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Wall Street Journal

Tanzania’s Leader Urges People to Worship in Throngs Against Coronavirus

President John Magufuli scorns social distancing, sees Jesus Christ as antidote to ‘satanic’ virus.

By Nicholas Bariyo and Joe Parkinson

April 8, 2020

As most of the world goes into lockdown to halt the spread of coronavirus, Tanzania’s president is taking a different tack: encouraging people to go pray in churches and mosques to quell a “satanic” virus that can only be cured by divine intervention.

For the past two weeks, the East African nation’s populist leader, John Magufuli, has been attending church services, telling cheering congregations that coronavirus cannot survive in the bodies of the faithful. In recent days, churches and mosques have swelled with worshipers from the coastal capital of Dar es Salaam to the northern cities of Arusha and Moshi. Mosques in the largely Muslim archipelago of Zanzibar are drawing large crowds for weekly prayers. The stance makes Tanzania the world’s only government to actively recommend its citizens attend religious services as a method to combat the virus.

“Coronavirus cannot survive in the body of Jesus Christ, it will burn,” Mr. Magufuli, nicknamed “the bulldozer,” told crowds at the end of March. “That is exactly why I did not panic while taking the Holy Communion.”

There have been some echoes in the U.S. of the Tanzanian president’s flouting of universal advice against large gatherings in the case of places of worship. County authorities in Florida last month arrested pastor Rodney Howard-Browne for “flagrant disregard for human life,” saying he had defied a public-health order by refusing to call off a worship service. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week issued an executive order banning movement for all but essential activities, but designated “attending religious services” as such an activity, sweeping away the right of Florida’s cities and counties to ban them.

Across Africa, home to the world’s largest Christian population, other governments have taken an uncompromising stance, shuttering churches, mosques and other places of worship for fear of a virus that the World Health Organization has warned could quickly overwhelm underfunded health-care systems. In Ghana, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, authorities have arrested evangelical preachers for telling their flocks they can’t be harmed by the virus. A prominent cleric in Uganda, Augustine Yiga, was charged last week with uttering false information after claiming that coronavirus is a hoax, and could face up to seven years in prison. Authorities in Ghana, Nigeria and Rwanda have arrested dozens of preachers for defying restrictions on gatherings.

But in Tanzania, a country of 57 million famous for its turquoise coastlines and sweeping savannas, the notion that coronavirus can’t survive in a place of worship is effectively government policy.

So far, the country has reported just 24 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, but has also conducted just 273 tests in a strategy nicknamed “wait and see” by analysts.

Tanzania’s stance makes it an outlier in Africa, one of the diminishing band of nations refusing to implement an aggressive strategy against a virus now spreading fast across the globe. There are countries elsewhere whose leaders are resisting social-distancing measures. In Brazil, most state governors and many city mayors tried to ban religious assemblies only to be overruled by President Jair Bolsonaro, who has exempted churches from coronavirus lockdowns as an essential service. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has called coronavirus a “psychosis” that can be fought with vodka, saunas and driving tractors, according to Belarusian state media.

Tanzania’s three international airports remain open, as do its land and water borders, defying radical measures taken by other countries. Churches, offices and shops are open. Countless commuters crowd bus stops and pack buses across the country’s cities. Wildlife safaris are still advertising services, assuring tourists that “there will be minimal inconvenience for their travel” in the country.

Opposition lawmaker Zitto Kabwe accused Mr. Magufuli of misleading the public and taking a gamble with lives.

“The best approach at this moment would be to educate the masses on how they can stay safe,” he said. “This is not the time to argue with scientific facts.”

Huzaria Kasina, a travel agent in northern Tanzania, said she feared that coronavirus may already be spreading in places of worship as people continue to gather there for prayers. “People have been given false hopes, they think prayer will protect them,” she said. “What is happening in churches is scary.”

Millions of Tanzanians still attending church services evidently disagree. Mr. Magafuli’s office didn’t respond to calls for comment. The country’s deputy health minister, Dr. Faustine Ndugulile, said Tanzania was “still far away from a lockdown,” adding he believed control measures like hand washing and closure of schools were working very well.

Dr. Ndugulile said the government believed that until the number of cases rises, there is no need to emulate tougher measures taken by neighboring countries, such as closures of public transport and borders. He also said places of worship could remain open if they adhered to health guidelines such as improved hygiene practices.

“We are comfortable with the current measures,” Dr. Ndugulile said in an interview. “Most of our people live from hand to mouth, if we lock down the country they will die of hunger.”

The policy, designed to minimize disruption to Tanzania’s economy, has angered neighboring countries across porous borders, which have put in place some of the world’s most stringent lockdowns. Citizens in Uganda and Rwanda need written government permission to leave their homes, and churches, offices and shops are closed.

Historians say the arguments advanced by Mr. Magufuli and some pastors in the U.S. and elsewhere that faith should be mobilized to defeat the virus shows the endurance of ideas that can be traced back to medieval Europe. Some religious authorities then suggested citizens gather to pray and fight the Black Death, a plague that ultimately killed more than 50% of some communities across Europe in the 14th century.

“Faced with massive social upheaval, Medieval Christians unsurprisingly looked to their faith for solutions,” said Rory Cox, a senior lecturer in medieval history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “Many believed the plague was a punishment from God.”

Some African analysts say Mr. Magufuli is trying to portray himself as a man of religious faith in a bid to endear himself to voters ahead of election set for October. They warn, however, that the populist leader is taking a big gamble with the disease that has now reached every corner of the globe.

“When it comes to religious matters, some leaders want to be on the side of the masses because the masses take religion seriously and they constitute a huge voting constituency.” said Musaazi Namiti, a Kenya-based independent analyst. “Magufuli belongs to this camp, but at the end of the day the practical approach taken by government to slow the spread of the coronavirus is all that matters.”