Friend at Night, Enemy during the Day? A Decolonial Engagement of Pastor Shingi Munyeza’s Role as Regime Enabler and/or Regime Resistor

Abstract

During Robert Mugabe’s era, religious leaders had always been standing as either regime enablers or regime resistors. The two roles continued when President Emmerson Mnangagwa assumed power in 2017. Although most religious leaders choose to be either regime enablers or resistors, Shingi Munyeza positioned himself as both regime enabler and resistor. As a regime enabler, Munyeza sits on several boards appointed by the state president. In addition, when President Mnangagwa got into power, he appointed Munyeza to be in his Presidential Advisory Council. After the appointment, the entrusted cleric somersaulted into a regime resistor, using the Bible to publicly castigate the government of the man who had handpicked him to whisper in his ears for advice. Using decolonial theory, which is a programme of de-linking from contemporary legacies of coloniality, this paper challenges the dual role of enabling and resisting the regime played by Munyeza as a portrayal of a “friend at night and an enemy of the regime during the day.” This paper grapples with questions such as: Why did Munyeza start to denigrate the government the moment he became the president’s advisor? Why did Munyeza not opt to resign from the government that he is labelling as a rogue? How does Munyeza balance the role of an advisor to and an opponent of the same regime? In its decolonial engagement, the paper concludes that the dual role of regime enabler and/or resistor is not possible unless one is a “friend at night and an enemy during the day.”