Zimbabwe: When our clan no longer acts like one
◆ From Page 4 himself a candidate, hoping to ride on God and Zimbabwe’s Youth vote. To ride on the demographic factor, which is why he hectored everyone, anyone to register to vote. Yet he shall have neither, prayerful though he might pretend to be. In his haranguing act, he made an important disclosure: he had had a session with the British Ambassador to Zimbabwe. Our man nearing 40! And meeting the British Ambassador was so important to him, so assuring to him and news to all of us that it was a Eureka moment for this country! It even assured him of reaching 40! Kikiki! #Tosetichavhota! This foreign-sent keyboard warrior.
Another white figure
The other day — barely three days ago — I got a call from a character in our health sector. Did I know — he asked — that behind Mahere, Advocate Mahere, was a white person called Sean Mullens? Of course I didn’t, I who knows my own history, my company. But it got me to think long and hard. The missing Dzamara needed some white boy to hover above and around him. Even his wife lives off white benevolence, the latest excuse being a phoney award by the white-led Amnesty International. And then the Queen Bee and her charade: fussing, fighting and falling out over money from white Britain? Then our so-called NGOs? All feeding off the $5m bounty from Van Damme’s European Union. Using it to foment conflict ahead of 2018; to create what Mahere calls “a good chaos” which the opposition must profit from. It is this psychosis and belief that the kingmakers in this land are whites and white foreigners which beats me.
Enter Biometric Saga
Before our ears are done with the above outrage, another clanquor, this time concerning the Biometric Voter Registration Kits purchase. Government of Zimbabwe — itself mandated to ensure elections are run in this country — has announced it is buying the kits. Lo and behold, the Heavens collapse! Mayhem and the threats of mayhem, in our streets! What is the cause? The Kits must be bought by UNDP, says MDC-T and other opposition, all led by one Mwonzora! Why? Because the opposition does not trust the Government of Zimbabwe. Instead they trust foreign governments — all channelling their resources through UNDP! How so? The Government of Zimbabwe is the lawful, constitutional authority which must fund and organise elections. Yet it must cede that authority to western governments stalking behind UNDP! Or else the opposition goes to war! A good 36 years after Independence vakomana? Still exhibiting a clear insufficiency of national pride? National responsibility? National Independence? Against all that has been done by ZEC to involve the opposition, almost to the point of undermining ZEC’s independence? A white man, a white official, a white government, must still hover above us? Only then do we certify our elections free, credible and fair? Are we not the askaris sent by Winterbottom to stop the meeting? To unmask the egwugwu?
We have fallen Apart
Our forefathers — whether Mwenemutapa, Mzilikazi or Lobengula — knew what they wanted from the white man. They wanted his cloth, wanted his articles of convenience, his technology. Above all they wanted his guns for the defence of the realm. They knew what they had to give, to cede, what to keep as sacred. They also knew that worse than a sword was a noxious idea which, knifelike, would cut through those things that held them together. They may have been cheated, deluded and vanquished in the end. But they knew that the realm had to be defended and proceeded to fight in its defence. Including defending the collective dignity of the people, of the Nation and its processes and sacred rituals. And in the case of Lobengula, the advisor who sided with the white man, who misled the King into making concessions, into signing the fateful Rudd Concession, had to fall. And he did. Treachery was paid for by death. Not now; not anymore. The brazenness of it all. You take to the social media to proclaim your treachery, and still walk with your full dignity and head — unimpaired — the next day? You invite treachery into our ballot box, even threaten street action in defence of white interference of our electoral processes, and you still prance about, head held high, even to yodels from the media? Are we all here? I ask you: Are all the sons of Umuofia with us here? Icho! ◆ nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers. co.zw