By Tallent Chingovo
HIV and AIDS activists will tell you that the most complicated phase in the counselling process is when they encounter a victim who is continuously engaged in a denial mode.
The inability to face reality is self destructive and it is even highly advisable to confront the truth, accept it and adjust to the current situation because denial does not necessarily mean that one becomes virus free again.
The recent political events unfolding in Zimbabwe explicitly indicate that the former ruling party, Zanu PF is pathetically hanging on denial of the current political realities taking shape in the whole globe. Its leadership is failing to appreciate the new politics of the day both at international and local level.
Today’s political landscape has basically no space for authoritarian and totalitarian regimes (uprisings and revolutions currently taking place support that). The beleaguered party is in the same quagmire, where even angels of violence and intimidation can’t help to winch it out. The unnecessary rigidity on simple matters that require simple reasoning is very astounding as it is equally shameful.
There is no doubt that the former ruling is facing a waterloo, the blood river where the gravy train is heading for a serious crash. Yes the reality is that the honeymoon is over for them, times are changing and that the end is imminent and nigh. The 29 March 2008 elections ushered in a new political dispensation where Zanu PF was dethroned from the driving seat by the new people’s choice, the Movement for Democratic Change.
It was a day when Zimbabwean masses transferred power from the old and worn out carrier bag to a new modern vessel. In that same vein Zanu PF’s inability to engage the truth first manifested in the 27 June farce disguised as election where they masterminded a reign of terror by unleashing massive violence and intimidation.
The MDC reported that more than 500 of its members were murdered in yet another moment of madness. Zanu PF failed to appreciate the fact that the masses who gave them power in 1980 are the same people who were now entrusting it to their new project called MDC. People realised that Zanu PF’s policy bankruptcy was no longer in line with modern politics hence the formation and election of MDC in September 1999 and March 2008 respectively.
The truth being shamefully denied by Zanu PF is that Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC as a party are the core of the people’s new government established on 29 March 2008 and that Zanu PF is a mere subordinate with no mandate and only in the current structure at the blessing of MDC.
So it will be very naive for the rejects to call the shots in Zimbabwe’s politics let alone expect the people’s choice MDC to bow out due to Zanu PF pressure. It is very ridiculous that Zanu PF persistently defies the reality that violence does not determine who is right but only who is left.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s case and the ascendance of MDC on the throne is an image of a biblical story on 2nd Samuel Chapter 17 where God chose David, a mere shepherd to be the king of Israelites, similarly others genuinely feel God chose Cde Tsvangirai to lead Zimbabwe.
Zanu PF dismally failed to realize the fact that the same masses they harass and intimidate today were once subjected to the same violence by Ian Douglas Smith but they remained resolute until they brought Zimbabwe in 1980. The resolutions of the Zanu PF December 2010 conference held in Mutare is another testimony of the regime failing to uncouple itself from the self destructive gear of denial.
No wonder why the conference was nothing more that wet dreams of an adolescent Marxist organization. After the infamous annual meeting the party desperately tried to smuggle their resolutions into the government where they are mere subordinates with no mandate whatsoever to make unilateral decisions. One of the fun resolutions was that ‘there should be elections this year, without fail’.
Lo and behold the naivety did not end there, the party held successive intra party meetings where they repeatedly called for elections this year with or without reforms because ‘the politburo resolved that’.
For goodness sake what the hell is a Zanu PF conference and politburo with regards to national decisions in the new political set up in Zimbabwe where the Global Political Agreement clearly define the current government, that it’s made up of three political parties which are MDC-T, MDC and Zanu PF?
Zanu PF is still living in the old days where they could unilaterally establish some top down approach of governance by imposing anti-people decisions with impunity. They quickly forget that gone are the days when the President was the Head of State and Head of Government. The truth is that President Mugabe Head of State as he is cannot make government related decisions before consulting Head of Government Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
The evil state of denial keeps haunting Zanu PF and reforms to them are an unacceptable sin which should never be tolerated. However soon and very soon the truth will take its position in their heads that there won’t be elections in Zimbabwe before reforms let alone a new people driven constitution, today or tomorrow.
