Tsvangirai: Prisoner of his own rhetoric
July 24, 2013 <http://www.herald.co.zw/author/superadministrator1/>
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a good idea of what is going on when really all they have is Harrys view.
Harry is a little slow, thus his perspective is quite a restricted one. We
find out about this at the end of every book when circumstances reveal all
the mistakes Harry made in judgment, often from lack of information or just
misunderstanding and neglecting clues on the periphery of his vision. This
slap-in-the-forehead revelation confounds not just the reader but the
protagonist Harry himself.
The characters in the Harry Porter books also practise narrative
misdirection, for example, Voldemort in Chamber of Secrets where he used his
diary presentation of Hagrid-as-Heir-of-Gryffindor for that purpose, and
again in Order of the Phoenix where he convinces the wizard world of what
they want to believe that he isnt back, when he is clearly in front of
them. This is the world of make-believe, we love it. Whats life without
hyperbole? The fact that the readers see almost everything through Harrys
eyes is what keeps them fooled. They only know that they were being fooled
at the end. The reader of Harry Porter forgets that they are reading Harrys
restricted thoughts, not seeing the story from the objective narrator. It is
all too easy to be tricked.
The point is, that people arent what they seem. That people can be playing
other people using, in Harry Porters case, Polyjuice Potion, of course,
only makes it that much more important that we be sceptical about what we
think we know and that we try to be penetrating in our reading and
experience of others. Accomplished writers know that this virtue of mind,
penetration, is the end and aim of thoughtful reading. But are we with them?
I am. Were nothing if were not neptic, right?
In Orthodox Christian theology, nepsis is watchfulness, is sobriety; but it
does not come cheap. It is a result of sustained carthasis or purification
and purgation of emotions. When we become neptic, we can hear and not feel
because we have already felt. Our tragedy allows us to overcome fear and
anxiety because we have gone through some form of carthasis.
Zimbabweans over the last decade in particular have gone through some form
of carthasis and have become neptic. Thanks to the raft of illegal sanctions
and the dysfunctionality of the inclusive Government or that three-headed
monster that could easily form the subject of Harry Porters wizardry. No
amount of spin or narrative misdirection on the Zimbabwean story can
transfix us anymore into the hypnotic state that we experience through
reading Harry Porter, or any other wizardry script. In that light, it is
difficult to threaten us or call our emotions in a manner that is
reminiscent of 2008 as the MDCs are trying to do filled with cholera
images, images of hunger and starvation, of bucket loads of cash. Because we
hit rock bottom in 2008, carthasised and emerged somewhat triumphantly, and
because we now know the sources of those troubles, we can no longer feed on
the 2008 narrative, the narrative of hunger, that we will all die if the
MDC-T is not voted into power. Cholera has come and gone, without the
lifting of sanctions, it cant come worse than it did in 2007. Our people
have carthasised and are now neptic. Simply put, they have moved on from the
political narrative of hunger and now focus on nation-building and ownership
of the means of production.
Carthasis is great because once people are enlightened they can no longer
think in simple terms. Our intellectual clarity does not allow us to accept
narrative misdirection like Vote for me and investor money will pour into
Zimbabwe. Which investor, what money?
The same investor that failed Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, DRC,
Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania, Madagascar, Swaziland and Lesotho for
decades? People are no longer thinking in such simplistic terms, because
they already voted for the MDCs in 2008 and manna did not fall from heaven
for them. We cannot wallow in orgies of emotion and passion in perpetuity.
After five years of the inclusive Government, Zimbabweans are more
enlightened. Zimbabweans cannot rest content with a lie, they have already
torn away the last veil from the illusion in which they have been made to
live so long that salvation comes from those who damned you in the first
place the West.
Mugabe is too old to rule
The Oracle that is Tsvangirai has told Zimbabwe, which has the highest
literacy rate on the continent, that we should vote him as President of
Zimbabwe because Mugabe is old. Did they ever vote Mugabe into power
because he was young? This failure to understand why after such vilification
(nationally and internationally) Mugabe holds sway is the reason why the
MDCs have failed to appeal to large sections of the Zimbabwean population.
