| The best Zimbabwe news site on the world wide web |  |
| NEWS |
| FORUMS |
| NEWS ANALYSIS |
| READERS' FORUM |
Anger, fear and hate will not dislodge Zanu PF
By Jethro
Mpofu
A STORY is
told that a drunken husband came from a bar and beat his wife black
and blue.
Naturally, she became angry but could not, for some reason, fight back. When the husband had gone back to the beerhall in the morning and the little children were playing around as usual singing, dancing and jumping, the noise annoyed the angry mother and she gave the little ones a thorough hidding.
They became angry, but they did not know what to do about it. When a neighbour’s hungry dog strayed into the yard to search for bones and other left overs the little kids stoned the dog and injured it. The dog was hurt and obviously angry. He vented the anger on the cat that was passing by, he sank his teeth deep into the poor cat’s skin.
In turn, the cat vented his anger on the rats and the mice that were to be found around.
It is a story about the sad and the sorry cycle of violence, abuse and oppression. I am not going to suggest in this article that Zanu PF is our national husband or father. I only seek to demonstrate that the abuse that the current government has put us through has turned all of us Zimbabweans into angry and sometimes helpless victims who are more than willing to be victimisers ourselves. We have become the Fanonian “Wretched of the earth” who are the oppressed whose ‘permanent’ propensity is to become oppressors in our own right. The volcanic temper, the angry words and fierce threats that Robert Mugabe and his apologists throw at the opposition, the accusations and the labels manufactured by the regime to defame their enemies, real and imagined – we the citizens, especially in the opposition political parties and civic organisations have swallowed and internalised them.
We have perfected the art of labelling each other and blaming each other, even when it only serves to compromise our potency at deconstructing the regime. This is the reason why a mere internal debate and difference of opinion over a policy or a strategy within a political party will lead to the formation of factions and camps.
While diversity of opinion, multiplicity of views and plurality of organisations are important ingredients of the democratic process and experience, duplicity is a bad negation. I think strongly that in these days that we are living through, where the regime is suffering huge but concealed cracks, where actually the regime is gripped by panic and fear and they are behaving like the biblical “guilty ones who flee even when no one pursues”, Zimbabweans need to observe the fact that this is the time where weaknesses of other organisations must be compensated for by the strengths of others. It is the time that constitutional lobby groups, political parties, women’s organisations, students organisations, church organisations, traditional organisation and other entities including the civil service should see that our suffering is common and that we will all need to contribute a blow to the fight against the regime and the process of coming up with a new democratic and acceptable constitution for our country. My humble contribution in this article is that every Zimbabwean, whether in the ruling party or the opposition, within our borders or in the diaspora, has a role to play in the liberation of Zimbabwe from this Tyranny.
Out of a certain measure of suspicion, fear and anger Zimbabweans generally have come up with a strong idea that it is no use trying to convince the Zanu PF leadership or their followers that there is a Zimbabwe beyond Mugabe and Zanu PF, and that there is life outside Zanu PF. I seek to argue that the sons and daughters of Zimbabwe that are currently working for and with Zanu PF still have a chance to rescue themselves from the sinking ship and assist the others in the opposition and civic society to reconstruct the economy and the country. It is actually said that being in the Zanu PF leadership ranks is like ridding a hyena (Impisi/Bere), you do not dare dismount, if you dismount you are lunch for the cruel creature. In my ordinary judgement, more than half of the people that occupy Zanu PF leadership ranks today are not in agreement with the policies and the programmes of the party and the government.
It is the fear of losing the farms that they have been given, and also some of them have acquired huge loans and other financial favours using the patronage and influence lines of the party, some of them given their age, it is a mere wish to win a place at the heroes acre that is keeping them in there. Mostly, the fear of being ejected from those corners of comfort and security is the one that is keeping these mostly helpless Zimbabweans hostage in the party. The opposition need to open up their communication lines and other verandah’s of political negotiation to these citizens who may easily turn out to be assets in the deconstruction of the regime. Our political intolerance, which sometimes becomes something akin to political superstition which leads us to believe that anyone who is in Zanu PF or also has been in Zanu PF cannot constructively contribute to the re-invention of Zimbabwe is a political weakness and it is unstrategic to say the least. For the men and women currently leading Zanu PF, it may be one of the greatest services to Zimbabwe if they can heed the call of common political wisdom and enjoin themselves into revolutionary conspiracies with the opposition and other constructive forces.
