Who's is on supper with Milosevic?

Another one from the archives. A piece I wrote in March of 2006 on Milosevic's death. The piece won me a fresh follower- now turned my zealot-

in one John Muchangi. They said it was a good piece...

By Nzau wa Musau

SLOBODAN Milosevic is at supper now. Not where he eats but where he is eaten.

A certain convocation of politic worms are even at him this very moment.

This is what becomes of all men when they have shuffled this “mortal coil” they so jealously protect from harm all their life.

In the end, our fate is sealed with the same old blanket of death regardless of our variables in terms of nobility or pauperism.

A pauper may fish with the worm that has just eaten a king and another one may eat the fish that has just eaten that worm. The fat king and the lean beggar are but variables of the same fate--two dishes but one table. That is as far as human bodies are concerned.

The angel of death came to the rescue of the Milosevic in his prison cell last week and in his wake leaving a lot of protest and relief among those who hoped he would be pinned to the ground and made to account for atrocities attributed to him.

To say the least, Milosevic died away unloved, unmourned and unwanted. Rather than invite tears of sorrow, his death evoked tears of relief. A good riddance, they said.

A famous poet once wrote: “Within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps death his court, and there the antic sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, allowing him a little breath, a little scene- to monarchise, be feared and kill with looks, infusing him with vain conceit, as if this flesh which walls about our life, were brass impregnable.”

This is the folly of these “little gods” who seize the plight of their nations with their twitching palms forgetting the “antic” is watching them and advancing. He scorns at their folly, the angel of death, and mocks at their vanity.

In their time, they ride rough in their nations, lighting unnecessary fires and in their wake leaving a trail of destruction, burning, looting, rape, plunder and death behind them.

When they grin, beggars roll into the gutter. When they smile, innocent children are blown off their minds with automatic weapons. When they cry, the whole nation is soaked in blood.

These are beasts without a heart who think themselves constant as the northern star. They strut and fret their hour on stage foolishly believing the scene will last the drama out but are knocked off their senses when the curtain finally falls on them.

Rather than expand their royal fortune, they seek to merge it and scorn the appointing gods who erected them on their pedestals. They plunder their own fortune and dig their own graves in the sands of time.

Then the day finally comes--when the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men bow, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the widows are darkened.

Solomon in his Ecclesiastes describes the day as the one when the doors are shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he rises up at the voice of the birds (angels?) and all the daughters of music (voice?) are brought low.

“O ever the silver chord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain or the wheel broken at the cistern”.

With all his glories, triumphs and loses, the despot returns to dust. Death steals them away from jaws of earthly justice seeking to settle the scores.

But even when they are pushing up the daisies, the hate persists and rather than cease, grows stronger. The feeling is that the angel of death has flown them to regions unknown where it might never be known if they were ever punished at all.

Some Christians hope that despots will burn a week longer than the rest of the sinners owing to their grave ills but this does not make sense considering the fact that the hell fire is supposed to last forever and for every sinner alike.

Some Hindus wish they are reincarnated as a frog to always change colour or better as snakes which have no legs of their own but writhe in moving.

Those that believe in rebirth hope that despots are born again strewn naked of all attachments of royalty--as paupers. They will be hated, tormented and eventually killed for no apparent reason. Essentially, wish them some misfortune in their afterlife.

Whatever fate awaits the soul of Milosevic, it is not a sweet one. His own karma has sealed it and there is no escape to it. He had the fortune of becoming a leader of a great country but like a mindless swine that has a pearl attached to its snout, he moved on.

His demise, the form and fashion, is a great lesson for those in power and in whose “high heads”, the fate of millions below them rest.

Pope Benedict XVI: Winding back the clock?

A piece I wrote on July 17th, 2007 in the now defunct Kenya Times. I fished it down from the archives today as a response to those who say the Pope brought changes in his brief stint as the leader of the Catholic Church

By Nzau wa Musau


THE drama of life gets interesting with every turn of the script leaf. The lead actors, forced by time, are constantly reinventing their roles to fit well into the unfolding drama. This is very interesting especially to a detached observer.

Take the case of Pope Benedict XVI who has now reasserted the Catholic Church’s primacy under the sun and declared other Christian splinter denominations as wounded and not full churches of Christ.

Now that was very interesting for a number of reasons. First it came from the absolute head of the 1.1 billion member global church with deep-rooted history of involvement in human affairs.

Secondly, it comes from a seasoned, time-tested and venerated theological scholar, indeed a professor, who understands the implications of both his utterances, actions and moves in the drama of life as being played under the sun.

