I ripped up my dog collar to help topple this brutal tyrant

The Archbishop of York writes in The Observer

A friend of mine who has just returned from Zimbabwe wrote to me quoting what TS Eliot wrote in The Waste Land in 1922: 'Unreal city/ Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,/ A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,/ I had not thought death had undone so many.'

What strikes those who visit Zimbabwe is how many have been undone by death. Zimbabwe has the highest proportion of orphans in the world (1.3 million), largely due to the devastation caused by HIV and Aids and their related illnesses, which kill 3,200 people each week. Then there are the needless deaths every day which occur because most of the doctors have fled a health system in ruins. Most have no transport to get to hospital, or, in the unlikely event that they reach one, money to pay bills. Added to all of this is hunger and malnutrition. It is no accident that the average life expectancy of Zimbabweans hovers around 35, lower than any war zone.

The very identities of individuals, of families and the nation, are eroded daily by the struggle for life. This is the most tragic part of the history of Zimbabwe, which so successfully struggled to liberate itself from a racist rule that limited the identities of citizens to the colour of their skin. Now racism has returned to haunt Zimbabwe in a different form as the world looks on, cowed by the fear that to criticise those who rule over a land so steeped in death is to enter into the shoes of former colonial masters. Such misplaced fears must be put aside.

It is not colonialism that is to blame, but rather the ruinous policies of President Robert Mugabe. For all his bluster against Britain and those anti-colonial tirades that play well with those former freedom fighters and soldiers who now occupy government positions in Africa, the wail of suffering and the stench of death are evidence enough of the failures of a corrupt and brutal regime, bent on staying in power at all costs.

As a clergyman I am identified by wearing a dog collar. Last Sunday I cut it up during a television interview and will not wear it again until Mugabe has gone. The people of Zimbabwe have lost their identity. Until democracy and good governance return, the spiral of poverty, brutality and economic chaos will continue. At a political level, change will come when the United Nations makes Zimbabwe a priority. Those European leaders who sat down with Mugabe must now bring his appalling treatment of his countrymen and women to the UN and provide the moral and legal framework for a response that puts an end to his tyrannical rule and frees the people of Zimbabwe. Our government needs to hear our voices raised as one to take action and put pressure on the UN.

As the UN works to implement the plans brought by Britain to the international community over Darfur, so the UN must now start the necessary work to place pressure on Zimbabwe. By bringing pressure to bear on Mugabe, the UN also provides cover to Thabo Mbeki, the South African President, to whom Britain has looked to solve the crisis. Any progress report on Mbeki's efforts might suggest that he has, at best, been ineffective in his efforts to advise, cajole and persuade Mugabe to reverse his regime. At worst, Mbeki stands offering the other cheek in complicity, failing to lead the charge against a neighbour who is systematically raping the country he leads.

There are many who wonder how it is that the people of Zimbabwe survive and cope. We do well in this season of Advent to make clear that in a country in which the majority are Christian that it is through faith that God remains with them, even when all the instruments of government stand against them. The scandal is how the voices of a few heads of African nations are heard over the cries of millions of ordinary and suffering people. The churches at times have led bravely and at others been complicit, co-opted by the politicians. They must struggle against their own temptation to a quiet piety in the face of threats and bribes and a culture of political terror. The churches in Zimbabwe and their leaders are one of the few mechanisms left to support both advocacy for change and delivery of vital services. They need the full support and ears of leaders within Zimbabwe and around the world. They are nearest to those for whom Jesus cares most: those who hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake. They also know best how to heal the trauma of those undone by death, and how to fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty.

There are many at work in the UK lending essential support to the people of Zimbabwe. Agencies such as Christian Aid, Tearfund and World Vision support those on the ground with community development programmes. Ordinary Zimbabweans long for the day when their international relations become again what they were: when Zimbabwe inspired the world with its post-independence commitment to reconciliation and when neighbouring countries were fed from its bounty. The process for justice and peace around land distribution is yet to be completed and cannot be avoided.

So as you get ready to do your Christmas food shopping this year, spare a pound, from your trolley or your pocket, and ask the supermarkets and shops to match your donation. Ask them to give something of your spending to those who cannot even buy bread. Without our help, the starving, malnourished and sick children of Zimbabwe might not see another Christmas. By using our voices to call for change and our money to secure the future of its population, we can each of us bring Christmas hope to those people living under tyranny.