Bath Salts of the People: Countrywide Catholic Silent Demos against Hydra of Balkanization

Today in the Congo is Parents' Day, an official holiday.





But the Congolese National Conference of Catholic Bishops (CENCO) took

that opportunity to organize countrywide silent demos to protest

against the Hydra of Balkanization of the Congo.





(For a perfect definition of the meaning of Balkanization in the

Congo, see extract of this US Kinshasa Embassy cable leaked by

WikiLeaks on this Page Address:

alexengwete.blogspot.com/2011/08/drc-elections-2011-watch-1-wikileaks-us.html?m=1)





According to CENCO Secretary General, Abbé Léonard Santedi, quoted by

Radio Okapi:





"This march isn't for a political party. It's the march of unity of

the Congolese people to say no to balkanization."





The government, which, more often than not, doesn't see eye to eye

with the DRC top Catholic prelate, Laurent Cardinal Monsengwo Pasinya,

hopped with sheer alacrity on the Catholic bandwagon--no doubt in an

attempt to co-opt the nationwide events.





Said Interior Minister Richard Muyej (photo above):





"It's about time we build a strong front to face the conspiracy

unfolding in the east of our country.





"I've enjoined governors to greenlight the demonstrations and to secure them.





"We had a working session with the organizers of the demonstrations.

And we've agreed on the arrangements to be taken."





Muyej warned however "fools" to abstain from showing up at the demos.





Muyej warned that cops will "render harmless those who'd come to

disrupt the march and to instrumentalize it for something else."





According to news reports, in Kinshasa, the march started at different

parishes after mass at 0630 HRS Kinshasa Time (GMT + 1), and converged

towards the 14 deaneries of the Congolese capital.





At noon, demonstrations stood silent for one minute "to think about

those who've shed their blood for the sake of the country," said

Santedi prior to the march.





Adding:





"At the end of that minute of silence, bells will be tolling at all

the parishes to quicken us awake in order to go on building our united

Congo!"





***





Well, there's a Catholic parish nearby. And at noon I didn't hear any

bell tolling.





(Actually, the next door parish doesn't have a bell. The priests there

broadcast the recording of bells tolling via a PA system! And this

racket ruins my mornings. Maybe the parish is experiencing electricity

outage. If so, then I pray Jesus the parish never get electricity

again!)





While I applaud the Catholic demo initiative, I can't help thinking

it's another push toward theocracy here.





People are dangerously losing sight of the separation between state

and church--with the state-owned TV channel at times running Pat

Robertson's bigoted sermonizings dubbed in French!





Worse, you try and talk to Kinshasa university students about

evolution, and they turn around and accuse you of being a satanic

fiend and an occultist!

And Catholics among them have never heard of Father Teilhard de Chardin!





And today the whole country turned into the intemporal Catholic

Republic of the Congo whereas what the nation desperately needs is a

timeline of military strategic and tactical responses to Rwandan

aggression.





Marx's "opium of the people" aphorism needs updating in the Congo.

Here religion is most definitely bath salts of the people!