The We hate Robert Mugabe, Robert Mugabe is old narrative cannot
generate electoral victory in a country where the conscience of the people
has gone through years of catharsis through a protracted liberation
struggle. This sort of Quill Club top-down analysis that the MDC-T survives
on, based on boardroom or senior common room notions of what people want,
cannot guarantee electoral victory in a country like Zimbabwe, given the
genealogy of its struggle. The Quill Club is a social space for imbibers and
we all know such people cannot generate national electoral success. The
psychology of the ballot box is much more complicated than the numbers of
red berets displayed at rallies or the variety of ludicrous dances displayed
by wannabe leaders. No Harry Porter wizardry will translate that into
electoral victory.
Tsvangirais story-telling during this election round is tired and time
warped. Delgado will tell you that storytelling in court is meant to
convince judge and jury and the storytellers narrative has to resonate with
the psyche of those two groups. If not, the case will be lost. One simply
cannot discredit a presidential aspirant because of their age. This is a
tired story, a misdirected narrative. In fact Zimbabwe will not be in the
Guinness Book of World Records if President Mugabe is voted into power, as
Tsvangirai said. President of the State of Israel, Shimon Perez, turned 90
in June. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia still reigns supreme at President
Mugabes age, so does Giorgio Napolitano, current President of Spain.
Napolitano, born in 1925, was elected on the fourth round of legislative
balloting, on May 10 2006 and re-elected to a second term on the sixth round
with 738 votes, much more than the 504 necessary for a simple majority on 20
April 2013.
Age is not an issue, capacity is. Is Tsvangirai capable? Does he have a
story to sell the Zimbabwean people, apart from his protest politics? The
Castro family is loved not because of age but has a national story which
resonates with the Cuban people. The Cubans gave a solid 52 years to Fidel
Castro, the Chinese 46 to Chiang Kai-Shek, the Spanish 39 years to Francisco
Franco, the Portuguese 39 years to António de Oliveira Salazar, and the
Bulgarians 35 years to Todor Zhivkov. Winston Churchill started his second
term at a senior age of 77, even after suffering a series of strokes prior
to that.
Why did the British vote him into power? They were facing a danger and
needed Churchills skill and dexterity to handle national and international
affairs. Why was he recently voted as the Best Briton that ever lived,
surpassing Shakespeare? At 87 years, Queen Elizabeth II is Head of State,
Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Head of the Commonwealth, queen
regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylo. The
national story is told and handled better by the Queen and she is a symbol
of continuity of Britishness. John McCains resurgence in US politics is
inspired by his role as a veteran soldier, and his ripe age is immaterial.
Long service is not only characteristic of Africa, thats a lie peddled by
those who are lazy to read, or those bent on narrative misdirection for
personal gain.
We will generate a million jobs in five years
How does one generate a million jobs in five years from a sanctioned economy
whose key economic players are subjected to the panoptic scrutiny of the
Office for Foreign Assets Control (Ofac)? A million jobs cannot be generated
by economies who are pampered by the West. EU is generating zero jobs at the
moment and the economies of the constituent countries are flat lining or
registering negative growth. What more can Zimbabwe do under Zidera, under
the Ofac noose?
Sanctions are here to stay, especially US Zidera. It needs a Senate
committee to remove the restrictions, then a bill to be passed by the House
of Representatives, and thats no walk-in-the park. Ask Nelson Mandela who
had the embarrassing moment as president of South Africa of getting special
certification from the US secretary of state that he was no longer a
terrorist in order to visit the country. Ofac has, and will continue to
lynch our economy. That lynching cannot be atoned by Tsvangirais narrative
misdirection. Zimbabweans are smart people, thats why the Winter of
Discontent, the Final Push, the Last Mile and other such ridiculous mottos
suffered stillbirth.
