Revolution sparked by a pastoral letter

MISTER MKANDAWIRE LEANED across the table and jabbed his finger down hard: "I tell you, if it wasn't for the Catholic Church, this country wouldn't be here today everything is because of the bishops' pastoral letter."
Mister Mkandawire is not Catholic. He is not even Christian. He is a chilliimporter, and he is more interested in political stability for his business than in evangelism. But for him as for thousands of other Malawians in the aftermath of last month's historic referendum vote for multi-party democracy it was the courage and outspokenness of Malawi's Catholic bishops which shattered the climate of fear and which sparked off the wave of demands for political change which culminated in the referendum vote.
Ruled by the "life President" Dr Hastings Banda since independence in 1964 a man viewed from the outside as a quirky, even quaint, upholder of Victorian values Malawi was a oneparty state, where fear of the party, and the cult of the president, have held sway. Murders, brutality and the suppression of dissent have combined with a culture where, in the words of the editor of one Catholic magazine: "we became afraid of our own shadows, we killed ourselves, and we obliged the politicians".
The Catholic bishops' Lenten pastoral letter prepared and distributed in secret, and read out from pulpits throughout the country in March last year caused a sensation in a country where self-censorship and fear were the norm. Congregations sat in stunned silence as they heard the bishops criticise "the growing gap between rich and poor" and condemn the "climate of mistrust and fear" which permeated Malawian society.
Although it was these criticisms which made headlines, the letter was in fact a comprehensive survey of every part of life in the nation, the sound principles of Cenresimus Annus applied to a country already struggling with poverty and under-development, but where a governing elite siphoned off vast sums for itself.
The bishops called for a more equitable distribution of wealth, equality of access to health and education, an independent judiciary and greater freedom of expression. Their criticism was even-handed they called upon the people to exercise greater responsibility as well as on the government. By the standards of western polemics, it was a measured and moderate appeal for change, but to the Malawi regime used to sycophancy and cosy co-operation it was open rebellion. The government's response was instantaneous. It banned the letter, branding it seditious, and summoned the bishops together for seven hours of interrogation in a Blantyre police cell.
Fr Mgungwe, the secretary general of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi, recalls the interrogation: "The inspector-general of police took us line by line through the letter. He demanded that we issue a retraction, threatening us, but we stood by every word of it." In an attempt to stifle the Church opposition at its roots, nearly 300 chairmen and secretaries of parish councils were summoned to the capital and addressed by the inspectorgeneral of police. He harangued them for an hour, calling the bishops "confusionists" who were inciting violence and accusing the six Malawian bishops of being "stooges" of the Irish-born apostolic administrator of the Mzuzu diocese, Mgr John Roche, whom the authorities believed to be the true architect of the letter.
Then things took a nasty turn, when members of the ruling Malawi Congress Party openly called for the bishops' assassination. Taped details of the meeting routinely recorded by the state radio were leaked, causing sensational headlines around the world. Fr Mgungwe recalls with chilling clarity the atmosphere of threat whipped up by the government: "We were afraid of hit squads, we dared not leave the building. Government supporters dragged branches around the Archbishop's residence in Blantyre, chanting and singing nasty songs." Many believe that only a hastily-organised campaign to publicise the threat to the bishops and prompt messages of international condemnation from the Churches and others effectively saved their lives.
In the event, priests were harassed and the tiny village press where the pastoral letter had been printed was razed to the ground in an arson attack by the Malawi young pioneers, the paramilitary youth wing of the party.
The following month, security police burst into a Good Friday Mass in Mzirnba, in the north, to serve a 24hour expulsion order on Mgr Roche. Fearing one of the notorious "car accidents" which have befallen opponents of the government in the past, Mgr Roche fled for the Zambian border and the safety of the apostolic pronuncio's residence in Lusaka.
But the genie of open dissent had been let out of the bottle by the bishops' stand, and the opposition movement gathered momentum. A broad-based umbrella body largely the initiative of the Christian Churches was set up to represent the opposition groups. Independent newspapers critical of the government blossomed most printed by the Catholic Montfort Press in Blantyre, the only independent press large enough to compete with the governmentcontrolled printers. Pressure from Western governments, who had once backed Dr Banda because of his antiCommunist stand, added to the crescendo.
In October, the president bowed to pressure and called the referendum on multi-party democracy. As a result of the bishops' letter and the continuing influence of the Church throughout the referendum process, the standing of the Catholic Church in the country has soared. Muslims in Blantyre, the country's bustling southern commercial capital, rep.)rted.lv bought rosaries and hung them proudly from their rearview mirrors. Priests reported a surge in the number of conversions. As one man put it: "If the bishops were willing to lay down their lives for the truth, there must be something to what they are saving."
Today, Malawi is feeling its way towards a secure and democratic future. The weeks following the referendum have seen calm and reasoned negotiations between government and opposition for a new constitution and elections are planned for December.
A few doubts still exist that the old guard may manage to cling on to power, but more importantly for the people of Malawi the fear is gone, the heavy hand of censorship is being lifted, and human rights are improving. For the Churches, it is only the end of the beginning: with multi-party democracy taking root, genuine social justice is, for the first time, within reach.