Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program.
The great early 20th century sociologist, Max Weber said there were three pure types of leadership and authority. There were traditional leaders, legal or bureaucratic leaders, and charismatic leaders. I don’t think there’s much doubt that the most charismatic religious leader on the world stage today is the Ugandan-born Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu who we interviewed on The Religion Report earlier this year. You may have seen him on the News earlier this week cutting up his clerical dog-collar in protest against the oppressive regime of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
John Sentamu surprised his host and audience during the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, when he pulled out a pair of scissors and cut up his dog-collar, vowing not to wear it again until Mugabe is ousted.
John Sentamu: This is what I wear to identify myself that I’m a clergyman. Do you know what Mugabe has done? He’s taken people’s identity and literally, if you don’t mind, cut it to pieces; this is what he’s actually done, and in the end there’s nothing. So as far as I’m concerned, from now on, I’m not going to wear the dog collar until Mugabe’s gone.
Andrew Marr: My goodness. Archbishop, that is a dramatic gesture and everybody will observe it. Are you going to carry on talking to the Prime Minister here, are you going to go and talk to the South Africans and continue to make these points?
John Sentamu: I have been writing and I’ve been talking, and in the long run, we need a world voice, and I hope that what Gordon Brown has done by not going, pressure now will be put on Mugabe. See, there was an expectation that humanitarian United Nations group would visit every part. The areas, a friend of mine has just returned from there, and he said it’s just so awful. People don’t know where their next meals will come from. But of course Mugabe and his clique are living wonderfully. I’ve suggested the Prime Minister doesn’t understand why Britain doesn’t have a intra-section Instead of having an embassy; why all the world don’t do the same thing, what they did to Libya at one point. Is it because this happens to be a black person? Because what is going on for me there is this pernicious self-destructing racism. A white man does it, the whole world cries; a black person does it, there is a certain sense, ‘Oh this is colonialism’. I’m sorry, I don’t buy this. Africa and all the world have got to liberate Africa from this man to slavery, and this colonial mentality whenever there’s anything, you blame somebody else instead of yourself.
Read it all.
The Religion Report Interviews Archbishop John Sentamu
Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program.
The great early 20th century sociologist, Max Weber said there were three pure types of leadership and authority. There were traditional leaders, legal or bureaucratic leaders, and charismatic leaders. I don’t think there’s much doubt that the most charismatic religious leader on the world stage today is the Ugandan-born Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu who we interviewed on The Religion Report earlier this year. You may have seen him on the News earlier this week cutting up his clerical dog-collar in protest against the oppressive regime of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
John Sentamu surprised his host and audience during the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, when he pulled out a pair of scissors and cut up his dog-collar, vowing not to wear it again until Mugabe is ousted.
John Sentamu: This is what I wear to identify myself that I’m a clergyman. Do you know what Mugabe has done? He’s taken people’s identity and literally, if you don’t mind, cut it to pieces; this is what he’s actually done, and in the end there’s nothing. So as far as I’m concerned, from now on, I’m not going to wear the dog collar until Mugabe’s gone.
Andrew Marr: My goodness. Archbishop, that is a dramatic gesture and everybody will observe it. Are you going to carry on talking to the Prime Minister here, are you going to go and talk to the South Africans and continue to make these points?
John Sentamu: I have been writing and I’ve been talking, and in the long run, we need a world voice, and I hope that what Gordon Brown has done by not going, pressure now will be put on Mugabe. See, there was an expectation that humanitarian United Nations group would visit every part. The areas, a friend of mine has just returned from there, and he said it’s just so awful. People don’t know where their next meals will come from. But of course Mugabe and his clique are living wonderfully. I’ve suggested the Prime Minister doesn’t understand why Britain doesn’t have a intra-section Instead of having an embassy; why all the world don’t do the same thing, what they did to Libya at one point. Is it because this happens to be a black person? Because what is going on for me there is this pernicious self-destructing racism. A white man does it, the whole world cries; a black person does it, there is a certain sense, ‘Oh this is colonialism’. I’m sorry, I don’t buy this. Africa and all the world have got to liberate Africa from this man to slavery, and this colonial mentality whenever there’s anything, you blame somebody else instead of yourself.
Read it all.