Enter the Grand Coalitions
They are not grand, and they are not coalitions. The last political unity in
Zimbabwe was in 1987 between Zanu-PF and PF-Zapu. It subsists today with the
fault lines getting blurred. You cannot create a grand coalition with your
fraction, the two MDCs were once one, they became rhizomatic. You cannot
create a grand coalition with a non-existent political party
Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn. That is not a party, its a project, and projects have
a shelf life, as we saw with Makonis chickening out of the presidential
race. Zapu also is no more. It already merged with Zanu on two major
occasions: in 1979 to form the Patriotic Front, and the PF was superglued in
1987 by the Unity Accord. Anything calling itself Zapu is not a peoples
union, but a Zimbabwe African Personalities Union. The Zanu Ndonga that
supposedly merged with MDC-T is neither a party nor a project, but a one-man
Muppet show by a man who submitted his nomination papers to run for
Parliament under the name of the MDC-T, so it cannot form a coalition with
itself.
There is a narrative misdirection implied in the term grand coalition.
Tsvangirai is a brand that has been propped up for some time to promote
certain foreign policy interests of certain countries. There has been some
investment by someone and that investment cannot be dispensed willy nilly.
However, Tsvangirai lacks the precision of a technocrat; he needs some
hand-holding as WikiLeaks revealed.
This is where Makoni fills the hole, yes theres a hole. Hes a local
hand-holder. Combine the two; you have good surrogates for a grand foreign
policy, not of Zimbabwe, but for whoever calls the tune the payer of the
piper. For Makoni, it is also about personal ambition, therein lies the
problem. So the MDC-T hole will never be filled. Lets admit, since
Willowgate and since Sadc, things have not been as rosy for Makoni on a
personal level. Tipped, back in the day, as a future Zanu-PF leader he
astonished people by breaking away from the party, in the hope that he would
send shockwaves in national politics.
There was no reading on the Richter scale and no other dissenters came
forth except Dabengwa. Now he is preparing for a role in an imaginary GNU.
He is rooting for one, just like Tsvangirai, just like Welshman. Like in the
Harry Porter offing, Phoenix the GNU co-conspirators are convinced of the
world they believe will exist. They have already carved a live ox, and
partitioned a government of make-believe. They are living in a 2007-8 time
warp.
Unlike Harry Porter, Tsvangirai, Ncube, Dabengwa, Makoni do not have the
Polyjuice Potion to alter the national story, or bring about another GNU.
The catharsis that Zimbabweans experienced cannot be altered, it is a lived
experience. You cannot alter peoples past experiences, you may try to
influence the future experience, but even that is a surmountable task.
Besides, it is too late, indigenisation and empowerment are upon us, and our
boardrooms are filled with harbingers of 51 percent, the mind has been set,
the mindset cannot be altered.
Our farms are occupied and functioning, or well on their way to functioning.
Our people have the entrepreneurial spirit, not the worker mentality and the
colonial economy of 1980 was replaced by a different mindset. Thanks to
sanctions, people now know the importance of owning their own, working their
own, trading their own. Just ask the Chief Registrar of Companies how many
names are still available for company registration. Not many, youd have to
come up with very creative name permutations to register a company in
Zimbabwe. I tried it.
Security Sector Reform
There is a footprint to the narrative of security sector reform. Whose
footprint is the question? Surely it is not a national one, inspired by
national sentiment. It is someone locked in the Africom project, in military
expansionism, in unipolarity, in replacing diplomacy with something very
sinister, very alien. Security sector reform was completed in 1980 with
Zanla, Zipra and the Rhodesia Front coming together. Why do you think
Dabengwa the Black Russian has no appetite for it? Propping the security
sector debate is another classic example of narrative misdirection. The
Constitutional exercise relegated this issue to the dustbin together with
media reform. They never featured, why should they feature now? There is
simply no national appetite for these issues. The national debate is and has
always been about land. Lancaster House negotiations almost collapsed over
land ownership debates.
Chimurengas were about land, ask the Tangwena people. It is as important
today as it was at Lancaster House, and it divides political players as it
did back in the days of Chimurenga. The preamble to the new Constitution
highlights this. National discourse about security sector reform and
devolution has failed to take off, but through narrative misdirection they
have been catapulted into national debates with disastrous consequences. Our
troops are professional and well respected globally, and cannot be disbanded
to be replaced by a paramilitary group composed of unprofessional renegades
who do not have an understanding of the history and struggles of the
Zimbabwean people.
