A weird “prodigal son” called Welshman
SO great was his need that he would have been glad to take the pigs’ food, and no one gave him anything. But when he came back to his senses, he said, “What numbers of my father’s servants have bread enough, and more, while I am near to death here through need of food? I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, Father; I have done wrong, against Heaven and in your eyes.”
He got up and went to his father. While he was still at a distance, his father saw him and was moved with pity and went quickly and took him in his arms and gave him a kiss.
His father sent his servants to get a new robe and put it on him, as well as a ring to be put on his hand and shoes on his feet before ordering them to slaughter a fat young ox and calling for a feast amid untold joy.
For the benefit of those who unlike some of us, seldom read the Bible, this is a fascinating story of repentance found in the book of Luke, the fifteenth chapter. It narrates the ordeal of a son who demanded his wealth from his father and set out to a faraway land, wandering far from home. All his money went into foolish living as he squandered it with bad company which was soon to leave him in the cold. In no time, all was gone, he became a destitute and in need.
What’s striking about the story is that upon going back home, the father never asked about the whereabouts of the wealth his son had demanded when he left home. He had a forgiving heart. He never demanded anything from his son, he simply provided.
When anger and jealousy filled the elder son’s heart as he thought his brother had come to take over, the father explained to him the importance of the reunion, and together they rejoiced.
According to common sense, this nondegree holder made a well calculated move and went back to his father’s house because he knew his father would definitely redeem him from his misery. His father had the resources, wayengumuntu wezinto zakhe.
Then we have in our midst one Professor Welshman Ncube. A whole Professor with a stunningly amazing academic background. The learned fellow, it would seem, has lost the electorate he claimed from his “father
Scholars, especially the big ones can get away with many things, even the petty theft of ideas. As a philosopher par excellence himself, in 1963 Kwame Nkrumah published a philosophical treatise of “philosophy and ideology of decolonisation” in Africa, he titled the book: Consciencism.
In this important book Nkrumah among many other ideas agonised with what was to be left of Africa and the Africans after the slavish and colonial encounter with the Christian West and Islamic Asia. It is in that philosophical agony that Nkrumah stumbled on the idea of Africa as benefiting from a “triple heritage,” a continent whose future was to be formed of the encounter of three world civilisations, EuroAmerica, Asia and Africa itself.
In the philosophical imagination of Nkrumah, Africa was to strengthen itself using the benefit of being a child of three strong parents, it was to be a new and better continent with fortified political, spiritual, cultural and economic genes. Intelligently and powerfully, Mzee Ali Mazrui took Nkrumah’s idea and gave it the famous “Mazruiana” touch, poeticised it and polished it into his now famous “The Africans: Triple Heritage” book and documentary. Mazrui magnified and amplified Nkrumah’s nuances and musings about the future Africa as the continent that had the opportunity to be strengthened by the civilisations that colonised and enslaved it.
Under the well-meaning but careless watch of Kwame Nkrumah and other founding fathers of African decolonisation Africa lost the “triple heritage” opportunity and harvested instead a “triple dilemma” that defines the present ideological confusion or complication in Africa.
African nationalism as an ideology of Tsvangirai” in 2005.
But in an uncalculated fashion, the Professor has chosen to find solace in a struggling father, a father who also can’t make ends meet in the political arena. How strange!
The Professor who once vowed he was never to work with Tsvangirai again does not waste time as he “pleads for forgiveness”: “I too have responsibility for the mistakes we have made in the past. The decisions that we made, which were clearly not always in the national interest in particular in relation to the splitting of the MDC. We accept that we divided the membership of the party which we should not have done”.
However, this can only be tolerated at a household level of course, but when it comes to issues of national interest, hatshi angeke sithule (we can never be quiet) because this concerns our future. Tsvangirai is a very poor father, languishing in an environment cursed with strategic and ideological poverty. He cannot even manage his smaller spoil from the MDC,
Besides nationalism, the other ideology that fired decolonisation in Africa was Marxism with its political visions of Communism and Socialism. Marxism created a “spectre” that did not only haunt Europe but shook the entire planet by proposing an alternative world to that ruled by capitalist economic logic. The only problem with Marxism was that it was the MDC-T.
Added to finding a new maiguru called Joice Runaida Mujuru, the prodigal Professor will come face to face with pig food, come 2018. Not even a chicken will be slaughtered for him.
