Palm Sunday

Last week Mrs Helen Kamutumbe, a woman from Chingola, was brutally murdered last week by a frenzied mob when she traveled to Kalumbila in North-Western District of Zambia for business. She was accused of witch-craft by a certain man, Mr. Prince Ntembo. The allegation that Mrs. Kamutumbe made his private parts disappear has since been proved to be totally without foundation. The nation has been deeply shocked by the savagery of the mob that descended upon this woman. This incident is a very powerful illustration of a very ancient mechanism that dwells in most societies which was first examined and identified by the French anthropologist, René Girard. Girard’s theory describes this process as “the scape-goating” mechanism.

This mechanism is designed in order to get rid of the tension and violence that inhabit a certain community. The way this is done is by finding a scapegoat that the members of a community can blame for all its problems. The sins of the whole community, everything that is wrong with that community will then be heaped onto the scapegoat. It is often the marginalized and the weakest members of a community who are scapegoated because they are defenceless and unable to fight back. We might think of the way in which many wealthy nations have turned to blaming immigrants for many of their problems. Since the dawn of civilization, the accusation of witchcraft has also been used as a mechanism of scapegoating poor elderly women and eliminating them from society. The scapegoat serves as a conduit through which all the pent-up frustration and violence that inhabits a society can be unleashed in one frenzied and intense act of violence, like in this case of the mob justice visited upon Helen Kamulumbe.

There are scant details online as to why exactly Prince Ntambo made this accusation that his katundu had been stolen by this woman. But it is not a light accusation, and I would disagree with commentators online who assume that this boy was simply making a joke. You do not joke about something so serious. Whenever we talk about our sexuality, we show that we are concerned about one of the most important aspects of our life. Our sexual organs are the instruments we use to live out our God-given vocation to be fruitful and multiply. Pro-creation is one of the chief ways we live out being made in the image and likeness of God by participating in God’s creative activity. Our sexuality is also one of the principal loci of our enjoyment of life. So for someone to accuse another person of stealing their katundu, they are effectively venting their frustration at not being able to enjoy life. They are venting their frustration at not being able to be creative to fulfil their God-given vocation to be fruitful in life.

For Prince Ntembo to make such an accusation, there was clearly something wrong in his life. He was clearly dealing with some frustration at a lack of fruitfulness in his life. Helen Kamutumbe presented herself as the ideal candidate to vent his anger and frustration on. She was vulnerable on two accounts, firstly she was a woman, and secondly, she was a foreigner, at least in terms of being someone from out of town, who would have no one to defend her at the market place in Kisasa. Prince Ntambo was on his home ground – so he launched the accusation which led to the unleashing of all the pent up frustration and anger of a marginalized community directed against a defenseless and vulnerable woman. In that moment, she became the symbol of all that was robbing this community of their vitality, of their ability to generate a living, to be co-creators and to be fruitful. I think it is not accident that Kalumbila lies on the edge of world class green field mine. There is an abundance of wealth that they are living in close proximity to, but they are frustrated at the unequal distribution of this wealth. As a small-time business woman Helen Kamulumbe presented herself as the ideal proxy against which this impoverished community to lash out and express all their frustration at their broken dreams.

Jesus also presented himself as the ideal scapegoat. Jesus’ ministry had revealed serious deficiencies in the Jewish nation-state. In his parable of the vineyard and the tenants, Jesus exposed how Israel had failed to be fruitful and had lost its vitality. The chief priests and the Sadduccees, who were mainly responsible for this loss of fruitfulness decided to put the blame on Jesus as a false prophet and accused him of leading the people astray. This is most clearly articulated by Caiphas, the high priest, who states that “it is better for one may to die for the people than for a whole nation to be destroyed.”

There are other parallels between the mob justice visited upon Helen Kamulumbe and the Passion story that we celebrate today. When Helen Kamulumbe was carted off by the angry mob to the chief to have him pronounce a verdict on her, the cheif declined to intervene and simply told the crowd to take her to the police. He declined to intervene and use his power to save the vulnerable victim of the crowd, just as Pilate declined to use his power and influence to save the life of Jesus. At some point in the story, the headmaster of Kalumbila secondary school was able to give shelter to Mrs. Helen Kamulumbe and tried to save her life, but the crowd simply overwhelmed him, broke into his house and snatched Helen away – their bloodlust would not be frustrated. Although there were some good people in both the crucifixition story and the Kumulumbe incident, there were not enough good people willing to risk their lives to save the life of another. Veronica and Simon and this headmaster were just a drop in the ocean, in a sea of indifferent people who simply watched with arms folded as Jesus and Helen went to their deaths. For evil to happen, all that is necessary is for good people to do nothing. There were hundreds of people who watched both Jesus and Helen go to their deaths, and in the process because guilty bystanders. Many in the crowd jeer at Jesus, just as they probably jeered at Helen, happy to vent their frustrations on a defenceless victim who cannot attack them back.

