For Prof Moyo, the glass is half-empty

IT LOOKS like there is something wrong with the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Professor Jonathan Moyo. He seems to have this DNA, this penchant for nonconformity and confrontation. The learned Professor is fast becoming a legend in this regard. Then there is something very wrong with the supposed war veterans leader, Christopher Mutsvangwa. He seems to be suffering from selective amnesia and has unfortunately perfected the art of magnifying his importance.

These two politicians have become masters at committing political suicide and every passing day they compete vigorously to prove that American musician, Frank Zappa was right when he said: “Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.”

While Prof Moyo and Mutsvangwa think they are the only real deal in town. Galatians 6 vs 3 warns us: “If you think you are too important to help someone in need, you are only fooling yourself. You are really a nobody.” These two think they are too important, but then the tragedy is that they are the ones in urgent need of help. They are basically fooling themselves and to be honest izvozvo hazvizi right. Let’s have some positive energy please!

Rugare vanhu vamwari! Sorry Bishop vangotanga chakatsva, but let’s put some brakes here and go shopping. We will be back kumharidzo in a short while.

The headline caught the attention of many. “Zanu PF wants Tsvangirai dead,” the Daily News screamed last Monday. As usual your Bishop got worried. “Ko Zanu PF yapindwa nei futi kuda kuuraya munhu akazvifira kare? Killing death? For what?” I asked myself. So I bought the paper wanting to know when and how Zanu PF wanted to kill Morgan. Ndodawo nyaya kwazvo.

I got the shock of my little life. According to the Daily News, I was actually the one, me your beloved Bishop, who had announced that Zanu PF wanted to kill Morgan. You can imagine how shocked I was. Inini shuwa, shuwa announcing that Zanu PF wanted to kill Morgan? How?

The last time I checked Zanu PF had its spokesperson. Although I haven’t heard from Cde Simon Khaya Moyo for quite some time now, that doesn’t make me the party’s spokesperson.

So I sat down to understand what this death story was all about. It turned out that I had made the announcement in my previous instalment when I said “…What is unfortunate for Morgan is that those who love him are so insignificant in the scheme of political things yet those who are angry with him have the capacity to do anything they want with him. I mean anything.

“So the question going into the future is; ‘Is Morgan going to be safe?’ The answer may be found in history. Just check what happened to that sell-out Morris Nyathi after the attainment of independence.”

In these days where the audience now have power over media products, I knew that as a writer you lose ownership of your text once it’s published as it is subjected to different interpretations. But to be honest, I never thought that anyone would interpret my statement above to mean Zanu PF wanted to kill Morgan.

“But he will only die when he achieves God’s purpose, even though we are aware that Zanu PF always wanted Tsvangirai dead,” said Morgan’s spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka. He was actually serious. But Lukezha sooka? I mean come on? Can you imagine this guy has some journalism background and can you imagine anotorota one day ari George Charamba? Kikikikiki?

Anyway, thanks Lukezha for spreading the Bishop’s gospel. But next time wonyatso tereresa mharidzo, kuti unyatso bata shoko.

Tingachitanga hedu mharidzo yanhasi. Ko Prof Moyo chii nhai? What’s up with his spirited campaign against President Mugabe’s Command Agriculture programme? Is it twitter which is getting him twisted or it’s that factional eye, a G40 binocular that’s seeing VP Mnangagwa everywhere?

Let’s me put the record straight here. The Command Agriculture programme is President Mugabe’s baby. So Prof Moyo should not get mixed up just because VP Mnangagwa was made the foot-soldier to oversee the programme. VP Mnangagwa, mutumwa just like the Professor mutumwawo in spearheading the STEM programme in education.

Prof Moyo has openly expressed his dislike of VP Mnangagwa and he is entitled to his thoughts but honestly there is nothing to be scared about. The succession horses have not yet bolted. Take it easy Prof.

Talking of taking it easy. Namibia-based analyst Tafadzwa Mugwadi didn’t go easy on the Professor. “One would be pardoned to suggest that he (Prof Moyo) could still be possessed by pro-opposition demons, having spent more time in the opposition that with the ruling party, Zanu PF,” said the ruthless Mugwadi.

No, this is not very nice to say to a whole Professor. Just because he is seeing scary succession shadows does not mean he has demons. Let’s take it easy on the good Professor and let’s not become what we are accusing him of being — arrogant and reckless.

