After the Bell: If hope is not a strategy, is prayer?

One long-lasting and recurring slogan in business is that hope is not a strategy. There have been books titled along these lines and the slogan has several iterations aimed at encouraging businesspeople to be active rather than passive. Does the same apply to prayer?

The answer might surprise you. Stellenbosch University economist Johan Fourie pointed out in his Substack post on Monday that when it comes to praying for rain, the research suggests that prayer does seem to help.

The question has also intrigued three economists, José-Antonio Espín-Sánchez Salvador, Gil-Guirado, and Nicholas Ryan, who have published a working paper on the subject for the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US. The question they asked was, broadly speaking: Since we know that praying for rain doesn’t help, why do people still do it? 

They began by examining the prayers for rain at a Catholic church in Murcia, Spain, starting — get this — in the 14th century. These prayers are known as pro-pluvia rogations and, unsurprisingly, tend to happen most during droughts and continue until rain falls.

And, would you believe, it turns out that after the prayers, more often than not it does in fact rain. How is that possible? Simple. After a long period of no rain the chance that rain will fall increases significantly. To people offering prayers, it might seem that their prayers have been answered, causing the rainfall, which is probably why they endure.

The subject of prayer is particularly apposite because, over the weekend, the ANC sent some of its senior members to church to encourage prayers, particularly on the topic of its former leader Jacob Zuma. I am not making this up. 

The ANC faces a dilemma concerning its previous leader; a problem so large that seemingly only divine intervention can solve it. The conundrum is that Zuma has endorsed an alternative party, uMkhonto Wesizwe, and is campaigning for the party, while he has yet to resign from the ANC. 

The ANC is in a pretty pickle: either Zuma has in effect resigned, in which case, the party need do nothing — seemingly the preferred action. Or, Zuma has not resigned, in which case the party should haul its former leader in front of its disciplinary body.

To help decide this issue, several senior members of the party went off to, yes, pray. Deputy President Paul Mashatile attended a church service at Church on The Hill in Friedenheim, Nelspruit. He told parishioners that some members of the ANC family were attacking the party from within. 

“When you are a family, sometimes family members ruin the family. They start breaking windows, some become drunks and they kick doors when they come home drunk. The ANC has got such people as well; they are inside, trying to break the windows, trying to kick the doors,” Mashatile was reported as saying. But they would not succeed, because the ANC was built on a rock.

Well, you know, amen to that. I hate to say it, but in this case, I just don’t think prayer is a strategy. The person I would pray for, however, is ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula, who complained on Monday that Zuma’s actions were intolerable, particularly since the party had told lies to Parliament in defence of the then President during the “fire pool” incident following the upgrades at his Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal.

“We went to Parliament and opened an ad hoc committee and said a swimming pool is a fire pool. The [then] police minister [Nathi Nhleko] was sweating, seeing that this was a lie because it is difficult to explain lies,” he was reported as saying.

Mbalula is obviously deeply hurt by Zuma’s lack of loyalty; gee, aren’t we all? But in how many ways is this not an argument? Confessing to lying, in Parliament no less, is surely more damaging to the party than it is likely to either encourage Zuma to return to the flock, or, alternatively, invoke sympathy from wavering members about his departure. 

What it does demonstrate is that Mbalula’s loquaciousness is its own drunken door-kicking danger: he only stops talking to change feet. This is not just an amusing side issue; there is a constitutionally invoked code of conduct that applies to parliamentarians which strongly suggests they should really try not to lie.

I think in Mbalula’s case, it should extend further. He might consider trying very hard to stop being a cartoon. There is a prayer for you. DM