‘Walking gracefully’: Introducing Dr Amai II

MY Dear People Ahh these people should have just told us that all they wanted to be was to be just like Baba and me and then there would have been no need for them to roll out the army tanks, as we would have just accepted.

No idea what I am talking about? Well, this past week we minted a new Dr Amai, or let us call her Dr Amai the Second, kkk.

All what this lot has been doing is just to copy Baba and myself and honestly, it’s getting a little embarrassing.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, but this mimicry is really poor.

I studied for and got a PhD from the highest learning institution in the country.

I know some of you think it’s bogus, but look at the case against Brother Levi, it’s going nowhere because I did everything right.

Dr Amai II does not have my intellectual prowess, so she went all the way to Asia to get an honor

IN 2016, a Zimbabwean pastor, Evan Mawarire, started the ThisFlag campaign and got into big trouble for his efforts. Using social media channels, he would appear in short videos complaining about how the ruling elite had run Zimbabwe to the ground, and urged people not to report for work, which a number of people actually heeded.

They arrested him and took him to court where he faced a 20-year jail term for attempting to overthrow the government of the late former president, Robert Mugabe. Of course, you need to be coming from Mars or some other silly planet to believe that donning a Zimbabwean flag is the same thing as overthrowing a Zanu PF government.

When they were done with Pastor E, he was so scared you haven’t heard too much about him since then. That’s what they always do, and that’s what they want you to do. Be very, very afraid of the regime.

Now, do you also remember that there was such a big noise when opposition MPs started going to parliament with the Zimbabwean flag draped around them? Those that did were thrown out of the parliament building.

That was always going to be crazy, of course. Who does that? Where on earth have you heard a lawmaker being harassed for wearing a piece of cloth that symbolises nationhood? But Zim is Zim. All sorts of crazy things go.

Let’s wait and see. Who is going to be harassing the owners of Shanghai Construction Group for putting up a Chinese flag at the new parliament building in Zimbabwe, alongside the Zimbabwean flag? Shanghai, a Chinese state-owned company, is the one that built the building.

Here is the thing. Some people got into sizzling trouble for wearing their own flag. If you can be in trouble for wearing your own flag, surely, those that bring their ary doctorate.

Oh dear me, an honorary degree from a faraway country.

If she was patriotic like me and needed an honorary degree then she would have contacted Enrico Sibanda and he would have given her one from his International Institute of Philanthropy.

What ever happened to brother Enrico, a decade ago he was doling out his bogus PhDs and I am sure he would have been happy to give one to Dr Amai II.

The reporter announcing Dr Amai II’s receipt of the honorary doctorate deserves an award for ground-breaking reporting, as she reported that Dr Amai II had walked “gracefully with other doctors in the procession while resplendent in her colourful academic regalia”.

Such earth shattering journalism.

Dr Amai II now joins other illustrious doctors like Dr Gono, Dr Kereke, Dr Chiyangwa, Dr Mangudya and Dr Kaseke, kkk.

If there was one thing that was easy to predict, it was the transport crisis that has enveloped the own flag and hoist it on Zimbabwean soil are guilty of a huge, huge crime. There is nothing that beats that when it comes to regime change.

It’s simply a no-no for a foreign nation to plant its own flag on our soil. There is no better description for colonialism than that. On April 18 1980, Zimbabwe went into wild jubilation when the Union Jack was brought down and replaced with the flag that Pastor E got into trouble for wearing. You know why? Your flag is the symbol of your sovereignty. It defines you. It gives you your unique identity as a nation, as a people.

What does it then mean when the Chinese flag is pitched at your parliament, alongside your own. It means that you are a half citizen in your own country. The other half is Chinese. In that regard, you may just as well go and claim your passport from the Chinese embassy. It means a Chinese nationality has been imposed on you, without your consent.

But it implies worse things. Symbolically, China has colonised us, comrades. Beijing is always loudly going to the court with all that crap about non-interference in other nations’ affairs. Not that sane people have ever believed the goo. But when you see the Chinese flag on our soil, you must know one thing. China has taken over.

It’s ominous. Remember, in othcountry’s major cities.

It does not need Dr Amai II’s PhD to tell that creating such a monolithic monopoly like Zupco was always going to create problems.

Baba saw the dangers of the Zupco monopoly back in the early 1990s and did away with it.

Why this lot decided to bring it back is really strange and needs a PhD thesis of its own — there you go Dr Amai II, a topic for a dissertation for you.

In an era where they harp on about devolution, creating a monopoly is really anachronistic and ironic — I doubt that one knows what these small words mean, kkk.

Public transport was a mess and it needed fixing, but creating a monopoly was never the way out of it.

What was needed was the policing of kombis and having Zupco run side by side with them, but no, these Einsteins decided to get rid of kombis altogether.

Zupco does not have the capacity to run an efficient public transport system and this has seen the parastatal try miracles in resuscitating buses that had long been retired in effort to address the obvious gaps.

I have seen reports of people saying they left their workplaces at 5pm only to get to their respective homes at 10pm or even later.

