Of Jonathan Moyo and the Gollum effect

MANY people have been wondering what really is going on with Higher Education Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo lately as he has picked a vicious fight with the country’s army generals, topping up his notorious acrimony with Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, whom he calls a successionist angling to illegally take over from President Mugabe.

Moyo himself is seen leading a successionist faction dubbed G40.

While we were all getting used to the idea of Moyo’s often unprovoked attacks on VP Mnangagwa, including attacking the Government’s Command Agriculture Programme being supervised by the VP, many have been taken aback by Moyo’s biting (or is it merely barking) at Air Marshal Perrance Shiri and Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander General Constantino Chiwenga recently.

His cassus belli is ostensibly some historical issues these liberation war luminaries have raised.

Moyo, as we have seen him, has been kicking dust everywhere and has even gone personal, appearing to suggest scandalously that Gen Chiwenga did not author his doctoral thesis at the University of KwaZulu Natal. That is the latest. It is a strange and scary twist. Many people have been absolutely gobsmacked by Moyo’s antics that have suggested a complex character many have failed to comprehend. But a pattern is emerging. It is not hard to imagine that he is playing the role of classic high fantasy writer John Ronald Reuel’s Gollum in “The Lord of The Rings”.

Gollum is largely described as a wily, scheming and evil character, whose love for The Ring corrupts him and ultimately leads to the destruction of the powerful ring, which is said to give power to whoever wears it.

Some characterisation of Gollum is that he is a misunderstood character, a hero with a tragic flaw.

Both generalisations appear to apply to our Moyo, even more pertinently on how his love for power may actually lead to the destruction of Zanu-PF from within. We have heard that before. But it will be crucial to try to locate this Moyo-Gollum in literature.

David Barnett in an article, “Is being compared to Gollum the ultimate insult . . . or precious praise?” (The Guardian, December 3, 2015) cites Tolkien in the novel (part of the trilogy) “The Hobbit” as describing Gollum as “a small slimy creature” and “a miserable wicked creature,” who accuses the Hobbit of stealing his ring and tries to rob it back.

In fact the whole war that takes place is at the instance of Gollum as he sets alliances ostensibly to destroy the ring and deprive the Dark Lord of Mordor but he plans to eventually feed his allies to the giant spider Shelob and keep the ring to himself.

“Friends don’t do that, Gollum. He is, ultimately, a lying, cheating, murderous, semi-cannibalistic misanthrope,” concludes Barnett. Barnett tries to put in a good word for Gollum, though, in trying to demonstrate the complexity of his character. He notes that “Gollum has a rather tragic back-story that paints him more as a victim of circumstance rather than an evil, self-serving creature”. “Gollum was once Sméagol, another one of those little, curlyhaired folk we grew so fond of in “The Hobbit”. Sméagol’s idyllic, Hobbity life was destroyed when he discovered the ring of power. The ring exerts such an influence on Sméagol that his mind and will are no longer his own, addicted to the ring’s power. Still, despite this, our increasingly unwashed and slimy friend has flashes of goodness, showing an obvious desire for redemption throughout the trilogy.” There we have it! We all love Jonathan Moyo, or once did, and see flashes of brilliance in him but is he not totally consumed by the power of a contextual ring? It all sounds eerily familiar. Like some deja vu. In “The Gollum Effect”, Venkatesh Rao (2006) explains the corruption of the mind through addiction and consumerism.

Rao offers a description that ably frames Moyo’s behaviour in relation to power and his desire, apparently, to destroy VP Mnangagwa.

Helpfully, Rao also notes that such a character is complex.

“Gollum is a real character. He does not evoke a one-dimensional emotional response such as identification, annoyance, pity, disgust, fear, suspicion or hate.

“He evokes a full-spectrum response that involves all those feelings and more. And yet paradoxically, he is in fact one-dimensional, almost as featureless as the object that holds him in thrall, the One Ring.” It is an addiction. It is the same addiction, we imagine, that drives Moyo to be tweeting in the very witching hours of the morning and obsess over an issue all day.

Rao explains that this is what cocaine does.

“Gollum is a creature created, and ultimately consumed by, the One Ring. Smeagol, the ordinary living being with a single fatal flaw, is transformed into a pure pattern of addictive consumption. He sustains the ring through its lost years, and is sustained by it.”

There is a real and continuing temptation to go on likening Moyo to Gollum, but the point has been made already.

However, it is necessary to point out that the factionalism that Zanu-PF is currently embroiled in with Moyo being one of the crusaders, is utterly needless.

It will end in a very nasty way that is bad for the organisation, Government and country. It does not require robotics to figure out.

It is incumbent upon President Mugabe to stop this tomfoolery once and for all because somehow some people’s addiction to power, nourished by plotting and scheming, will ultimately be bad for us all.

That is enough to say Zimbabwe is a beautiful country that must be kept intact and safe.

Eternally!