In the aftermath of Tsvangirai’s death
Chamisa’s description of Tsvangirai suggests that the former premier was a faultless politician and a paragon of virtue! Chamisa also claims that Morgan Tsvangirai had everybody’s welfare at heart, a claim that is not that easy to sustain.
TWIST of fate in Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline” unites Imogen with Guiderius and Arviragus, her two long-lost brothers. Imogen is disguised as a boy and calls herself Fidele. She falls ill and takes a restorative which makes her sleep. In her sleep she looks dead.
Thinking her dead, Imogen’s brothers sing a haunting melody over her body before they bury her under some flowers and shrubs. Guiderius sings the first stanza: Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta’en thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must As chimney-sweepers come to dust. In essence, what Guiderius is saying is that death comes to us all in its own sweet time, no matter who or what we are in the world. Looked at another way, people must learn to reconcile with death, the relentless reaper.
The MDC-T family and the Tsvangirai family are in mourning as indeed is the whole of Zimbabwe across the political divide. It is natural that the bereaved country should feel it is much the poorer because of the demise of Morgan Richard Tsvangirai, the trade unionist who morphed into a politician of note in his time.
This feeling of deprivation has nothing to do with whether or not one was a political colleague or adversary of the departed former prime minister, because indeed as John Donne taught the world:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Indeed, any person’s death should and does diminish us because we are involved in humankind. In our present circumstances empathy is, a natural response to the death of the leader of the most powerful opposition party in Zimbabwe’s post-independence era —a party that can at some future date give the country an alternative governance model.
Willy-nilly we find ourselves reminiscing about Save as Tsvangirai is often referred to. In that reminiscing some evaluation is inescapable. We have to ask what Tsvangirai’s legacy is. In the process of doing that both positives and negatives will inevitably crop up.
This is a natural development, particularly when talking about someone like Tsvangirai who has tended to be a larger than life character. Accordingly, the jury is still out on what the nature of Tsvangirai’s legacy is. There is, therefore, no shortage of angles of vision regarding this issue as columnist after columnist has a go.
According to a local columnist, Morgan Tsvangirai was a tragic hero. Says The Sharpshooter, Aristotle, the Greek philosopher characterises a tragic hero “as someone who confronts his downfall due to fate, or by his own mistakes or (for) any other reason”. According to The Sharpshooter, Aristotle further defines a tragic hero as someone whose misfortune comes through errors of judgment. While recognising Tsvangirai’s emotional appeal and charisma, The Sharpshooter concludes that whether people want to acknowledge it or not, Tsvangirai had “a plethora of tragic flaws that caused his downfall”. The habitual splits in the MDC should be understood in this light.
On the issue of Tsvangirai’s demise, another writer observes that in “the sphere of public opinion, his tragic departure has produced a cocktail of sombre, polarised, commemorative and apologetic memoirs”.
The writer asserts that mourning Tsvangirai has become a national moral obligation and that because of this, appreciation of Tsvangirai’s legacy when measured against the lasting values of the nation is a must. This critical imperative is alluded to through the words of Brutus following the assassination of Julius Caesar. Knowing that friends of Caesar and others are baffled by the killing of Caesar, Brutus attempts to put things into perspective to explain what the conspirators have done. With that in mind, Brutus utters these famous words:
“If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer — Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.” — NewZimbabwe.com Read the full article on www. herald.co.zw