One of the situations, where Zanu PF have tried actually to monopolise history and sometimes play hide and seek with a national heritage or even to bribe history has been the issue of reducing liberation war veterans to a Zanu PF militia and terror force. It is in the interest of Zimbabwe and the interest of the liberation war veterans of all sheds to begin to re-orient themselves and see themselves still as soldiers and cadres in the ongoing struggle for a better Zimbabwe. That Zanu PF has tried to bribe, to abuse and misuse these brave men and women should not blinker us to the fact that liberation war veterans can still decide as individuals or as organisations to act on the fact that the Zimbabwe that we are in is not the Zimbabwe that they went to the bush to fight for. They can still come clear that they also like any other Zimbabweans are not satisfied with the lives that they are leading and they also need to work with others in the fight for a new Zimbabwe.
Currently, Zanu PF are engaged in mocking the struggle for the emancipation and empowerment of women in Zimbabwe and elsewhere by dangling Mai Joice Mujuru before everyone trying to package and market her as an example of how the government is committed to recognising and empowering women. Here is a very wrong model being touted as a role model for all women. Our hard working sisters and mothers who have endured the burden of a dying economy, the pain of starving families and the disintegrating family unit cannot be presented through an unwanted process of promotion by patronage and not merit. I think it is commonsensical that only leadership chosen and appointed by Mugabe in Zimbabwe will be an appendage and extension of his undesirable rule. It will be the perpetuation of the same political culture that Zimbabwe is tired of. It is important for the women in Zimbabwe to be their own “King makers” and the shapers of their own leadership. To have some “King makers” imposing their “queens” as leaders for our country will be a betrayal on our part and unwanted elongation of the unwanted Mugabe rule.
Yoweri Museveni in his useful book What is Africa’s Problem? observes that “often, in Africa instead of young people being at the fore front of the struggle for social justice, they are at the fore front of the struggle for privileges. Your mission (as youths) is to understand the politics of your country and of Africa in general, in order to discover negative and positive politics”. It cannot be put better.
The youth in Zimbabwe need to take a front seat in the struggle for a better future. The archaic statement that youths are leaders of tomorrow should be thrown out of the window. Youths need to stamp their mark on the national corridors of power and influence today and not tomorrow. Youth organisations, student’s organisations and other youth groupings should understand that as long as the mass of youths in the country remain as spectators while our fathers and mothers vote unwisely we will be auctioning the future of our country to the lowest bidder. We should turn it into a fashion and a rule that all youths in our neighbourhoods and organisations are registered as voters. Our fear of the establishment, our anger with the regime and our hatred of the present situation is futile as long as we do not vote. We end up becoming a whole generation of angry and protesting youths who cannot change their situation.
In conclusion, our fear, hatred, anger and frustration should not become impediments to political strategic action and process. To successfully dislodge Zanu PF we need everything and everyone at our disposal. Every Zimbabwean has a role to play in the liberation of the country from Zanu PF. The men and women of conscience in Zanu PF have a role to play in helping dilute the regime and empower the general opposition. Our suffering should now inspire the liberation war veterans to assist in the recovery of our country from Zanu PF abuse.
The women’s
movement should once again rise as before in the liberation struggle
and invest their energy and efforts in the reconditioning of our country.
The student’s movement and other youth entities should also take
the challenge of being counted as those who would not let the country
die. More importantly the constitutional lobby organisations like the
NCA must broaden their fronts and ensure that we do not make the monumental
mistake of putting politics and political parties before democratic
laws and principles.
Jethro Mpofu is a former university student leader and political
activist. He can be contacted at: bdialogue@yahoo.com
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS
ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
debate@newzimbabwe.com
All material copyright newzimbabwe.com
Material may be published or reproduced in any form with appropriate credit to this website