Poetry

The violent dispossession of farms
in Zimbabwe
is seen by some people as lawlessness (1)
 
and that it only is the consequence
of ethnic and racial hatred that is present
where the state does collapse, (2)
where lawful authority does lack
and that nothing else is hidden
beyond those occurrences
 
but when you look deeper
into all of this
facts do come to light
that is utterly disturbing.
 
It is a known fact
that the ruler in Zimbabwe
that has been voted out but still does rule
Robert Mugabe
is a Jesuit (3) (4) (5)
in the Roman Catholic Church
 
and that church
believes in the natural law
as had been set out by Thomas Aquinas
in his Summa Theologiae (6)
 
and everywhere where the state and church
had been one throughout history
there had been grave danger
as during the dark ages
where people had been executed
for that in which they do believe.
 
According to this natural law
possessions like farms, houses
cars and even tools
is being seen as only
in the title belonging to the owner
 
but that the community
has got the right of the use of it
above the owner
and even the violent dispossession
of such property
by the community
is justified.
 
[Footnotes: 
 
(1) “ná grond-invasions in Zimbabwe” (After ther ground-invasions in Zimbabwe)” by Antjie Krog. 
 
(2)  “There is one type of fear more devastating in its impact than any other:  the systematic fear that arises when a state begins to collapse.  Ethnic hatred is the result of the terror that arises when legitimate authority disintegrates.” Michael Ignatieff:  Blood and Belonging – Croatia and Serbia.
(3) “The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu, S.J., SJ or SI) is a male religious congregation of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits.” O'Malley, John W., ed. (2006). "The Formula of the Institute (p. XXXV)". Jesuits 2 (2nd ed.). Toronto:University of Toronto Press.
(4) “Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born near the Kutama Jesuit Mission in the Zvimba District northwest of Salisbury, in Southern Rhodesia, to a Malawian father, Gabriel Matibili, and a Shona mother, Bona, both Roman Catholic. He was the third of six children. He had two older brothers, Michael (1919–34) and Raphael. Both his older brothers died when he was young, leaving Robert and his younger brother, Donato (1926–2007), and two younger sisters – Sabina and Bridgette.” Mugabe mourns reclusive brother". newzimbabwe.com. 11 December 2009. Retrieved 4 August2013.
(5) “Mugabe was raised as a Roman Catholic, studying in Marist Brothers and Jesuit schools, including the exclusive Kutama College, headed by an Irish priest, Father Jerome O'Hea, who took him under his wing. Through his youth, Mugabe was never socially popular nor physically active and spent most of his time with the priests or his mother when he was not reading in the school's libraries. He was described as never playing with other children but enjoying his own company. "Robert Mugabe: The man behind the fist".The Economist. 29 March 2007.
 
(6) The Papal Encyclical: “Rerum Novarum:”  “Goods of some are due to others by the natural law.  There is no sin if the poor take the goods of their neighbours.  In cases of need, all things are common property, for the need has made it common.  Not only is such taking of another’s property not a sin, it is not even crime.  It is lawful for a man to succour his own need by means of another’s property by taking either openly or secretly, nor is this properly speaking, theft or robbery.  It is not theft, properly speaking to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need, because that which he takes for the support of his own life becomes his own property by reason of that need.  In a case of a like need a man may also take secretly another’s property to succour his neighbour’s need.”  Summa Theologiae ii-ii 7th Article by Thomas Aquinas”
 
Poet’s note: This verse illustrates how easily man can make mistakes, where the church and state is one.  Anyone who reads this verse as an assault on the Roman Catholic Church misinterprets it.]