by Dr R Simangaliso Kumalo, Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal
I have just arrived in my office from taking part in a big Mandela prayer meeting at the Mandela capture site in Howick Pietermaritzburg. We had close to a thousand people. The event was organized by the premier’s office, the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council and other community organizations, and it is not surprising that we had the premier and other provincial leaders. I had been requested to do a special prayer for Madiba, who is still in hospital, and for his family. What huge and an intimidating responsibility. What does one say when praying for Mandela, such a great figure in our land and even on earth? The prayers that have been offered for him in the past months by the nation are that he must get well and go back home. Very few people have been brave enough to pray for him to go and rest in the bosom of his forbearers or God, depending on one’s religious orientation. There are a few reasons for this, and I would like to share those with you.
Cultural reasons
In African culture (southern Africa) you don’t pray for death to come, but rather you pray for healing. I have been amazed at the way people have been praying for Mandela. They have been offering very mixed prayers. Some pray for him to get better and go home. They even mention that they want him to leave many more years. Is that realistic? This sounds selfish to me. Of course it would be good for our Madiba to live long with us, but then he must be in good health and be able to enjoy life and the fruits of his labour. Must he continue to live even when he is not able to enjoy life because of his serious health condition? Is that what we want, and is that what he would like? In some African cultures (for example, Zulu and Swazi) when an old person becomes sick and does not get better, the family performs rituals to ask the ancestors and God to realise him/her so that he/she may die peacefully and live a better and healthier life in the afterlife. But because we have forgotten our culture, this has not been publicly raised as an option. I do not know if the family has discussed this; of course, this is private family business. The good news in African culture is that even if he goes, death does not mean the end of a person, but rather they join the world of the ancestors so that they are able to continue looking after us. He joins another realm of existence, which makes him more omnipresent.
Christian perspective
Christians in this part of the world pray for healing, and in this context, healing is understood in a narrow sense, which is recovery from sickness, nothing else. This is because prayer is understood to be an act of protest against everything that denies life and promotes death. It is built on the understanding that God is for life, not for death, and God is all powerful and can heal at all times and all diseases. To pray for death is like giving up on the power of God to heal and cure. So even when it is obvious that life is no longer meaningful for a sick person, people do not have the courage to pray for death as solution to sickness and pain. This is despite the fact that the Christian faith also teaches us about life after death – resurrection. When we are confronted with death, we tend to forget the importance of the theology of resurrection. We remember this theology once the person has died and we have to preach the funeral sermon or to officiate in the committal of the body to God. I do think that there is a need for a theology of life and death to be developed and taught to our people. This theology must remind us that death itself is inevitable and is another form of life in another realm, just as African culture teaches us.
Political perspective
I have also been hearing political prayers that call for Mandela’s recovery because we need him, because we cannot go forward without him as a nation and country. The government and political leaders have also organized prayer meetings, calling for religious leaders to lead these prayers. Such prayers are motivated by the thinking that peace, stability and reconciliation in South Africa depend on Mandela’s presence and existence. A number of people believe that if Mandela goes, a lot will go wrong politically. Therefore, they are holding onto him. To pray for him to go is also a dangerous thing to do, for people will misinterpret one’s prayer just to score political points. Therefore, it is difficult to know what to do in this situation.
I hope that religious leaders may gather the courage to pray that the nation and the family can be able to release Mandela. As our African religion has taught us, if he lives, he is with us in a limited sense, confined by space, time and health conditions, but if he goes, he will be with us in a much more powerful way as an ancestor who is not confined by these things. This will be my prayer today at the Mandela capture site. Please pray for me to be truthful to myself, God and the nation as I lead the province in prayer.
Sharing reflections on whether to let Mandela go or not has also been clouded by speculations on whether he could be already gone or maybe just being kept alive by life support machines. However, what is and in my view should be important is the legacy that he has tasked us to progressively emulate in both his life and death and maybe not to hoard onto his mortality.
South Africa and the world are a better place because of Mandela. His life and legacy will continue to inspire all of us who have been touched by his presence on this earth. However we all perceive death, it is a normal transition that will free his spirit and ideology to remain a vital part of our lives and inspire us to follow the very principles that he espoused. He is indeed, already, the embodiment of our faith in ancestral status. That will always be with us. God bless Nelson Mandela – you have already changed our lives, as you face changes in your own.
Indeed a systematically thought and inspiring theological reflection on death and resurrection in our contemporary era. I have been inspired by this peace to write a paper and further investigate how the modern church perceives, preaches and teaches about death and after life. Our eschatological theology as a church and nation has been evident in these public prayers for Madiba and they have been an opportunity for aspiring theologians like myself to realise how politics, and culture even, have influenced a watered-down comprehension of this church doctrine. This is once again an opportunity created by the divine for the church to reclaim its fore play in educating and influencing the nation on matters of death and after-lfe and Dr Smanga Khumalo in this submission motivates this.