We want devolution
Who wants devolution? The word features only once in the new Constitution in
Chapter 14, Section 264 Devolution of governmental powers and
responsibilities. So why is it an electoral issue if its already in the
Constitution? Is there selective amnesia here? The MDC had representatives
during the constitutional exercise; they campaigned for a Yes Vote. Why
did they do that if they wanted a different form of devolution? Theres lack
of detail with regards to the call for devolution. The warped call for, and
debate over, devolution, is couched on the hidden agenda that Matabeleland
is home only to Ndebeles and they are left out of development. This is
narrative misdirection. Its genealogy dates back to the invasion of the
Kalanga Rozwi Empire by Ndebeles from the Zulu Kingdom in the 1830s. The
Kalanga are incorporated into that group. Matabeleland houses Bulawayo, the
second largest city. Why not devolve to less developed Binga or other areas?
In any case, who lives in Matabeleland?
The histories of Tegwani Mission and Mpilo Hospital, for example, tell a
different story. Many non-Ndebele people live in the region having settled
when Tegwani was the centre for education in the domestic sciences for girls
and teacher training for men, and Mpilo was centre stage for nurse training
and where many black doctors practised. As far as secondary education was
concerned, in 1951 Tegwani became the second school after the Seventh Day
Adventist mission at Solusi to admit students for the Junior Certificate.
The people living in Matabeleland have no tribal inklings they are simply
Zimbabweans and dont care about devolution, only development, and the two
are not conjoined twins. The people of arid Gwanda and other areas in
Matabeleland include those Shonas who were moved by Ian Smith from fertile
lands in Mashonaland. They do not have any appetite for devolution. They
recognise the importance of working together as a nation. In fact
Matabeleland is a construct of the colonial administration with arbitrary
boundaries drawn for colonial administrations convenience.
We want media reform
What is media reform? It is not an event, it is a process that is iterative,
never-ending. Britain is still battling with that. Ask Mr Leveson . . . Much
of the momentum for regulatory reform of the media in this country has
stemmed from the MDC-Ts annoyance and frustration with The Heralds
editorial. Why does Zanu-PF not complain about the anti-Mugabe editorial of
the Daily News, the Zimbabwe Independent, the Standard or NewsDay?
Anti-MDC-T media coverage may be uncomfortable for Tsvangirai and his party,
but taking offence is no reason in itself to impose constraints on what the
Press can say. The Zimbabwean churns out anti-Mugabe and anti-Zanu-PF
rhetoric, yet it was licensed in the country. We may disapprove of what the
more trigger-happy journalists say on this or that issue, but we should
defend to death their right to say it, as Voltaire is said to have put it.
With the exceptions of hate speech and defamation, that is an essential
principle for a democracy to follow. The media should never be used for
political payback, or as a solid foundation on which to introduce
far-reaching legislative reform. The media itself is oblivious to the
implications of such a call by the MDC-T. They even publish statements in
favour of media reform, but fail to demand detail from detail-deficient
Tsvangirai. Talk about hanging a noose on ones throat. With Tsvangirai in
power the country would be on a precipice of a ham-fisted attempt to
restrain, contain and, at its worse, punish the media in a way which is
totally out of step with the energy and character of modern media and
technology. Remember his threat to journalists if he wins the election?
Lets go to the polls
While we go to the polls, lets remember the tired story-telling from a man
who says Zimbabwe will go down in history for electing a senior man (Mugabe)
as president. That kind of stuff is fun in meetings held in rooms above
pubs, over a meal funded by handlers, at the Quill Club and in blog
comments, but it has no future as mainstream electoral politics.
Should they, alternatively, go into the history books for electing a known
bunga bunga Berlusconisque type womaniser instead? A country that elects a
politician of Tsvangirais calibre, simply to drive out a revolutionary with
a solid history, is practising self-harm. In the cacophony of politics, we
need leaders that give intellectual form to modern challenges and to explore
the challenges facing post-independence African countries in the 21st
century.
Comments and suggestions to i...@talkzimbabwe.com.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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