Last Updated: Friday, 20 December 2002
Scribes need to be responsible
This is the second and last part of an article by Chinondidyachii Mararike
in which he takes a closer look at the so-called independent Press, which
peddles lies in a bid to discredit President Mugabe and his Government. What
is required of media people, he argues, is intellectual honesty that will
see them taking a progressive ideological position than has so far been
shown by those who work for the foreign-controlled newspapers.
The spasmodic, and often stupid, character of The Daily News? efforts to
coax the opposition into a productive rhythm has betrayed clumsy attempts at
link up strategies with the NCA, JAG, and the rag-tag of desperate and
disparate racists in the MDC.
It explains why the fall in circulation and alienation of the paper from its
pro-imperialist readers has coincided with the success of Government in
projecting a good image of the country.
This misjudgment of the political mood and the market renders the
controllers of the paper unacceptable as owners, and has left the voters ?
whom the Press is supposed to be serving ? more disaffected than ever
before.
People?s major concern is not whether or not pundits savage each other (or
me) in print, nor are they interested in reading articles that are motivated
either by commercial considerations or by a political agenda (or both).
One by one the last elements in the opposition papers? anti-Government
strategy have been exposed for what they really are: the work of
right-wingers who because they disapprove of Zanu-PF?s Pan-African views
resort to mere smear campaigns to project the wishes of those seeking to
promote a rival vision of what Zimbabwe should be.
Zimbabwe?s land reform programme as reported in The Daily News and the
Zimbabwe Independent offers a disturbing insight into the ways editors
indulge in the art of misrepresenting facts.
One needs not search far why these papers want to make selling points out of
attacking the Government?s land reform programme, and in the process
shouting undignified obscenities against our President.
They are scared and suspect it?s not long before the execution of the next
revolutionary phase begins ? African ownership, management and control of
our country?s culture (as in religion, languages, food, and clothing),
education, banking, commerce, mines and manufacturing industries.
Those of us in Davira Mhere are only too happy to support and give what
little assistance we can for Zimbabwe?s Pan-African cause to proceed
smoothly.
What is required of media people is the kind of intellectual honesty that
will see academicians and journalists taking a progressive ideological
position than has so far been shown by those who work for the
foreign-controlled newspapers.
What we want are responsible journalists with the capacity to clearly
explain what the struggle in Zimbabwe is all about; to explain that the
Third Chimurenga is indeed a veritable revolution intended to reverse all
forms of race-based inequalities bequeathed to the continent by the 19th
Century hordes of European imperialist thugs who descended on the continent
in search of land, gold, pelf and virgins.
They also need to explain that the President Mugabe revolution calls for the
total dismantling and elimination of all forms of economic subservience and
political dependency of former colonial territories in relation to the
vanquished but still dangerous imperialists.
The Zimbabwe Independent, under its present editor, has been moving its
paper into imperialist hands at an increasing rate of knots since the Third
Chimurenga broke out in 2000, and has increasingly adopted an anti-Mugabe
line which, at times, has verged on the hysterical.
The paper?s antipathy to Government amounts to an undeclared war against a
people?s Government, with the editor presenting to his readers a
deliberately negative view of the President because he doesn?t like him.
Those in the know, are aware there is no hidden agenda here: the editor
wears his pro-imperialist and tribalist politics on his sleeve, and believes
that he and his white henchman can smash the December 22 1987 Unity Accord
signed between Zanu-PF and Zapu.
His problem, though, is that he writes for a constituency that no longer
exists, for an MDC that has been going down like a slow puncture and already
looks flat, for neo-colonialists that have been defeated, and for
imperialists that have been embarrassed. The newspaper, like The Daily News,
is sponsored by the West and controlled by representatives of imperialists
who in turn appoint their own people to run it.
These imperialist stooges seek to create an adversarial climate which the
editors of their papers will exploit and advance an agenda that renders the
tone of public debate so much more frantic, so much coarser, less
reflective, and is intended to create so much pointless restlessness in the
electorate. As such, it is not only unfair but also completely unwise for
the foreign-sponsored papers to crucify President Mugabe for clinging onto
political beliefs from which Zimbabweans, and most Africans, have already
benefited.
The questions the opposition Press should answer are: Since when have we
publicly attacked our parents for making decisions that we may not
necessarily agree with? And do we have to dress our elders in muddy suits
simply to settle political scores? Are there no limits, limits circumscribed
by culture and decency, beyond which we must not go when voicing
disagreement with those who to us are our elders, our leaders, and our
parents?
In engaging into the regular tabloid sport of wrecking up Zimbabwe?s land
revolution by singling out President Mugabe, the opposition papers are
making a huge blunder. Surely, the kind of subjective, partial and
scurrilous drivel directed against President Mugabe, which has come to be
associated with the mudslingers inhabiting the "independent" Press, betrays
an unforgivable tendency to trample upon the journalistic standards of
fairness and objectivity.
There is no public interest at stake in lampooning President Mugabe?s person
and personality; only the interests shown by Western imperialists and these,
in most cases, is what causes the privately owned media to fabricate
scandals and to come up with non-existent revelations.
President Mugabe?s demand is for Africans to smash to smithereens the
Caucasian privileges associated with both Africa?s pre-independence status
and contemporary imperialism, and in Zimbabwe this involves the tearing down
of imperial structures put in place in the years subsequent to September 13
1890, being the date when the reviled Frank Johnson-led colonists officially
completed their invasion of the country.
In that respect, our country and the ruling Zanu-PF party has in its armoury
a flaming broadsword, a leader rich in refulgence, revolutionary who
embodies Kaguvi?s culture of resistance, a warrior who possesses the kind of
integrity often regarded as the be-all and end-all of political leadership.
In contrast, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, whose recent utterances and behaviour
reveal a furrowed neurotic who can?t make up his mind; indeed a political
upstart, is a rugged stick that can barely stir a pile of autumn leaves.
And judging by how his party has fared in both council elections and
parliamentary by-elections, MDC supporters are advised not to bother
gathering firewood for next year?s Kuwadzana and Highfield by-election fires
because the logs will not be enough to go around; rather they should go away
and try rubbing sticks together if they are to make anything resembling a
flicker of political fire to light up the party?s short-lived history of
disgrace and disappointment
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"Ivinicus factus sum veritabem diceus." ( I have become an enemy for
speaking the truth ) St Paul!
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Mitayo Potosi
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