His father welcomes him, smiling broadly. Instead of giving him a kiss, a brand new robe and food, father Morgan gives him a pen probably saying, “Here my son, sign quickly lest we lose out on donor funds, the international community has to know we still tick”.
As he struggles for energy to maintain some grip on the pen, he is perhaps bombarded with a string of questions. “What have you brought us my son? How come you are empty-handed? Did you bring some medication for your political leprosy stricken maiguru Joice? She is in pain.
“And where is the electorate you took with you in 2005? My son, things have not been well since you left in 2005,” he adds.
Apparently, the reunion won’t live to see the light of day and the son is soon to find himself wandering far from home once again. Clause 9.2 of their so-called Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) explicitly alludes to this: “The MoU may also be terminated by either party at any time by giving seven days’ notice”.
What a simulucrum of a reunion! The just “reunited” father and son, in all frankness, seem to be still possessed with demons of scattering. And watch the space, they are yet to be tormented.
According to the prodigal Professor and his father, something in line with the proposed coalition must be cemented by June this year. However, given the low temperatures likely to grace us this winter, I am afraid the proposed coalition will freeze.
As the castle is being built next to the clouds, we hear anger and jealousy are brewing in Thokozani Khuphe and others who feel sidelined.
They now feel all their father’s attention has been diverted to prodigal Welshman.
Zimbabwe has been hit by three types of entrepreneurs who dominate the pyramid of talkativeness, rehearsed concern of the disenfranchised and the top billing or Forbes magazine. In no particular order, ranked first, are the clergy man; those who feed from terrifying the masses from the podium.
They wear fancy and flashy designer suits and devise all sorts of “blessings” from oil, water, pens, condoms, rulers and insect sprays. Aah well, who am I to question the divine appointments of the anointed ones when they display antics of the power consolidation.
Power is kept within the family in these churches of ours. I always envy those men, they always have a market of listeners. Yes, it’s those who are desperate for success, who find marriage misfortunes best cleansed by laying of pastoral hands, it is those who can’t separate coincidence from processes and outcomes, they always see a miracle in coincidence and a blessing in processes and outcomes. All the same, this class of entrepreneurs is elegant, they quickly get rich and worshipped with some of them suddenly becoming successful businessmen — you know who i am talking about isn’t? All of a sudden he adopts a title of being Doctor, Pastor so and so, that is not coincidence, he is responding to the market competition, big pastors are now Doctor Pastor so and so, Doctor Pastor Chris Oyiakhilome and his Doctoral wife, and so do our pastors respond to market forces. If you are a doctor, more people believe in you. Even in academics, Doctors are respected, aren’t they?
The next rank has a tie. These are the politicians and civil society leaders, well I don’t have anything new to say about our politicians, enough has been said already, in fact MDC-T has shown us true colours of being a political entrepreneur with the recent scandal by Thobani Ncube, a councillor in the mix of a $12 000 stand fraud scandal. MDC-T does not tire, I thought after Elias Mudzuri allegations in 2005 they will get tired of corruption and getting caught but Gift Banda just had to be an alleged greedy-mischievous land baron, our city council keeps on losing a lot from these ever luxury demanding MDC-T councillors. I always say, #MDCmustfall come 2018.
Thieves, thieves and thieves They share that position with their own political rejects, the civil society directors and activists. These ones are a disgrace to the values of institutional sincerity and honesty. Society looks up to this pool for protection against oppressive policies and safeguarding the ethos of checks and balances but they are always ready to prey on a disadvantaged and misinformed lot. They thrive on the misery of the girl child, the politically disenfranchised and the cultural minorities.
Their wealth and its security is at the benevolence and the innocent attendance to their programs by the under-privileged. I agree with one Thandazani Nkomo who recently posted on social media that MDCT’s strongholds are the urban areas where civil society cultivates the electorate for them.
They have been the conduit of Western funds for MDC and the mouthpiece of it to the urban population. Knowing pretty well that the economic strife faced particularly by the residents of Pumula, Makokoba, Mpopoma, Nkulumane and Mabutweni is a soft spot, they press so hard that the pain these people go through is only characterised as having the civil society as their only panacea.
They bank on numbers of the economically angry. They strive on numerous numbers of “idle” youths whom they describe in their concept notes and project proposals as misfortunate because of the regime’s alleged repressive hand yet most of the idle youths dropped out of