a
religious organization as such. It is believed that they are an
organisation that practises healing, bringing riches to those who
aspire for it, or making it possible for those who wish to be
married [sic]. When the treatment has been
administered and the miracles realised, human sacrifice is a
matter of must. The society was registered in 1975, and one
wonders how many people have been sacrificed.
Also it is alleged that once you join the society you cannot
[original emphasis] leave, if you do so, a lot of mishaps strike
your family.
Despite the fact that I do not have full evidence to substantiate
the allegations I am worried as we have received applications for
appointment as marriage officers from some Ministers of GRM.
(...) I do not think such a responsibility should be passed onto
individuals who purpote [sic] to be
Christians, when their deeds are highly questionable.[53]
The file
does not contain any written reaction to these uncommonly serious
allegations. Personal questioning revealed that the matter had
been allowed to lapse: where was the civil servant who dared
confront an organization so sinister and powerful? The one time
when one feels the Registrar of Societies had every reason to
declare a society unlawful, such action is not even officially
contemplated. The point is not, of course, whether the
allegations made in the Registrars files against the Guta
ra Mwari church were objectively true: to ascertain such truth
would be outside the scope of the present argument, and would in
any case require a far wider range of data than I have at my
disposal. But while it cannot be the present authors task
to pass judgment on the Guta ra Mwari church, it was certainly
the Registrar of Societys task to do so, and the point is
that in the face of serious written allegations, the Registrar
apparently did not have the power to act.
Which means that here we have reached one of the limits of state
control over African Independent churches: when the idioms of
power they represent are considered to be superior to state
power, or to belong to a realm where state protection is not
considered adequate. Mystical powers of manipulation, acquisition
and destruction sorcery cannot be confronted under
the Societies Act; and even if the Registrar tries to substitute
insistence on technical-legal provisions instead, the state power
she can muster is probably inadequate. This also means that in
this case at least, the good intentions of protecting the masses
against Independent Churches as an exploitative structure, have
utterly failed. The bureaucratic forms of church organization as
demanded by the Registrar become empty formulae, which are easily
exchanged for others; behind them a totally different process
goes on inside the church, not only completely uncontrolled by
the state but even sanctioned by the respect and protection state
recognition affords.
Meanwhile our statistical analysis has brought out some of the
other limits of state control over the churches: inconspicuity
(because of small size and/or recent emergence), and at
the other end of the spectrum established status as a
cosmopolitan church.
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[1] This
very high figure, although offered by the Acting Registrar of
Societies who wrote the Ministers speech, is not supported
by my quantitative data and has not been entered into the
statistical analysis in section 2.
[2] Ministers
speech 25.7.87, encl 71 in file H28/40/27.
[3] Ministers
speech 25.7.87, encl 71 in file H28/40/27.
[4] Ministers
speech 25.7.87, encl 71 in file H28/40/27.
[5] See
below, discussion of guidance letter.
[6] Ministers
Speech 25.7.87, enclosure 71 in file H28/40/27.
[7] Registrar
of Societies to Mosojane, 22.11.79; enclosure in H28/30/71
I, St Annas church.
[8] Mosojane
to Registrar of Societies, 14.12.79; enclosure in H28/30/71
I, St Annas church.
[9] Mosojane
to Registrar of Societies, 18.1.80; enclosure in H28/30/71
I, St Annas church.
[10] Mosojane to
Registrar of Societies, 22.8.80; enclosure in H28/30/71 I,
St Annas church.
[11] Minute 2, 5.12.1980,
by G.K. Eustice, Acting Principal Administration Officer and
later Registrar of Societies, enclosure in H 28/30/22 I,
The Holy Free Corner Stone Apostolic Church. This is the church
referred to in the statement concerning Matante.
[12] Constitution,
enclosure in H28/30/71 I, St Annas church.
[13] While this clause
certainly reflects one of the aims of the Registrars
involvement with the African Independent churches, it is quite
possible that this particular phrase was included at the
initiative of Mr. Mosojane, the opposition politician.
[14] Constitution,
enclosure in H28/30/71 I, St Annas church.
[15] Guta Ra Jehova
constitution, enclosure in H28/30/38.
[16] E.g. Registrar of
Societies to Molapisi, 29.9.80, in H 28/30/22 I.
[17] Application
for registration of a church, circular, Department of
Culture, Registration and Social Welfare Matters, Ministry of
Labour and Home Affairs, P/Bag 00185, Gaborone. Authors
collection; believed to date from the mid-1980s.
[18] Application
for registration of a church, circular, Department of
Culture, Registration and Social Welfare Matters, Ministry of
Labour and Home Affairs, P/Bag 00185, Gaborone. Authors
collection; believed to date from the mid-1980s.
[19] Application
for registration of a church, circular, Department of
Culture, Registration and Social Welfare Matters, Ministry of
Labour and Home Affairs, P/Bag 00185, Gaborone. Authors
collection; believed to date from the mid-1980s.
