Moving mountains by the push of middle finger
The ruling party considers the Sadc’s Anti-Sanctions Day as a milestone in its quest to portray itself as the reformist victim after decades of mismanagement and economic ruin. To Zanu PF and its supporters, this Sunday’s march is a “big event” despite President Emmerson Mnangagwa regime’s dismal failure to uphold human rights since ascending to power via a military coup in November 2017.
Likewise, Sadc — a toothless grouping of countries championing deplorable brotherhood tenets — in broad daylight purports to back the Zimbabwean cause to have sanctions imposed by the United States and the West unequivocally removed, while at night secretly dwelling on the reality that the former bread basket of the region has degenerated into catastrophic levels of despotism and failure.
Riding on the pathetic “see-no-evil and hear-no-evil” approach by the regional bloc, Zanu PF abuses the less fortunate in the society, bussing them from all corners of the country to brave the scorching summer heat to chant slogans and wag middle fingers at the perceived enemies of Zimbabwe. These stage-managed events, orchestrated to safeguard the ruling elite’s interests are, unfortunately, unpatriotic, but self-enriching.
While the father of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, believed a noble action is undertaken to provide the greatest good for the greatest number, the Zimbabwean scenario is a direct antithesis of this philosophical proposition. Marching against the US has become a hobby for Zanu PF, but without national benefits accruing from this posturing.
The fat cats in the upper echelons of power relentlessly loot, kill, abduct and torture those raising red flags on the shocking drift to dictatorship while that grouping of thre absurd called Sadc deliberately looks the other way. Former president Robert Mugabe left a legacy of the million-man march against sanctions, but the beneficiaries of the so-called redemption escapade were Mugabe and his cabal. The toiling masses in the jaws of unemployment and impoverishment remained on the periphery.
The mono-dimensional approach to politics by Zanu PF — allowing only its members and not any other to demonstrate against misrule — is tyranny in the utmost sense which citizens also deserve to march against. Sadly, each year will come and pass with Zanu PF preaching the same sanctions discourse, however, without adressing the country’s abysmal human rights record.
The West has repeatedly called for an end to the brutality and for the liberalisation of the democratic space, which the ruling party is not keen to embrace.
The nation needs proper marches to protest the worsening situation in which the majority find themselves, against rising oppression; corruption, militarisation of the state, among other sensible causes relevant to the state of affairs. No mountains will be moved by the push of a middle finger. Only reforms can work wonders for Mnangagwa and his administration.