Thirdly and most interesting is that the reassertion of the Church’s primacy negates the spirit of the 1962-1965 Vatican II council that led to the church shedding that arrogance which hitherto had placed it on cross swords with other denominations and faiths.

The three-year old Council, opened by Pope John XXIII in October 11, 1962 and closed by his successor Pope Paul VI on December 8,1965 is again, historic for more than one reasons.

It not only substituted Latin for the native languages but also modernized the church to go with the times. It made peace, and this is very important, with the Jews, previously regarded as outcasts for slaying Jesus.

Also, Vatican II council, regarded as the 21st Ecumenical Council in the Church’s history softened its hard-line stance on Protestants, Muslims and other non-Christians by setting up a strategic ecumenical framework.

Previously, all these were regarded as “heretics”, those whom in those dark middle ages were consumed in “splendid autos-da-fes”.

The Council came against this background of the Church losing favor with an evolving humanity for its arrogance and plain terms.

In Brothers Karamazov, Russian novelist Fydor Dostoyevsky insinuates that the Church had so much entrenched itself as world authority that its leadership would object to the second coming of its subject Jesus Christ, ostensibly to continue enjoying authority.

He makes mention of Jesus landing in a Seville neighborhood where a “heretic witch” as they went, is being burnt and is confronted by a stiff-necked Cardinal, whom Fyodor calls “the grand inquisitor”.

“Why have you come to meddle with us? And why are you looking at me silently and so penetratingly with your gentle eyes?”, he tells the son of man.
He goes on to tell off the gentle smiling Jesus for rejecting the only “absolute banner” which would have seen all men worship him alone and “incontestably” as offered by Satan during the epic temptation in the wilderness.

“So we have corrected your great work and have based it on miracle, mystery and authority, and men rejoiced that they were once more led like sheep”, he adds.
Besides this dark past, the church loss of modernity track had reached proportionate heights hence the conceiving of the idea of the Council during the feast of conversion of St. Paul in January 25, 1959 before a college of cardinals.

Thereafter followed what Pope John termed as “three years of celestial grace” during which the church profoundly soul-searched and examined itself as regards modern conditions of faith, religious practice and the whole issue of Catholic vitality.

Incidentally, Pope Benedict XVI himself played a central role in forcing the reforms that revolutionized the church, as it were, coming in as a Peritus in Roman terms or a theological consultant in our own terms.

Then a 35 year old and only known as “Father Joseph Ratzinger”, the future Pope was viewed as a reformist alongside radical modernist theologians like Hans Kung and Edward Schllebeckx.

Besides him, three other people who would take a central place in the church by wearing the papal vestments included a cardinal who went by the name Battista Giovani, later to become Pope Paul VI (who closed the Council), Bishop Albino Luciani, later to become Pope John Paul I and Bishop Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II who preceded Pope Benedict XVI.

During the Council and as expressed in Pope John XXIII’s opening speech, the church attested to more than nineteen-century history “characterized by clouds of sorrow and trials. Quoting ancient Simeon’s announcement to Mary mother of Jesus that her child’s sign shall be “contradicted”, the Pope admitted the competition the church was facing was sanctioned from above.

The truth of the Lord remains forever even as ages succeed each other and opinions of men exclude each other. And part of that Godly truth as told by Simeon in Luke 2:34 was that Jesus would be opposed.

Other than concentrate on condemnation and branding of non-Catholics, the Pope said it was the church’s duty “as a loving mother of all, benigh, patient, full of mercy and goodness towards brethren separated from her” to actively pursue unity.

The unity, he proposed, would be pursued through what he described as “triple ray of beneficient supernal light”, which basically is the unity of all Catholics, unity with rebellious offshoots and unity in esteem and respect for non-Catholics.

In essence, Pope John set the pace for the three-year old Council in which participants like Pope Benedict XVI would shed their arrogance and pursue world unity. It is therefore with confidence that Pope Paul VI while closing the Council would have the courage to pronounce:

“From this Catholic center of Rome, no one, in principle, is unreachable.No one is a stranger. No one is excluded. No one is far away”.

Fast forward four decades later, and the man who helped in that important shift is or appears to be negating the very spirit of the venerated Council by not only rubbing non-Catholics the wrong way but also strongly reasserting the traditional Catholic identity.

“He thinks the world is his classroom”, Fr Tom Reese, a US Jesuit author and senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Centre at Georgetown University was recently quoted saying of the former Professor.

Without necessary agreeing with this critic, it evidently appears that either Pope Benedict XVI is deliberately and strongly turning back the Catholic clock or he gets himself into trouble unnecessary.
Only time will tell.