When glasshouse dwellers start pelting neighbours
The African people say he who knows the odour that ensues from his armpits should not raise hands in public; and those from the West are aware that glasshouse dwellers should be wary of throwing stones, lest their targets retaliate.
“THESE heads of the government are the true traitors in Africa, for they sell their country to the most terrifying of their enemies; stupidity. This tribalising of the central authority, it is certain, encourages regionalist ideas and separatism,” argues Frantz Fanon in “The Wretched of the Earth” (1967:148).
Events playing out in the opposition MDC-T, in the wake of the death of Morgan Tsvangirai (may his soul rest in peace!), and the hullabaloo being made after the intervention of the military under Operation Restore Legacy, leading to the resignation of former president Robert Mugabe in November last year, do not only invoke serious reading, but make Fanon apt and ever prophetic.
At this point gentle reader one cannot help thinking of timeless masterpieces like Pepetela’s “Mayombe” (1980), George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” (1945), Chinua Achebe’s “A Man of the People” (1966) and “The Last of the Empire” (1981) by Sembene Ousmane. There is so much hypocrisy, rampant disregard of moral values, which inspire nation building, deceit and individualism in our politics that holding up tears becomes as laughable as it is burdening. Cry, the beloved motherland, cry the beloved Africa, where the tribal card is raised at every turn, and those forced off the gravy train cry so loud about the poisoned chalice that we of weaker hearts are left stupefied, nay dumbfounded.
Thokozani Khupe says the MDC-T raises the tribal card each time she points to the two-facedness of democracy in the opposition outfit, which lately controversially catapulted Nelson Chamisa to the helm; and the weeping professor, Jonathan Moyo, who does not seem to know what hit him, now blindly flies about like a bat, hitting at everything and anything, ineffectually though.
This pen finds it deplorable, to say the least, to hear grown-ups chattering like three-year-olds about how they were unfairly treated after serving the revolutionary party for 60 years or so, as we are made to believe; to the extent of going to whoever cared to listen, to pour their hearts out, as if they have them (hearts) in the first place. It is folly for one to go about dragging the repute of one’s family in the slime because one has fallen out of favour with one’s father.
That former president Mugabe’s health is not sound or has not been sound recently, or that maybe something is playing havoc with the music of his soul, is most unfortunate. This pen extends heartfelt sympathies to him and his wife, “the little girl”, whom he says “is crying every day”; but that he could find the opportunity to rubbish the democratic processes, which ironically he presided over for all those years is most unwelcome and shows the depth he has sunk as a politician. It is true gentle citizen, fellow countryman and friend that Cde Mugabe remains an icon of our liberation struggle, but it is also not in doubt being relieved of the burden of carrying the gargantuan basket of our dreams on his dwarfish shoulders, is the very essence of democracy.
As Fanon (1967:154) points out: “The people come to understand that wealth is not the fruit of labour but the result of organised, protected robbery. Rich people are no longer respectable people; they are nothing more than flesh-eating animals, jackals and vultures which wallow in the people’s blood”.
Because Mugabe surrounded himself with a cabal of “jackals and vultures”, bent on sucking the wretched of the earth to the bone, a diligent process was carried out, courtesy of the military; and he was found in its disfavour; that is what democracy entails, and as the former first secretary and president of the revolutionary party, he should be privy to that glaring truth. He who loses a case at law will always frown and yell, “There is no justice”, even though he may be the architect of the legal framework applied.
The world is not littered with dullards, neither are grapes always sweet; that is an undisputable fact.
True, 60 years is a long time, and that also is not moot-able; but aren’t the parrots missing something here? What exactly did this cabal of renegades did to show the starving masses as their achievements all those years, which they expect to be changed by the new dispensation in 100 days?
The African people say he who knows the odour that ensues from his armpits should not raise hands in public; and those from the West are aware that glasshouse dwellers should be wary of throwing stones, lest their targets retaliate. Whatever happened behind closed doors should not be used by a few as a way of getting back at those whom they might have been in a tete-a-tete with. It is called betrayal, and besides, it does not absolve them of blame.
We, the suffering masses and the punch bags of this cabal’s theatrics, know better; that they really cared less for the whole lot of us, and they have expressed it by booting them out, through the one man one vote they are fond of, yet discredits because it showed them the exit of the Central Committee, which they conceitedly perceived to be their cow.
Mugabe, I mean Cde Mugabe, cannot now rubbish an outfit, and processes he presided over for four decades. He is only playing the politics of subterfuge, which is rather baneful. He should own up to his foibles, for like all of us, he is only human; and show contrition and embrace the olive branch extended to him. That way his legacy lives on.
We, Zimbabweans are not new to the politics of divide and rule as well as puppetry; that seemingly absent hand pulling him aside is clearly discernible, so he is not proficient in educating us on impoverished democracy.
ZANU-PF as a revolutionary party owes its achievements, during and after the liberation struggle, to the masses that did not flinch in their support.
The revolution belongs to the people and not to fly-by-night knights, who cry foul when it suits them. Villagers faced the same fate as their gallant sons and daughters at the front, whom they unflinchingly supported, and for that reason, they deserve better than foul-mouthed renegades, who mourn their being reprimanded for selling or killing the only cow in milk and swatting the queen bee by the back of their hands to placate their hoity-toity girlfriends and daughters at the expense of the entire nation.
We still cherish the dream of milk and honey for all comrades.
The reality on the ground is that unemployment rates have shot off the roof and the economy is haemorrhaging, and the former president, his “little girl” and honourable ex-ministers, Jonathan Moyo, Patrick Zhuwao and others, should feel what it is like to be ordinary card-carrying members, who wish only the best for their country, despite espying their dreams etched on the ever receding horizon with blurred kaleidoscopic lenses.
There are no jobs. That is the stubborn reality; so we need investors and not spanner-throwing hypocrites purporting to represent the voice of Zimbabweans.
And if the renegades have known ministering for the past three, or four decades, then they should join the Pentecostal churches, which have mushroomed all over the place to offer a flippancy of hope to the suffering majority.
Perhaps, they will join us in the fight against the massive graft that has crippled our economy, since they have first-hand information on how it is done in high places. Perchance, they are that elusive Holy Grail that our nation desperately needs.