I don’t even want to imagine the er parts of Africa, China has already set up its own law enforcement infrastructure. Police stations, police officers, Kung Fu kicks in the charge office and — you guessed right — the Chinese flag. That’s one of the craziest things to have ever happened since David Livingstone claimed he had discovered Mosi-oa-Tunya and proceeded to call it the Victoria Falls after an alien British queen that we should also have claimed we discovered when we started knowing about her.

It doesn’t help matters in any way that the Chinese flag was pitched at our parliament. Parliaments are national symbols, just like the flag. They represent the aspirations of a people. This is where we not only make laws, but dangers that women and school children face in such circumstances.

I saw a video of a woman literally being forced to abandon her dignity as she was pushed through a window to enter a Zupco bus.

This is just nightmarish and these guys need to address this with urgency.

Kombis need to be given route authorities, police corruption needs to be nipped in the bud and kombis have to be policed.

Monopolies and command economies failed to work under Stalin, there is no chance they will work under Launchmore.

Even China has developed principles of competition in business. Why Zimbabwe wants to go backwards is anyone’s guess.

Huh! Cde Linda is an embarrassment.

Probably with nothing to say but yearning for attention, she unprovokedly declared that she had been offered US$1 million to badmouth the country.

This has been a running theme for many Johnny-come-latelies in Zanu PF, who all claimed millions were handed over to the opposition.

The only difference is that Linda claimed she had the evidence and she would post it in due course.

As the clock ticked away, Linda began pressuring herself to present evidence, but the problem is structure a nation. You will understand that better when you realise that MPs are people who are elected by the people, to represent them at government level. There is a social contract.

Fine, China is trying to wiggle off the mess by saying that the flag was not hoisted at the Mt Hampden parliament building as such, but the construction site. It also, quite lamely, says that’s what it normally does when it gives a grant — rather than a loan — to local beneficiaries.

It wasn’t going to matter a single morsel if China had pitched the flag in a sewerage pond in New Marlborough, Goodhope or one of the nearby farm compounds there. Fact is, it planted its flag on Zimbabwean soil. That’s number one. Two, who cares what China usually does with its “gifts”, read as grants? Fact is, you don’t do your flag on our soil because you have done it elsewhere before.

We said it right from the start. Just that these clowns who call themselves our leaders are incapable of listening, just plain dumb or voraciously eating with the Chinese. This thing about letting China construct a parliament building for us was always going to be a bad idea. Beijing has this way of imposing its influence on you. After all, the Mt Hampden building is not a gift as such. We are paying for it with our minerals and such other things. We are captured and very vulnerable to manipulation by China.

It’s not clear if our leaders have heard what China is doing in Addis. The China State Construction Engineering Corporation, an appendage of Beijing, built the African Union conference centre as a “gift”. One of the tallest that there was really none.

Unashamedly, she claimed that the US embassy in Harare was “sweeping her emails” and deleting previous correspondence they had with her.

If you believe this, then you would literally believe anything.

But no, Linda still pressured herself to produce evidence and her best effort was an email off a mailing list inviting her to apply for a grant of US$10 000-US$15 000.

The call for applications was not about bad- mouthing the country, but rather for community development and it was neither an offer to Linda, but rather she was just being invited to apply.

Cde Linda should be first taught on how a mailing list works — that email was not sent to her only, but to thousands of people.

It was not an offer to our patriotic Cde Linda.

Anyway, after failing to produce evidence, I am sure Cde Linda will continue to hide behind her finger and claim that her emails were swept.

With such politicians hanging on Launchmore’s coattails, there’s no need to wonder why you, my people, are in a worse off position today than you were in November 2017.

Munopengaaaaaa! Gushungo Chete Chete! Dr Amai Stop it! PhD (Fake) and most imposing building you will find in Addis and Africa. But, from 2018, China is doing naughty things at the AU HQ. Four years ago, as Le Monde reported, the AU IT team discovered that the conference servers were strangely connecting to Shanghai and uploading the union’s files and recordings there. Two years ago, in 2020, Reuters reported that Chinese hackers, apparently on Beijing’s pay list, were directing surveillance footage from the AU HQ as part of China’s electronic infiltration.

Up to now, it’s not clear why Beijing would want to snoop on the AU, but there are good guesses if you care to think. That’s an easy way for Beijing to get intelligence on what African leaders are thinking, saying and doing. The Chinese embassy in Addis wouldn’t have to worry too much about snorting around for info. But then, you must also remember that the conference centre regularly hosts meetings involving African and diaspora businesspeople. China is in Africa for business, not throwing around gifts like some kind of oriental Santa Claus. So, it needs to know what’s happening, business-wise.

Back to Zimbabwe. You don’t get to think that a leopard changes its spots that easily. What is happening in Addis will most certainly be happening in Zimbabwe. But maybe we don’t need to care that much. China will be snooping on one of its own provinces, which is Zimbabwe. Seeing as it is we are already an outpost of Beijing.

It’s simply a no-no for a foreign nation to plant its own ag on our soil. There is no better description for colonialism than that. On 18 April 1980, Zimbabwe went into wild jubilation when the Union Jack was brought down and replaced with the ag that Pastor E got into trouble for wearing. You know why? Your ag is the symbol of your sovereignty. It de nes you. It gives you your unique identity as a nation, as a people.