Talks to cool Birdswood vs Shembe feud

AS the time looms for the annual Shembe Nazareth Baptist Church gathering, which last year saw hundreds of worshippers camp in Richards Bay’s Birdswood suburb, mediation started this week to avoid the saga from repeating itself.

The Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) Commission hosted the first discussion at the City of uMhlathuze Auditorium on Tuesday, where representatives from the neighbourhood and the church were afforded the opportunity to state their grievances.

In May 2014, over 10 000 church members entered the worshipping site in the Mpunza Forest via Birdswood’s Pelican Parade road, infuriating surrounding home-owners.

Residents complained of tents set up in front of their homes, noise, traffic congestion and unhygienic activities on their doorsteps, since no sanitation facilities were made available to them.

Shembe Church elders pointed out the importance for them to celebrate the founding of their church in 1910 by hosting the month-long event.

To open a camping ground for the overwhelming influx of worshippers last year, a large portion of the Mpunza protected forest was cut down, disregarding the instruction from the Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs and Rural Development MEC Mechack Radebe to leave the indigenous area unscathed.

But Shembe leader Andreas Mthiyane said the church is ‘not against nature’.

‘Our aim was just to open the space for our membership.

‘We started using this site from 1975 until we moved to Ntambanana and now we have been using it since returning in 1992 as a preaching place.’

A Birdswood home-owner said residents are not against the Shembe religion or their members’ right to commemorate significant dates.

‘We just request that a procedure is put in place and residents are kept informed so we also know what’s going on.’

CRL together with the uMhlathuze Municipality and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said they will investigate the discrepancies and arrange for a process to be implemented before the upcoming church event.

Until then, Shembe cannot set the date for the next mass occupation of Mpunza Hill.