Perhaps the most extraordinary parallel between these two stories is the proclamation of the innocence of the victim. René Girard affirms that one of the reasons that the Christian story is so powerful and salvific is because it is one of the few stories in history to proclaim the innocence of the victim. The Kamulumbe incident is also rather unique as a case-study of a witchcraft accusation where the accused is unequivocally shown to be innocent of the charge. Traditionally charges of witchcraft are incredibly difficult to prove or disprove either way. Normally there is a clear and undisputed calamity (the loss of a job, an illness, a drought or a death in the community) and the putative witch is presumed to the responsible for the calamity. In this case, the calamity (loss of private parts) was shown to be false, thus establishing clearly the falsity of the charge and the innocence of the victim.

Crucially, what the proclamation of the innocence of the victim does is to highlight the guilt of the scapegoaters. If Helen and Jesus died, then they died because of the sins of the society around them. The proclamation of the innocence of Helen has sparked a moment of intense soul-searching in the nation of Zambia. Social media is awash with conversations that not only unilaterally condemn mob justice, but also ask more probing questions such as how, in a Christian nation, hundreds of Zambians can stand by passively and watch as an innocent women is brutally murdered. This soul searching is important because it is the beginning of conversion.

The horrified face of Prince Ntembo (pictured below) tells a story of 1000 words. There is no ways he imagined the lie that he told would end up in the death of this woman. This is a powerful parable of how a small sin can take on epic proportions as it gets amplified by the sins of others. In a small way, the death of Helen might prove somehow salutary for this boy Prince. Her death confronts him with his own sinfulness. He cannot escape the terrible consequences of his own sin. For many of us, we don’t see the suffering that our sin causes others and so we continue doing it. We don’t see the consequences of our lies, the consequences of our unfaithfulness on our spouses, of our corrupt practices.

If we are going to do any soul-searching today, it should be to ask ourselves where have we allowed ourselves to take out our frustrations on others. We’ve all done it – we’ve had a bad day at the office, our boss has given us a hard time for something we didn’t do, or we are irritated because we realize we’ve messed up, and we come back home and take it out on our children, who did nothing wrong. Or our boss is giving us heat for our mistake and we take it out on our juniors. Looking for a scapegoat is such an easy mechanism – it is so easy to simply blame one person for all our problems. It much harder for each individual to examine their own conscience and then to come together to have an honest conversations about how our attitudes have created social structures of sin which led to the suffering of the vulnerable and defenceless.

Finally, there is one crucial way in which these two stories differ. Helen did not know that her death was imminent, so she could not willingly lay down her life as Jesus did. Helen’s family are not preaching a message of forgiveness, understandably, they are looking for justice to be meted out to the perpetrators. Helen’s death exposes the sin of the community at Kalumbila, but it does nothing to remedy that sin. The cross also exposes our sin. When we look at the cross we are forced to confront the fact that our jealousy, lust for power and indifference to the suffering continues to crucify Jesus as he suffers in the least of his brothers and sisters. But the cross doesn’t just expose our sin, it also offers the remedy. For Jesus was able to forgive those who crucified him and sent him to death. In Jesus God is saying to us – throw the worst that you have inside of you as human beings at me and I will absorb it all and respond with love and forgiveness. Jesus knows this is the only response that will ultimately heal us and lead us to rediscover the fruitfulness and vitality in our lives that sin has caused us to lose. It is only once we face the fact that we are responsible for our own loss of vitality and fruitfulness that we can then receive Jesus’ offer of love and forgiveness from the cross.

Questions of reflection

1. Who are the scapegoats in my life, the innocent victims of my misdirected frustration and anger?

2. In what ways do my attitudes and speech promote the oppression of women, children and other vulnerable members of society?

3. How might the cross reveal my own need for conversion and healing?