Tribal slurs easy to make, but extremely dangerous

Tribal slurs easy to make, but extremely dangerous

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By Paul Themba Nyathi

SINCE the MDC was established 6 years ago, the party’s agenda and progress has been shaped by its guiding principles – democracy, freedom, equality and social justice. These principles are enshrined in our constitution.

The scale and depth of the support that the MDC now enjoys across Zimbabwe would not have been possible if the party lacked the principles that underpin our collective vision for a new beginning in Zimbabwe. If we allow any party member, regardless of their rank or position, to act with impunity and violate the basic values and principles that we stand for then we are no different from Zanu PF.

Left unchecked, these violations will corrode our progressive vision, destroy our credibility and will lead to a betrayal of the millions of Zimbabweans who have entrusted in the MDC leadership their hopes for a better future. Moreover, if left unchecked these violations will ultimately blur the difference between ourselves as a democratic movement and the Zanu PF dictatorship. We owe it to the people to get our house in order.

The people of Zimbabwe, most of whom have no jobs and are desperate for food, expect the leaders of the MDC to be loyal to the democratic struggle in deeds as well as words. Rhetoric is easy; actions provide proof.

Upholding the values of the MDC, and protecting its image in the eyes of the people and the outside world, is the reason why many of us in the party have publicly opposed those who refused to accept the democratic outcome of the secret ballot held by the National Council on the issue of participation in the senate elections. This democratic transgression is the very antithesis of the MDC’s overriding objective – the democratization of Zimbabwe.

Undermining the institutions and structures of the party, by rejecting the authority of the National Council through a claim to possess some indeterminate power accountable to no-one, is, to all intents and purposes, a coup d’etat against the party and its constitution.

Accepting the outcome of a free and fair democratic process is a basic rule of representative democracy. We lost an opportunity to reaffirm our democratic credentials to the people of Zimbabwe, the region and the broader international community.

The National Council is the highest authority of the party in between congresses. Its decisions are sacrosanct. How can Zimbabweans entrust their freedoms and liberties, and their good governance, to men and women who have no respect for their own party’s constitution and who now embrace and celebrate violence, intimidation, thuggary and authoritarianism?

All of us in the MDC have worked hard, often putting ourselves and our families at risk, people have been killed and thousands tortured to build this party and offer the people an entity capable of tackling the issues blighting our everyday lives.

It is therefore deeply regrettable that the two divergent camps have not reached a compromise acceptable to both parties. We have sought high level mediation, and have attempted to engage the MDC president to urge him to put the party and the people first, and act in accordance with the constitution. Both efforts have thus far yielded nothing.

Instead, those of us who have taken a principled stand in order to defend the basic values of the party have been vilified and threatened with violent retribution.

We have been subjected to unqualified accusations including ballot rigging, playing the ethnic card, pursuing personal interests, and acting as Zanu PF stooges. None of these palpably false and absurd accusations are worthy of a response and do not stand up to scrutiny.

Accusations of ethnicity and tribalism, when people are unable to win an argument, are easy to make but extremely dangerous. It is akin to riding on the back of a tiger. To suggest that some provinces have no right to take a position on an issue less they be accused of ethnicity, is totally absurd.

Such intolerance, and shameless appeal to ethnicity, stokes the ethnic fires. Our recent history as a country should counsel against such a blind, myopic and dangerous strategy. As a nation we are still recovering from the wounds inflicted on our national unity by the massacres perpetrated by the Mugabe regime in the Midlands and Matabeleland provinces during the Gukurahundi period of 1981-87.

For the MDC it is essential that pockets of anger and hostility give way to reason. Time and energy, which should be spent leading the social liberation struggle, are being misdirected and it is those on the ground who are suffering as a consequence.

It is time everyone in the party got back in touch with what the MDC is all about and focused on the needs of the people. It is time everyone re-attached themselves to the principles and the unity of purpose that brought us together in the first place.

If the MDC is to offer a real alternative to Zanu PF we have to hold ourselves accountable to the highest democratic standards and values. The people of Zimbabwe do not deserve anything less. They have suffered 25 years of dictatorship, poverty and powerlessness. The people have been waiting but they will not wait for forever.

Paul Themba Nyathi is the MDC's Secretary for Information and Publicity
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