[20] Societies Act 6 (4)
(e).
[21] Gaborone, file no.
H28/90/75 I. The traditional element in this
association is so strong that Staugård doubts whether it is a
church (1986: 83; on p. 84-85 Staugård copies the constitution
of this society). Through his personal activities and those of
his wife, the president of this association, the Mwali High
Priest for the Southwestern region Mr Vumbu Ntogwa and as such
probably the principal traditional religious authority in
northeastern Botswana, does participate in two other churches of
a more explicitly Christian designation; cf. Werbner 1989: 341,
n. 3. However, the principles at work here illustrate the
accepted attitude of various Registrars of Societies in the
1980s, and are not affected by our judgment as to the truly
ecclesiastical nature of this association. Other examples will be
taken from less peripheral or ambiguous church organizations.
Incidentally, Hosanna means: 1. biblical praise; 2.
Mwali adept; 3. Apostolic follower of the Zimbabwean church
founder Masowe (cf. Daneel, 1971: 86, 88, 178, 339-41; Werbner
1989: 257f)]. Hosanna (2) is often pronounced, and
written, as Wosanna. Probably the word in the sense
of Mwali adept has an origin independently from the biblical
word, but of course in a context of Independent churches the
phonetical convergence of the words offers endless opportunities
for symbolic bricolage.
[22] Registrar of
Societies to Hosanna etc. 20.3.78.
[23] Hosanna to Registrar
of Societies, 13.4.78.
[24] Cf. Lan 1985; and
general writings on the Mwali cult as cited above.
[25] File H28/90/258
I, registered 7.8.84.
[26] Note the difference
in tone from that applied in the Hosanna case.
[27] Registrar of
Societies to Society for the Promotion of the Ikalanga Language,
letter dated 19.9.83
[28] This is the term
under which the citizens of Botswana are normally designated in
Botswana colloquial discourse, but also and this is the
essence of Tswana hegemony the ethnic designation for
non-Kalanga, Tswana-speakers.
[29] Registrar of
Societies to Society for the Promotion of the Ikalanga Language,
letter dated 19.9.83
[30] Such as the
conspicuous ZCC badge, available in two varieties
dove and star reflecting a church
split which has not yet led to a differentiation of the name
itself.
[31] Very rich material
is available, e.g., on the Spiritual Healing Church (file
H28/40/27), on of Botswanas first and major African
Independent churches, which also received extensive treatment in
Lagerwerfs study, and which through schism, conversion and
otherwise is connected to a considerable number of other local
churches. Further e.g. St Annas church, H28/30/71 I;
Holy Free Corner Stone Apostolic Church, H28/30/22 I; and
many others.
[32] The addition between
parentheses is part of the original name, and is debatable as a
translation of the main Shona name; Assembly of Mwari
or Assembly of God would seem to be more appropriate,
but would have created a conflict with other already existing
churches. Note the spelling difference with Mwali as
used in the context of the Hosanna Religious and Traditional
Association, vide supra.
[33] File H 28/30/38
I; registered 18.10.1974.
[34] Clause 12 from an
undated early draft set of rules, enclosure 1 in H 28/30/38
I, probably early 1970s.
[35] Clause 13 from an
undated early draft set of rules, enclosure 1 in H 28/30/38
I, probably early 1970s.
[36] This is the literal
meaning of the name Mwali.
[37] In the early 1970s,
the SA Rand was still the Botswana currency. Later the Pula (P)
was introduced, roughly equivalent to Dfl 1. The $ is Zimbabwean.
[38] Rejected by the
Registrar of Societies on 3.5.73, Registrar of Societies to Guta
Ra Mwari.
[39] Draft constitution
rejected in 1973 by Registrar of Societies, clause b.
[40] Audited accounts,
File H 28/30/38 I.
[41] An undated letter
from the Guta Ra Mwari to the Registrar of Societies, by P.M.
Senau, c. 1986, claimed more than ten thousand members in
Botswana.
[42] Authors
field-notes.
[43] Authors
field-notes.
[44] Early draft
constitution Guta Ra Mwari, clause 5.
[45] Early draft
constitution Guta Ra Mwari, clause 11. In 1973 this clause was
changed to exclude those who have been members for less than two
years.
[46] Constitution
rejected by Registrar of Societies in 1973.
[47] Registrar of
Societies to Secretary Guta Ra Mwari 8.4.87.
[48] Registrar of
Societies to Nat Secretary Guta Ra Mwari, 16.12.88.
[49] Registrar of
Societies to General Secretary Guta Ra Mwari, 17.3.89.
[50] General Secretary
Guta Ra Mwari to Registrar of Societies, 28.4.89.
[51] Registrar of
Societies to General Secretary Guta Ra Mwari 10.10.89.
[52] Registrar of
Societies to General Secretary Guta Ra Mwari 10.10.89.
[53] Registrar of
Societies to Deputy Permanent Secretary, undated memorandum in
Guta Ra Mwari file, c. 1987.
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