**1. Introduction**

Since the early 2000s, a new breed of religious leaders that deploy relatively radical and confrontational strategies to advance peace and reconciliation has emerged. Rather than restricting pathways to peace to nonconfrontational approaches such as empathy, pacifism, prayer, meditation, love, repentance and compassion, these religious leaders have extended them to include demonstrations, petitions and critically speaking out. In doing so, they have redefined and reframed the meaning and method of pursuing peace in Zimbabwe and brought a new consciousness of the role of religious leaders in times of political hostility, especially that being radical and confrontational is not merely a stubborn parting from conventions but an approach that can bring new ideas and directions in the search for peace and reconciliation. This article argues that religious organizations operating outside the jurisdiction of the mainstream churches have challenged the view that there is a contradiction between hard, radical and confrontational approaches, and soft, piety and acquiescence approaches in pursuit of peace and reconciliation by religious leaders. In what follows, I give a brief overview of the socio-economic and political context out of which the religio-political nonconformist organization under study emerged. I proceed to discuss the approach of the mainstream church leaders, pointing out what the religio-political organization pointed out as the weaknesses of the mainstream religious leaders which paved the way for their emergence. Subsequently, I unpack and discuss the culture, organization and operations of the religio-political organization concerning peace and reconciliation.

### **2. Whither the Socio-Economic and Political Situation in Zimbabwe**

Churches in Manicaland emerged in the early 2000s due to the socio-economic and political instability and violence that befell Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was born on 17 April, 1980 after a protracted war of liberation. However, despite the reconciliation speech by the late former President (Prime Minister at the time) Robert Mugabe at independence, in which he urged former warring parties, blacks and whites to bury the past and focus on peace, reconciliation and the stability of the country, it never experienced true reconciliation. Instead, Zimbabwe has accumulated an array of conflict points which make the quest for peace and reconciliation imperative (Huyse 2003, p. 34). The conflicts were due to the contest for political and economic power between political parties, which created negative beliefs, attitudes and emotions, encouraging ordinary people to rise against each other on political grounds, thereby destroying the tapestry of relationships that formerly existed (Tarusarira 2016).

The decade beginning in the year 2000 came to be known in policy circles and scholarship as the crisis decade. It was characterised by degeneration of the country into violence, a sacrifice of the rule of law, a militarisation of the state and a collapsing economy. Resultantly, opposition politics increased in response to the political crisis, which was attributed to bad governance. Citizens blamed the constitution of the country for failing to stop the rot that was in government. The constitutional discourse thus set the oppositional political mood of the decade. After consensus in the country that there was a need to write a new constitution to reform governance, a civic organization called the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) emerged to advocate the development of a people-driven constitution. The governmen<sup>t</sup> feared that the move to change the constitution and the emergence of the NCA was going to paint it in a bad light since the elites in governmen<sup>t</sup> were allegedly benefitting from the shortcomings of the existing constitution. To counteract the initiatives of the NCA, the governmen<sup>t</sup> instituted its Constitutional Commission (CC), which produced a draft constitution that was rejected by the people in a referendum in the year 2000. This seemed to confirm the government's fears and was the first overt sign of people's disgruntlement with the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) regime and an unprecedented defeat of the ruling party since independence in 1980. Action was needed quickly to mobilise and coordinate support by whatever means as there were impending elections. Some ZANU PF war veterans invaded commercial farms under the guise of a land reform programme. The land was the only remaining rhetorical source of mobilisation for ZANU PF (Dorman 2003, p. 848). Unruly gangs occupied the land, destroyed crops, confiscated livestock and equipment, and forced farm owners and their workers to flee during the preludes to the elections of 2000, 2002 and 2005 (Sachikonye 2011; Tarusarira 2016). The banning of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from campaigning characterized the election periods. Electoral violence and state-sponsored militias which harassed, intimidated and murdered MDC candidates and supporters became the signature of elections (Bratton and Masunungure 2011, pp. 23–24).

The regime introduced draconian laws. Cases in point include the Broadcasting Services Act, which was promulgated in 2001 to control electronic and print media. It claimed that its mission was to "provide world-class quality programmes and services that reflect, develop, foster and respect the Zimbabwean national identity, character, cultural diversity, national aspirations and Zimbabwean and pan-African values" (Chiumbu 2004, p. 30).<sup>1</sup> Because the state feared insurrection, it introduced the Public Order and Security Act on the 22 January, 2002 to empower the state to "regulate" public gatherings, making it di fficult for opposition movements to organise. Yet another law, the Access to Information and Privacy and Protection Act, was promulgated in 2002, allegedly "to make public bodies more accountable to the public and to protect personal privacy". In practice, it served to silence critical media and increase the influence of the Minister of Information (Chuma 2004, p. 134). Journalists and media houses were required to register, and foreign media were banned. Public media metamorphosed into a full-blown propaganda instrument, limiting public discourse to themes approved by the ZANU PF elites and "inventing traditions" (Tarusarira 2016). "Invention of traditions" refers to "a set of practices normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature which set out to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past" (Hobsbawm 1983, p. 1; 1994, p. 76). The Mugabe regime resorted to advancing political ideologies through patriotic history, manipulating history and nationalism in its favour. The regime's patriotic history's nationalist narratives exclude the voices of some political leaders from the history of the liberation war (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2008).

The military—the heads of the army, police, air force, intelligence and prison charged with the mandate to protect national security—became an uno fficial decision-making board reporting directly to Mugabe, thus able to act independently of cabinet decisions. Consequently, militaristic approaches became the default mode of governing the country. A case in point is Operation *Murambatsvina,* codenamed Operation Restore Order, which the regime implemented under the guise of cleansing cities of illegal business dealers and settlements in 2005. It left 700,000 urban Zimbabweans homeless (Tibaijuka 2005, p. 7). Sometimes people were forced to demolish their dwellings or source of income in winter. A major motive was allegedly political retribution against sectors of the urban population who had voted MDC as well as the desire to ward o ff possible urban uprisings (Sachikonye 2011, p. 27). Operation *Maguta* (having enough to eat) transferred the managemen<sup>t</sup> of food production from the ordinary civil service to the army, partly to ensure that the troops themselves remained well-fed (Bratton and Masunungure 2011, pp. 26–27). The governmen<sup>t</sup> launched Operation *Mavhoterapapi* (for whom did you vote?) after the presidential run-o ff in 2008, sacrificing democracy, the rule of law and the independency of the judiciary. It denied rights to information, freedom of association and minority rights. State o fficials ceased to be accountable, and elections lost credibility. Communities destroyed the tapestry of relationships that existed.
