Of Jamesons and Satanists: Politics of Labelling in Zambia, A Christian Nation, 2015–2018
On October 28, 2014, the President of the Republic of Zambia and leader of the Patriotic Front (PF) party, Michael Sata died in a London hospital one year before finishing his first term of office. The Zambian Constitution stipulates that within ninety days, a by-election must be held to choose a ne...
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| Contributors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
2022
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| In: |
A journal of church and state
Year: 2022, Volume: 64, Issue: 3, Pages: 367-388 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Sambia
/ Religion
/ Politics
/ Satanism
/ History 2015-2018
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| IxTheo Classification: | KBN Sub-Saharan Africa SA Church law; state-church law |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | On October 28, 2014, the President of the Republic of Zambia and leader of the Patriotic Front (PF) party, Michael Sata died in a London hospital one year before finishing his first term of office. The Zambian Constitution stipulates that within ninety days, a by-election must be held to choose a new president. Thus, in January 2015, the by-election was held and Mr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu of the PF emerged victorious by narrowly defeating Mr. Hakainde Hichilema, an opposition leader of the United Party for National Development (UPND). A year later, in 2016, a general election was held and Lungu won a disputed election by defeating Hichilema a second time. Very clearly in the 2015 presidential by-election, 2016 general elections, and thereafter towards the 2021 elections, the parrot cry from some Zambians of keeping religion and politics apart was silenced by clergymen and women who did not leave the actual nuts and bolts of political campaigning to politicians. Some pastors, mainly of Pentecostal and charismatic churches, turned out to be zealous campaigners for President Lungu and, in so doing, demonized Hichilema. To bring John McCauley’s analysis of contexts elsewhere to bear on Zambia, these clergy reinvigorated the language of “Christian Nation” and of “good versus evil” in politics. Followers of Hichilema labeled Lungu a corrupt drunkard of Irish Jameson whisky who pretended to be a born-again Christian, while Lungu’s followers labelled Hichilema a Freemason and, therefore, a Satanist. Additionally, Hichilema was described as a practitioner of witchcraft and a Lucifer pretending to be a Seventh Day Adventist. Consequently, two discourses about personal morality, on the one hand (“drunkenness”), and about religious threat (“Satanism”) on the other, emerged as mobilization discourses by two politicians, in attempts to receive endorsement from churches. This article indicates that the satanic threat discourse was a more powerful mobilizing topic than moral probity ... |
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| ISSN: | 2040-4867 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: A journal of church and state
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jcs/csab045 |