The processes surrounding the birth of the Justice and Peace Commission in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)

Abstract

Although the term ‘globalisation’ is relatively new, globalising influences have long since been at work from the time of the journeys of discovery in the 15th century. In this paper, the author illustrates how theological views from the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and from the World Council of Churches (WCC) constituted a formidable globalising influence in the quest for social justice in Rhodesia during the latter part of the struggle for freedom in the seventies. The application of the religious values emanating from these two major streams of Christianity to the local socio-political and economic context in Rhodesia helped to generate, albeit within a small segment of the laity of the Catholic Church in Rhodesia, a new commitment toward establishing not only a peaceful but just society free of racial discrimination. Thus, in retrospect, the Justice and Peace Commission (JPC), as it was known in the 1970s, should be seen as a byproduct of both global and local theological responses to the threat of racism in the global political arena and in Rhodesia, in particular.