Speaking Out

Mugabe's supporters are claiming that his visit to Lisbon this past weekend was a triumph!

Note what the Archbishop of York says

Comment from The Daily Telegraph (UK), 11 December

John Sentamu once again made us sit up

By Liz Hunt

John Sentamu is a world-class showman who is divinely inspired. To mark his enthronement at York Minster two years ago, he updated the feeding of the 5,000 by holding a picnic for 3,000, courtesy of M&S. Eight months later, he shaved his head, pitched a tent inside the minster and spent seven high-profile days fasting and praying. Not quite 40 days and nights wandering in a desert, I grant you, but it was the best a busy 21st-century archbishop could do to protest at the West's refusal to intervene in the bombing of Lebanon. This weekend, Dr Sentamu had his "money-changers in the temple" moment when a guest on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show. The Archbishop of York is a long-standing critic of Robert Mugabe, whom he describes as the "worst kind of racist dictator". His angry frustration with other African leaders who persist in supporting the Zimbabwean president emerged during a discussion about the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon and Mugabe's controversial presence at it.

Suddenly, Sentamu whipped off his clerical collar. "As an Anglican, this is what I wear to identify myself, that I am a clergyman," he announced. With a dramatic flourish, he started to cut the collar into pieces with a pair of scissors that just happened to be handy. "Do you know what Mugabe has done?" he continued. "He has taken people's identity and literally, if you don't mind, cut it to pieces. So, as far as I am concerned, from now on I am not going to wear a dog-collar until Mugabe has gone." Some have dismissed it as an organised stunt (although Marr certainly looked startled); others say it was typical of the flamboyant former Ugandan high court judge who now holds the second highest office in the Church of England. It matters not to Sentamu what others think. He got the headlines he wanted: he always does. Attention was once again focused on the horrors endured by his fellow Africans whose homeland has been turned, in his words, "from a bread basket to a basket case", and whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed by a shameless despot.

As I watched Sentamu, I wondered if Gordon Brown was watching, too, and what he might be thinking. His decision to boycott the EU meeting because Mugabe - despite a Europe-wide travel ban against him - would be there had, to some, seemed admirable. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spirited attack on Mugabe's human rights record had left the absent PM looking a bit of a wimp. Now, here was further humiliation, albeit unintentional, at the hands of a clergyman who preferred to speak out against Mugabe rather than register a silent protest. Dr Sentamu certainly knows a tyrant when he sees one. He survived savage beatings under Idi Amin in the 1970s after defying him on several occasions, once jailing 10 suspects whom he knew to be innocent to save them from being murdered by the president's thugs. He quit Uganda in 1974 after gaining a place at Cambridge to read theology, and since his ordination in 1979 has risen through the church hierarchy, his ebullience, humour and tendency to speak his mind undiminished by the gravitas attached to his position. Sentamu is now an accomplished media performer who never wastes a sound-bite or photo-opportunity. It would be wrong to say that he acts or speaks first and thinks later - he is too clever for that. But he is a man of instinct. Those instincts are rooted in principle and when he speaks it is with the absolute moral authority of a leader. Many are wary of him - his charisma does not sit easily with the Church's preference for monochrome clergy - but in truth there could be no better ambassador.