I posit in this short instalment to forgive entirely the two types of MDC-T apologists who littered my inbox with complaints and threats, after New Zimbabwe.com published my short piece on “The curse of UK’s men in Harare”.
I will divide the protesters into two: the innocent, and the painfully ignorant. I was labelled at best “a rabid Tsvangirai hater who must shut up” and at worst “an idling conspiracy theorist without a scar from the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe”. All I had done was point out that Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai are not opposition to each other but opposame, and that both of them are pawns on the chessboard of the British political and economic elite.
Besides the forgiveness that I deliver with love, I would like to seize with gratitude the challenge to state exactly why I believe that the MDC-T are unequal to the important task of unseating Zanu PF, and that they are neither equipped with the “software” nor the “hardware” that is needed to consign Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF to where they belong -- in the blistering incinerators of the garbage of Zimbabwean politics and history.
I also would like to argue and supply the reasons that actually if Zimbabweans and all those around the globe who care about the economic and political happiness of Zimbabweans do not act with urgency, MDC-T will continue to delay the arrival of democratic change in Zimbabwe, ironically.
First, I must admit that “Morgan is more” as his apologists are fond of reminding us, and so many Zimbabweans believe and trust that he will deliver democracy to Zimbabwe one day soon. As much, I must warn that while he is more, he is not enough to remove Mugabe from power because the most important political decisions that he makes, and steps that he takes, he is advised by Mugabe. This is not one conspiracy antic.
When Tsvangirai fled Zimbabwe before the unfortunate June 29 presidential run-off election which Mugabe force-won with violence and threats of war, and which Tsvangirai most unwisely boycotted, he told the whole world that some members of the Central Intelligence Organisation advised him to flee Zimbabwe because Mugabe planned to kill him. Now, dear reader, do you need Nicollo Machiavelli or Dinizulu Macaphulana to point out that Tsvangirai fled the country and eventually boycotted the election on the advice of Mugabe who remained behind forcing a victory that has made him the president of Zimbabwe once more?
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At the serious risk of being branded a conspiracy theorist, I insist that an imagined democratic movement that swallows without chewing contaminated intelligence advice from double-dealing agents of the dictatorship that it seeks to unseat will not deliver political change in any country anywhere under the sun, late alone in Zimbabwe where politics is still a dirty game.
Secondly, MDC-T have needlessly and most disappointingly failed to convince Africa, most of whose countries fought liberation wars, that they are an African political movement that respects the history and legacy of Africans against colonialism.
To pick a fresh example, MDC-T information chief, the innocent Nelson Chamisa, described Roy Bennett as “an angel” that Mugabe has been persecuting. Let me branch a little and remind you of a statement that was made by the sober David Coltart that people like him and Roy Bennet who served in the brutal Rhodesian forces must be grateful beneficiaries of the reconciliation and forgiveness that the common people of Zimbabwe have granted them to the point of voting them into political office, despite the well-documented atrocities and monstrosities of the Rhodesian regime.
Going back to my argument, it is fair and fine to forgive Bennet and his likes, but to innocently ignore history and see an “angel” in him is politicidal and very silly to be polite. But this exemplifies the political silliness of MDC-T who have made Alec Goosen and Roy Bennet the faces of their organisation, which has now nauseated the SADC and the African Union who would rather keep the embarrassing Mugabe than embrace what Malema calls “mickey mouse” politicians who show no iota of African historical knowledge or memory.
In short, MDC-T have long lost the information war to Zanu PF in Africa, and many African populations and organisations still unfortunately believe that Mugabe is a genuine Pan-Africanist.
The Chamisas of this world have done nothing to undress Mugabe and expose him as the genocidal tyrant that he is before Africa, but have concentrated on composing pointless poetry and coining silly insults that neither change hearts nor touch African minds but instead provide western imperialists with comic relief.
In short, I would like to ask the question that Thabo Mbeki asked Tendai Biti: in the remote possibility that MDC-T assume power in Zimbabwe, whose neighbours are they going to be, South Africa, Angola, Namibia or Britain and America?
Thirdly, I think Tsvangirai is not a leader in the true meaning of the word, but a manager -- an apology of a manager for that matter. Leaders are personalities that exude compelling influence within their organizations, inspire action, champion visions that make unpopular decisions popular and grow the organisations in unity. Leaders are men and women in charge and in control. Conversely, managers are maintainers of the status quo who in a hot political scenario can easily be mistaken for clueless and visionless placeholders who cannot lead revolutions but maintain tyranny.
Everyone who is familiar with Zimbabwean politics knows that Zanu PF has three factions -- one led by Mugabe himself, the other by Solomon Mujuru and a third by Emerson Mnangagwa.
Mugabe, to his credit, has made sure that all these factions report to him and catch the flu when he coughs. Mugabe commands these factions so emphatically that at the last Zanu PF congress where he was expected to be ejected, Mujuru held the microphone when Mnangagwa spoke.
On the other hand, Tsvangirai had the MDC suffer a debilitating split and various factions in his party openly defy him. He has also failed to master enough political masonry to attract away from Zanu PF any one of the factions, including the fired Dinyane operatives who have now all gone back to strengthen Zanu PF while MDC-T grows weaker by the hour. This makes Tsvagirai’s chances of outpacing Mugabe in the political leadership of Zimbabwe very narrow indeed.
A fourth point is that it is clear that Tsvangirai and the MDC-T have fallen for Mugabe’s trap of pushing them into confirming themselves as an organisation that is allergic and inimical, if not contemptuous of Zimbabwe’s historical and national values and ideals.
When Arthur Mutambara came and announced that “we are the new ZIPRA and ZANLA, and we stand on the shoulders” of the nationalist of yesteryear, MDC-T simplistically and with their typical unsophisticated analysis, judged him as a Mugabe parrot. Yet what Mutambara was trying to do was to wrest away from Mugabe the monopolisation of the Zimbabwean nationalist and patriotic legacy and label.
The MDCT have unwisely sold an unfortunate sentimentality to the youths of Zimbabwe that nationalist and patriotic language is Zanu PF language, that the national anthem is a Zanu PF slogan and that the national flag is Zanu PF regalia, which is sad because the Zimbabwean nation with its historical nationalist legacy and pride must exist beyond Mugabe and Zanu PF.
In fact a political party that will topple Zanu PF must first expose the falsehood of Zanu PF in its commitment to Zimbabwean national values, in short, in terms of political analysis and understanding MDC-T are a big apology and if left unchecked they will nationalise ignorance and popularize poverty of thought!
The above, dear readers are but a few of my reasons why I believe the MDC-T in Zimbabwe are actually a movement of delayed change. The comrades neither have the “software” nor the “hardware” to remove Mugabe and Zanu PF from power.
Call it hating Tsvangirai, call it conspiracy theorisation, the truth is written on the wall: Mugabe will not go by Tsvangirai and the MDC-T because while Zanu PF are playing rugby, the MDC-T are happy to play netball. In totality, Zanu PF is very safe in power with MDC-T as their opposition.
And dear reader, Mugabe’s recent invitation of Iranian President Ahmadinejad to officially open the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair is a clear political statement that announces what is in store for the clueless MDC-T in the coming elections. Zimbabweans will have to wait longer for political change while Tsvangirai and the MDC-T learn slowly.
Dinizulu Macaphulana is a Zimbabwean student based in Lesotho. He is contactable on e-mail: macapulana@yahoo.com
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