But if Mugwadi insists, there may be an urgent need to exorcise the demons. Bishop Lazarus doesn’t have a calling to exorcise demons. We may have to rope in my brother Prophet Walter Magaya. To him these look like small matters. Bishop Lazarus will for now only refer you dear congregants to Matthew 8 vs 1-3. Remember the story about the leper who knelt before God, asking to be cleaned?

This is not yet a hopeless case but then Prof Moyo seem to agree with Tom Robbins who in the book; “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” wrote: “If little else, the brain is an educational toy. The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it too. Sometime they’d rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner from the way they play with theirs…If you don’t play some people’s game, they say you have lost your marbles . . .”

You see to the good Professor, it’s everyone else who has a problem. He should be left to play with his toy.

Despite the bumper harvest the country’s is expecting because of Command Agriculture, despite the feel-good feeling that the programme has brought and despite it being a big campaign weapon for Zanu PF, to Professor Moyo, the glass is not half full but half empty.

This is the problem when one hurriedly and emotionally take a position against a person before the full story has been told. The Professor now has to shoot at anything that has some Mnangagwa in it. It’s never supposed to be like that and it’s never supposed to get to that.

Tichiri ipapo, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Cde George Charamba is saying kuchauya Command Content Creation. Wobva washaya kuti zviri kumbofamba sei considering kuti Government yese seems to be in support of a Command Economy?

Maybe Prof Moyo knows something we don’t know and he knows what he is doing. Ndimuzvina fundo wepolitics ngatimupei nguva. Now, this Mutsvangwa comrade? What exactly has gone wrong with him?

After my sermon last week, Mutsvangwa wrote some long piece saying things that one never expects to hear from a war veteran. That long piece has been circulating on social media and Bishop Lazarus got it about two days ago. Ummm, Mutsvangwa anoda rubatsiro. As a Bishop I was disappointed.

First, Mutsvangwa told this Bishop to stick to the pulpit and not stray into “his truncated revision of Chimurenga II.” This really didn’t bother me because tiripo zvedu papulpit and tinoparidza zvose, including Chimurenga II because Mutsvangwa doesn’t have a monopoly of that historic phase of this country. In fact, if Mutsvangwa had monopoly over the historic phase of our country, tingadai tanzwa nemanyepo akasangana nekuzvirumbidza kusina kana basa rese.

Just a quick reminder of what really rattled Mutsvangwa.

In my previous sermon, I said because people like Mutsvangwa were tarnishing the image of real war veterans, it may be time to appoint some veteran commanders from the liberation struggle to lead the war veterans association. I gave a list of some of the commanders.

Mutsvangwa, who went to war around 1975, thought he had a point. “His (Bishop Lazarus) vaunted Oscar list of venerated guerilla is confined to one transient phase of that formative infancy of the pre-1975 ‘people’s war.’ Intriguing yes, but nowhere near the scale of massive and epic encounters that culminated in the crescendo of the 1979 military victory,” wrote Mutsvangwa. He went on to rumble in support of this insulting statement above.

The statement above by Mutsvangwa explains a lot about what went wrong after independence and why things went wrong for some senior commanders from the liberation struggle. Mutsvangwa foolishly thinks the most important phase of the liberation struggle was from 1975 just because that is when he joined the liberation struggle? He talks about the massive and epic encounters of the ‘people’s war’ from 1975, but conveniently forgets that those encounters only took place just because there are some comrades who had, way before 1975, paved the way for the struggle to start in earnest.

Little boys, ungrateful boys and opportunists who realised that the war was about to be won and rushed to cross over into Mozambique now want to lecture us on some phases of the liberation struggle? Look, Mutsvangwa should not insult us. This is a hot issue that’s close to our hearts. He should shut up if he has nothing worthy to say.

I can even go further and ask Mutsvangwa what he meant when he said the comrades I mentioned were from the “formative and infancy” years of the struggle? Does he really know Cde Elias Hondo and the role he played well into the late 1970s? Does he know Cde Chemist Ncube? Does he know Cde Kenneth Gwindingwi? Does he know Cde Norman Bethune? No, Mutsvangwa should never, ever think he can take us for granted. There are many commanders from this “formative and infancy” phase of his who played a pivotal role until even after the attainment of independence.

From the First Chimurenga up to the attainment of independence in 1980, all the phases are equally important. Hatidi vanhu vanogutisa nyemba dzekuba.

Bishop is out!