30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: how Berlin change impacted on southern Africa

November has been a month of remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall. I spent much of the autumn in Berlin listening and speaking to eye-witnesses. Here I look back comparing change in my two countries.

30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall

I was sleeping in Namibia when the Berlin Wall fell on the night of 9 November, 1989. I was there to cover the historic first free and fair elections in that country.

Namibia’s election was a big story coming after years of strife and deadlock and involving the UN, their Peace Keeping Force which guarded the truce and the international community. In that year…

No other date tells the history of twentieth-century Germany as poignantly as November 9. No other date is so laden with the burdens of the history of this country. And no other date symbolizes so strongly irreversible changes about to become reality. On two occasions in 1918 and 1988, they were joyful occasions when political systems ended and there were new beginnings. In 1938 it was the long night into the despair of what became the Shoah.

The End of World War One

On November 9, 1918 upheaval and an anti-government revolution with a strong anti-war sentiment reached Berlin. It forced the German Kaiser Wilhelm the…

The day an apartheid ‘Christian government’ turned on an ecumenical organization

October 19, 1977 or Black Wednesday, marks one of the lowest days under apartheid when 18 Black Consciousness organizations and the ecumenical Christian Institute were banned and no longer allowed to operate. Many Black Consciousness officials were detained on that day and with the death of its leader Steve Biko in detention a month earlier, on September 12, 1977, the Black Consciousness movement never really recovered from this mortal blow.

Press Freedom curtailed

In raids that started early in the morning, two black newspapers were closed and The World and Weekend World editor Percy Quboza was detained along with scores of other black…

The additional refugee sea rescue ship Sea-Watch 4 initiated by the German Protestant churches umbrella body EKD with the “United4Rescue” alliance has set off on its first mission in the Mediterranean after a year of preparations.

The ship, financed by donations led by German Protestant churches, left the Spanish port of Burriana on Saturday August 15, 2020 and is on its way to the search and rescue zone off the coast of Libya.

The chairperson of the EKD (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland), the umbrella body of the German Protestant churches Lutheran bishop Dr. …

World church bodies in solidarity with Zimbabwean churches

International church organisations on Monday rallied to show solidarity with churches in Zimbabwe under attack from the government.

The Lutheran World Federation, the World Council of Churches (WCC), the World Communion of Reformed Churches, and the World Methodist Council sent a message of solidarity of their “yearning for the realization of their human rights, for justice and for physical and economic security” in an open pastoral letter to the churches and people of Zimbabwe on August 17.

They condemned the use of violence against those protesting the “failure of governance structures” to protect the Zimbabwe people from “deteriorating” conditions.

The…

Catholic bishops denounce State crackdown, drawing sharp government attack

Zimbabwe’s Catholic bishops (ZCBC) drew a sharp government response after issuing a Pastoral Letter, titled ‘The March Is Not Ended’ on the current crisis in the southern African nation. In a vitriolic attack on the bishops, a government minister played on delicate tribal divisions and was herself accused of stirring genocide.

In a Pastoral Letter released on August 14, the ZCBC condemned the government’s current crackdown on any form of dissent, citing actions such as against journalists and political opposition leaders arrested and charged and left in jail.

“Fear runs down the spine of many of our people today. The…

Eastern Cape health system buckles under strain

South Africa’s Covid-19 infection rate is racing to this coming week pass the 400,000 mark, while the health system in one of its provinces — the Eastern Cape Province — has collapsed. There are reports of patients lying on dirty, bloodied floors in the Province’s urban hospitals, while churches battle to feed the poor.

“Every ward in that hospital is doomed and it’s painful because everyone is dying … the nurses are working in a hellhole … they are dying like flies,” nurse Doris Mpayipeli of Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, a large government-funded, provincial teaching hospital in the Mdantsane township of…

In South Africa twelve people died at hands of law enforcement officers

Faith leaders in South Africa held a Sunday gathering on June 7, 2020 in a local Black Lives Matter silent vigil demonstrations in the cities of Cape Town and Pretoria.

They prayed in solidarity with those who have died at the hands of law enforcement officers during lockdowns in South Africa and abroad.

“We are gathered here because Black Lives Matter, whether in South Africa, the United States, France, Australia or elsewhere,” Cape Town’s Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba told faith leaders at St. George’s Cathedral.

The steps of…