Zimbabwe: are we not to blame?

By Tanonoka Joseph Whande

The fact that today we see the likes of Grace Mugabe, Chris Mutsvangwa and Patrick Zhuwao, among others, running around calling shots as to what Zimbabweans ought to be doing in Zimbabwe and with Zimbabwe is an indication that we have hit rock bottom.

Our country is being inherited by morons right before our eyes and we seem powerless to do anything about it.

Nothing attracts predators and scavengers like a dying or rotting animal.

Even before the animal is on its belly, breathing its last whiffs, vultures already start to circle in the air, flies reconnoiter and refuse to leave while, on the ground, the stealthy convergence of hyenas and jackals signals the irreversible end.

My father, a merchant in his days, used to say that “a business is a wonderful thing because it can survive for a very long time after it has long died”.

I got his message clearly in that signs of life do not necessarily mean the presence of life.

For our beloved Zimbabwe, I fear today more than I fear tomorrow or even yesterday.

A wounded buffalo, too weak to attack, will delay its demise through its mean and ferocious history. Predators approach very carefully.

Today, the once dynamic and productive Zimbabwe lies under the insufficient shade of its own mercenaries, flies buzzing around it, scavengers strolling up and down full of expectancy while vultures up in the air advertise the impending demise of the beast, promising a feast and full stomachs for those who were never there when it all started.

It tears my soul apart that those who were never near the hunt are the ones who are sharing the carcass before the animal is even dead.

Those who truly loved Zimbabwe were killed or were claimed by nature; those true freedom fighters who remain have been shunted away and are being labelled enemies of the state.

Nothing reflects the unfortunate state of Zimbabwe more than the state of that exclusive group of liberators, often wrongly referred to as war veterans. It must strike genuine war veterans at the raw flesh as they see charlatans and opportunists being cuddled by other carpetbaggers who managed to make their way even further up the ladder of authority.

The current scene in Zimbabwe reminds me of a scene at the aftermath of a feeding frenzy…lots of congealing blood in the soil, bones picked clean everywhere and clouds of hungry flies buzzing with energy after a free meal.

The real freedom fighters, the real veterans of the war of liberation who sacrificed all they were to see a free nation and a free people, watch in despair for what they see before them is not what they fought for.

Their intentions were hijacked in broad daylight; their lives are in more danger today from those they liberated than they were from the oppressor enemy they fought.

The chaotic feeding frenzy continues.

Like all African countries, Zimbabwe never reached its full potential yet it already belongs to those who never plotted its reclamation from those who had stolen it.

While Zimbabwe lies bleeding, helpless and near death in the hot sun, political vultures, hyenas and opportunists converge from all directions.

I cringe as I watch them fighting each other over the injured country, many times using its dripping blood to replenish themselves so as to abuse our nation with renewed vigor.

The cast of cannibals devouring Zimbabwe is a list of dangerous chancers and unknowns ironically led by Robert Mugabe, a man who falsely claims to have liberated Zimbabwe.

Mugabe, a man who was never expected near the leadership of the war of liberation, let alone the presidency, has sat at the apex since before independence.

He did not become leader of the party because people wanted him. Heck, he was not even physically present when Zanu-Pf was formed, having skipped bail and was hiding in Tanzania.

His leadership of the liberation war party, now the ruling party, has brought the country of Zimbabwe from top of the table to the dust.

It hurts and insults me to read every day that “Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of Africa”…”Zimbabwe, one of the poorest countries in the world…”

Really? Zimbabwe, with Africa’s highest literacy rate, is one of the poorest countries in the world? What happened?

What happened is the arrival of man-eaters, some by Mugabe’s invitation for political protection and others through devious means. But all of them congregate to eat every scrap of a nation to whose liberation they contributed little.

The ruling party is in the throngs of power struggles fueled by Mugabe’s slowly diminishing hold and influence.

Zimbabwe carries the symptoms of Africa’s inability to openly handle successions.

Sensing that should Mugabe drop dead today they would be exposed and prosecuted, the hangers-on have huddled together to protect themselves in such event.

While there are many politicians in government who do not deserve to be where they are, perhaps the saddest and most painful symbol of the rot is the slowly emerging face of Mugabe’s South African born wife Grace.

A former trans-border vendor and secretary in a government typing pool, her marriage to Mugabe was as scandalous as the authority she now abuses as First lady.

Her greed rivals that of Imelda Marcos; her insensitivity towards the people and her selfishness are legendary and have created a halo of fear around the nation.

Her barbaric arrival on the political scene distabilised Zanu-Pf when the party was getting weaker and more and more unpopular.

Now she has further divided the half of the party that she used to topple her husband’s vice president. There are more and more threats as her presence further divides the people everywhere in the country.

She has literally taken over the government and specializes in ignorant humiliation of people yet she has no constituency of her own. Cabinet ministers are afraid to miss any rally she holds anywhere in the country and those rallies are a shameful study in idiocy.

Over the weekend, she told a rally that vice presidents and cabinet ministers were not elected officials but Mugabe’s appointees whom he could easily get rid of and instructed them to behave themselves.

Very true – a fallout from the lack of orderly succession.

Just months after toppling Mugabe’s vice president of ten years, Grace is now after Emerson Mnangagwa, the man who has always stupidly dreamt of succeeding Mugabe without developing a constituency of his own.

Once again, the nation is on edge.

Because of Grace, there is complete chaos within the party and government at a time when the country is teetering on the precipice.

Party followers do not know who to follow or listen to anymore. While Grace rattles the ruling party, the government is running on auto pilot.

The civil war in Zanu-Pf, ignited and fueled by Grace, has left both the ruling party and government in limbo yet this is the time when true leadership is needed because Zimbabwe is in serious distress.

Grace, like her husband, wants the thrown to protect herself and her family because they have a lot of questions to answer.

My fear is that Zimbabwe will not hold together much longer and when it implodes or explodes, the region, particularly Botswana and South Africa and SADC, will pay heavily for letting Mugabe do as he pleased with a country that counterbalanced surrounding nations in a symbiotic and complementary existence.