Of politicians, God, and divine favor

I note that South African president Jacob Zuma - no stranger to controversy - has roused it again by claiming that if you support his African National Congress party, you're all right with God.

Speaking in Zulu, he said: 'When you vote for the ANC, you are also choosing to go to heaven.

'When you don't vote for the ANC you should know that you are choosing that man who carries a fork, who cooks people.

'When you are carrying an ANC membership card, you are blessed. When you get up there, there are different cards used but when you have an ANC card, you will be let through to go to heaven.'

There's more at the link.

Of course, claiming Divine sanction for one's policies is nothing new. It's been a staple of politicians for as long as politics has been around. To take just a few state mottoes from recent and contemporary history:

• Confederate States of America, 1861-1865: Deo Vindice (Latin, "Under God, Our Vindicator")
• England: Dieu et mon droit (French, "God and my right") (royal motto)
• German Empire, 1871-1918: Gott mit uns (German, "God with us")
• Russian Empire: С нами Бог (Russian, "God is with us")
• United States: In God We Trust
  

Seems like the leaders of the Confederacy and the Second Reich might want to discuss with him the Deity's apparent lack of exertion on their behalf . . . As British poet J. C. Squire put it:

God heard the embattled nations sing and shout
"Gott strafe England" and "God save the King!"
God this, God that, and God the other thing -
"Good God!" said God, "I’ve got my work cut out!"

I remember growing up in South Africa under apartheid. The Dutch Reformed Church (also known as 'the National Party at prayer') was adamant that racial segregation was God's will - indeed, His Divine plan for the world! Chaplains preached to Whites doing national service in the armed forces that they were part of God's plan to civilize the Black people of Africa. (Somewhat ironically, given that context, the commonly-used insulting term applied to Blacks by Whites in Southern Africa was 'kaffir' - derived from the Arabic word for 'unbeliever'!) I learned early on that if any politician, or military officer, or any figure of secular authority whatsoever, claimed Divine sanction for his, or her, or their institution's perspective, they were automatically to be distrusted and avoided. (While the Dutch Reformed Church finally repudiated apartheid as sinful, some of its more racist adherents had broken away a decade earlier to form the Afrikaans Protestant Church, which to this day still preaches that segregation is God's will.)

Of course, God's favor is (allegedly) rather dependent on human effort - or so Nazi Gauleiter Otto Helmuth, speaking in 1944, assured his listeners.

"We all know that God is with us," he told the people of Würzburg, "but let's not rely on God alone. Let's work so hard and fight so fiercely that God cannot refuse to hand the victory palm to Germany."

Gauleiter Franz Hofer of Tirol was brushed by the wings of victory. "You must stand faithfully and unflinchingly before, behind and beside the Führer," he told the Hitler Maidens. "Victory is nearer than you think."

The Nazis tried for years to co-opt the Christian religion into the service of their demonic creed. Many artefacts of their efforts have survived. However, judging by the events of 1945, God wasn't listening!

I daresay if Mr. Zuma waits a few years, he might find his exhortations to his followers similarly trashed by history . . .





Peter