Jack Voelkel
Saving the Beloved Country (II)
by Jamie Morrison.
Read part one.
In the Kolobe Lodge weekend dialogue encounters which Michael Cassidy and his African Enterprise colleagues organized for senior politicians in South Africa in the early 1990s, genuine relationships were forged across racial and ideological lines. Whites and blacks became friends. English-speakers and Afrikaners forgave one another. And Communists and Christians embraced. They didn’t all agree about everything; in fact, they still had much they didn’t agree on. But they had experienced relationship with one another, many for the first time. And they were changed forever.
Blessed are the Peacemakers
While this was not evangelism, Cassidy’s primary calling, he saw it as very much as essential precondition to evangelism. “It’s very difficult to preach the Gospel in a country where so many are killing one another,” Cassidy said. “During the apartheid years, and in the early ‘90s when our new dispensation was being formed, scores and even hundreds of people were being killed every single day. Surely you can’t tell me that the Gospel has nothing to say about this, or that Christians should not be involved in trying to bring about a reduction or elimination of the problems contributing to this? ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ says our Lord. There was a lot to do for every Christian South African in those years. Our bit was to try to bring relationships between senior politicians in the hope that this would lower the political temperature and lead to reduced violence and good government so that the church could get about its primary business of bringing people to Christ.”
Even with the relationships formed across political divides in the Kolobe Lodge experiences, South Africa entered 1994 with a major rift between the ANC and IFP. The country was heading for catastrophe and no one seemed to have any idea how to break the impasse. IFP and ANC adherents were killing each other by the scores every day. Finally, the parties agreed to have international mediators come in to help find a way forward. When the slate of mediators was announced, Cassidy was astonished. “There were no Africans among them. I realize that Henry Kissinger and Lord Carrington of Britain and others are all very capable people, but we had in South Africa a very African problem and we needed an African mind to bring understanding of the situation.”
We Need an African Mind
Cassidy quickly tried to think of who could bring this essential African perspective. He had met a Kenyan Christian politician many years back during a backstage South African peace initiative in England. He remembered his name was Washington Okumu and that he had studied at Harvard under Kissinger. Furthermore, Okumu also knew Buthelezi, having met him at a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Could Okumu be the Lord’s man for such a time as this? Cassidy called and implored him to come, which he did.
With scores of new political friends won through more than a year of Kolobe Lodge weekends, Cassidy was quickly able to introduce Okumu to some of the major political players. And with his relationship with Kissinger, Okumu was officially tapped as an advisor to the international mediation team. Not only that, but the Lord confirmed Okumu’s place in the unfolding drama. As they sat down in a chartered plane shortly after Okumu’s arrival in South Africa, Cassidy noticed that the Christian who ran the air charter service had put out a Bible verse on a snack tray. This man had no knowledge of who Okumu was, or that their errand was to meet with politicians in regard to South Africa’s dire future. The verse was Isaiah 46:10-11: “I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.”
Cassidy’s hopes soared. The man of God’s counsel, from the far country of Kenya, in East Africa, was now on board with the international mediation. Surely a solution would come in the next few days.
Hopes were dashed, however, with cruel rapidity. The mediators arrived in South Africa on April 12, spent no more than 48 hours meeting with the main players, and discouragingly got back on their planes and flew home on April 15, having made zero progress and with Kissinger predicting “Armageddon in South Africa.” Election day, April 27, loomed less than two weeks away, still with no solution.
Okumu was also going to fly back to Kenya. “Brother,” Cassidy said on the phone, “I see no way you can go. The Lord has not brought us this far only to let the whole thing fall apart now. Besides, you are in a very special way, I believe, God’s man in this situation. The Lord will help you and we will cover you constantly with prayer.” Thankfully Okumu agreed to stay and press on with efforts to craft a solution.
A Hoped-for Solution
This he did. In the evening of April 14 and into the wee hours of the 15th, Okumu met with two of the IFP’s senior constitutional negotiators and hammered out a hoped-for solution that would allow the IFP to enter the elections. Okumu got a few winks of sleep and awoke in the morning excited about the prospects and eager to okay his plan with Chief Buthelezi. He felt optimistic when he found that the Chief’s plane was at Lanseria airport, on the edge of Johannesburg, and that the control tower had radioed the pilot to wait for Okumu’s arrival. When his speeding taxi failed to get him there quickly enough, though, Buthelezi felt he couldn’t wait any longer, and so directed the pilot to take off anyway.
Now Buthelezi’s plane was in the air and Okumu didn’t know how he would find a way to meet with the Chief anytime soon. Yet the situation was dire and hanging by a thread. What should he do?
Astonishingly and mysteriously, the Chief’s plane was now coming back in for a landing, and a few moments later Buthelezi came back into the airport, now able to meet with Okumu. When Okumu told the Chief of his plan hatched in the early hours of that morning, the Chief nodded his relieved assent. He thought it would work and it would now just need to get the approval of the ANC leaders.
But what had brought the Chief’s plane back? A violently gyrating compass. But on the ground, the mechanics found no fault with the compass. It looked like a miracle. In fact, all involved, including the pilot, saw it as a divine intervention. The compass problem was not a life-threatening malfunction and it had happened soon enough that the plane could come back to the airport it took off from, rather than diverting to another airfield. But as a precaution the pilot brought the plane back so that the compass system could be re-set, something that could only be done with the plane on the ground. Said Buthelezi to Okumu when he arrived, “You know, my brother, God has brought me back, like Jonah, because now there is something wrong with the plane and it is obvious He wants us to meet.”
The Jesus Peace Rally
During this whole process, Cassidy and his AE colleagues were busy organizing the “Jesus Peace Rally” held on Sunday, April 17, in a rugby stadium in Durban on the KwaZulu-Natal coast. Twenty-five thousand Christians came forth that day to pray for peace in South Africa. Unbeknown to the throng, as they were singing and praying, Buthelezi was in the stadium’s VIP lounge with Okumu’s plan, discussing it with ANC leaders and the government’s representative. Okumu had flown to Cape Town to talk it over with Nelson Mandela. God had heard the prayers of these believers who dared to pray for a miracle for their country. And He honored the persevering efforts of at least two Christians – Cassidy and Okumu – who thought it was their business as believers to make a contribution in the political realm.
Okumu’s plan received assent from all quarters. A special session of Parliament was convened to ratify it on Monday, April 18. On Tuesday, April 19, the announcement rang forth from radios and TVs across the country: “The IFP is entering the elections!” An astonished and grateful country heaved a gargantuan sigh of relief, Christians thanked their good God in Heaven, and even secular journalists printed headlines proclaiming “Miracle”.
The elections went forth totally peacefully eight days later, April 27, and continued for three days, as millions of formerly disenfranchised people stood in lines often several miles long, waiting for many hours, sometimes even coming back the following day to continue waiting. And there were no reports of any sort of violence at all during these days of peaceful jubilation.
Catastrophe was averted, and the Beloved Country was given a new birth from on high. Deo Gloria.
Jamie Morrison is a freelance writer based in Spokane, Washington. He is the great-grandson, grandson, son, nephew and cousin of missionaries. Jamie and his wife Amy worked for African Enterprise in South Africa for ten years; they have three children.
Photo of Michael Cassidy, courtesy of African Enterprise. Used by permission.
This essay is based on, and contains quotes from, the account of the 1994 South African elections, and other events leading up to them, contained in A Witness For Ever by Michael Cassidy (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995). Cassidy, a South African, is the founder of African Enterprise.
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