Yellow ‘fever’ fast turning into despair

Major Action Mandingo (Retired)

JUST a few weeks down the line, the euphoria is fast dying down.

The yellow fever is fast turning into despair.

Zimbabweans being the creative lot that they are have turned CCC into “Chapera Chinhu ChaChamisa” while others are emphatic that: “Chafa Chinhu ChaNero!”

This was bound to happen. This was always coming.

You see, it’s clear that this new creature was created without deep thinking and without foresight.

This was a populist creation that was bound to excite gullible opposition supporters and their shallow-minded sympathisers who think their misdirected venom on social media is enough to smuggle Nelson into power.

Now a few weeks down the line, the opposition lackeys are discovering that in reality nothing has really changed — Nelson, on the advice of new iron-lady Mahelele, has just added a new abbreviation and a new colour to his political toys.

It’s like changing the colour of a broken bus from red to yellow and then give this yellow bus a new name in the hope that the broken engine will suddenly start functioning well. Honestly, Nelson should not take people for fools like that.

The broken bus remains broken because the engine hasn’t been fixed. What is worse is that the poor driver, who broke the engine of the bus in the first instance, is still on the wheel.

Nelson’s CCC remains the old MDC dressed in yellow instead of the usual red that Morgan Tsvangirai preferred.

Nothing has changed — no ideology, no direction, no policies and no shame!

As if that is not enough, Nelson remains big-headed, too pompous and dangerously clueless.

The little dictator in him hasn’t died. The only new thing is that this little dictator is now being messed up by the temperamental Mahelele who has created serious discomfort in little Nelson’s shaky marriage.

This is a story for another good day! And that good day is coming soon! Commenting on the trick by Nelson, others are saying: “it’s old-wine-in-anew-bottle.”

Nelson trying to play a fast one by presenting the old and fractious MDC as a new creation under the name CCC.

His trick almost worked, because quite a number of his blind supporters went hysterical.

Just like snow on a sunny day, the euphoria is fast dying.

Time has a way of defining issues and putting things into proper perspective. French romantic composer, Hector Berlioz would say, “time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”

Time is now teaching Nelson a lesson that lies have short legs and once his gullible supporters come back to their sober senses, they will continue to make his life very difficult as they have done since he imposed himself on the party after the death of Tsvangirai.

He should have known that lies can’t run a marathon, but I think we are expecting too much from this little boy. He is too naïve and this explains why he foolishly thinks that age can replace ideology in politics.

He thinks people should vote for him just because of his age.

In case Nelson is getting mixed up just because of his age, a gentle reminder would be useful here - the road that we have travelled as Zimbabweans is indeed a road less travelled.

For us to attain political independence, there was need for total commitment and absolute dedication from the people of Zimbabwe.

The gallant sons and daughters who fought for this country didn’t stand akimbo, just because they were in their 20s and 30s, hoping that independence will be delivered to them on a silver platter.

Young as they were, they knew that they had to saturate themselves with the ZAPU and ZANU ideology to win the war.

Nelson may be too naïve to know this, but Ian Smith agreed to sit down during the Lancaster House Conference after discovering that these young freedom fighters were prepared to die for their country.

To these freedom fighters, age didn’t matter. They didn’t think that just because they were young, they could take over the country just like that.

After gaining political independence in 1980, several youthful businesspeople like Phillip Chiyangwa, Peter Pamire, Jane Mutasa, Abigal Magwenzi and many others who were in their 30s and 40s in the 1990s, took over the baton fighting for the economic emancipation of black people in Zimbabwe.

All of them never took things for granted just because they were young.

They continued working with the revolutionary party, ZANU PF anchoring all their actions on the party’s sound ideology.

Nelson and many others in the opposition got the rare opportunity to come up-close with ZANU PF during the inclusive Government and we thought this was the beginning for them to learn about leadership, patriotism, sovereignty and governance among many other important aspects of nation building.

Sadly, the MDCs and the Chamisas of this world reminded us that, “wearing a crown does not make one a king” or that “even if you dress a pig in Gucci, it remains a pig.”

A few weeks ago, Nelson announced the birth of his supposedly new political baby, but in doing so, he showed everyone that he is still that shallow Chamisa we have always known him to be.

He is still buried in self-illusion.

But maybe we should try and understand Nelson and his party.

As Nike Campbell-Fatoki would put it, “You can’t skip any stage of your life, it’s all part of the moulding process into a better you.”

Clearly, as the Americans and the British rushed to form the MDC in 1999 as they tried in vain to stop the historic land reform exercise, they failed to realise the importance of dishing out a wellthought and well-cooked opposition.

In Shona we would say; “Tsvangirai akapihwa mbodza, Chamisa ndokubvuta mbodza iyoyo.”

How else can anyone explain how the MDC has torn itself into several factions and has now morphed into CCC? The MDC and by extension CCC are like GMOs — they lack originality and maturity.

As we all know, one cannot invent maturity, only time can deliver it.

When you are a creation of the Americans and the British, hurriedly put together to destroy your own, and when you are someone with no sense of identity, no sense of belonging and no ideology, it’s not surprising that you think politics is that simple and cheap.

Nelson skipped quite a number of stages in his political life and now he is exposing himself.

Almost 42 years after the attainment of independence, it’s clearly showing that ZANU PF ichine basa guru to free some of its people mentally.

Nelson and many of his peers are still oppressed by the residues of colonialism.

Oppression my dear comrades, destroys one’s self-worth and sense of self.

It dismantles one’s concept of selfvalue and presents the former colonisers as the supreme power that must continue to rule over us.

Little Nelson and his hangers-on have not yet come to terms with our hard-won political independence and the subsequent programmes to economically emancipate the black majority. They think that only our former colonisers should own the means of production like they did before independence in 1980.

They think as blacks, we can only be successful workers of these former colonisers. What a sickening slave mentality!

A glorified form of slavery, but fortunately ZANU-PF is still around to free the likes of Nelson.

Dr Myles Munroe stated in one of his inspirational speeches that “mental freedom is more important that physical freedom.”

◆