That same rigidity is impacting negatively on the faction riddled former ruling party because instead of addressing real issues fracturing the party they are busy day dreaming that there is going to be another chance for the revival of the ‘sinking titanic’ and that MDC is going to withdraw from government so that they feast undisturbed again. Unfortunately the PM and his party are still around for some couple of years, they are here to stay and waiting to lead the people in to a new Zimbabwe.
In another sign of desperation the former revolutionary party rehired the serial flip-flopper and certified mercenary Jonathan Moyo to rekindle the waning fortunes of the party but unfortunately there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The spin-doctor is back in the fold and doing what he knows best, destroying from within. The vitriol attacked spewed against SADC and President Zuma in particular by this notorious media hangman goes to show that the troubled party is still trapped on the reality-denial-mode.
It was reported on some online publication that President Zuma, who, in Zimbabwe’s case is the mediator (counsellor) was “staggered” by Zanu PF orchestrated political developments currently unfolding in Zimbabwe. SADC used to be Zanu PF’s baby sitter and for long has been masking the fragility of the latter.
However because facts on ground tell a different story, the regional block just like their counterparts in West Africa, ECOWAS, are more than ready to take the bull by its horns without fear or favour. Indeed they expected Zanu PF and still expect Zanu PF to divorce itself from the old times days where the people’s voice played second fiddle to that of the rulers. Ironically Zanu PF does not appreciate that hence the attack on SADC by Moyo.
Still on the same vein, what staggers the mediator is the continuous harassment of MDC leaders by Zanu PF. The recent unjustifiable arrest of the MDC Secretary for International Affairs and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s office Jameson Timba is a clear indication that Zanu PF’s thoughts are deeply entrenched in the pathetic mode of denial.
Timba was arrested on Friday last week for telling the nation the truth that SADC endorsed the Lusaka resolution contrary to what Zanu PF was preaching. Cde Timba’s position was confirmed by SADC Executive Secretary Dr Tomaz Salamao, who said no one has the power to change that position, President Mugabe included. Zanu PF is failing to come to terms with the truth that gone are the days when they represented the country at inter-state meetings alone.
Back then they could fly out on taxpayers’ money, dose at the meeting come back with a full briefcase of massaged and prejudiced false reports. Now there is MDC alongside ready to tell it as it is, like my lovely daily tabloid, The Daily News. That does not amuse the unrepentant Zanu PF hence the desperate attempt to silence MDC.
Equally criminal, is the ongoing gospel of violence being preached by Jabulani Sibanda in Masvingo Province. The resentment towards his overstay in the Province is very deep that it’s more detrimental to the crumbling party than the MDC. The Zanu Provincial Coordinating Committee, the Provincial Chairman Matuke and former Gutu legislator, Mai Mahofa can testify that.
The almost-born-free gold digger’s singing for supper has become soporific that even the host Zanu PF structures now feel the pinch more than the intended subject people, MDC members. What makes the foregoing more interesting is the fact that in Matabeleland where this demagogue originally comes from, was almost entirely swept by MDC in the last elections.
What then gives Sibanda’s backers in the Province false confidence that he can win back the people’s support to Zanu PF, the job he failed to do in his own back yard. It is indeed an insult to the people of Masvingo and the Zanu PF leadership in the province and surely Mai Mahofa will definitely be forgiven when she sheds tears about the destructive work being done by the notorious Jabulani Sibanda.
Like his ilk, in Zanu PF Sibanda is running way from his shadow. He fails to comprehend the reality that MDC is not only in Masvingo but like a veldt fire, its everywhere in the country including Matabeleland, Manicaland, Midlands and Mashonaland. Unfortunately a gun, threats/ intimidations are not the best tools to fight the fire.
Then come one Brigadier Douglas Nyikayaramba, a mere army officer who is occupying a public office at the blessing of an individual (Mugabe). To call the Rt Hon PM and democratically elected Head of Government, ‘a security threat’ is scandalous as it is highly treasonous. Uttering such contemptuous statements meant to vilify the Prime Minister, worse still by a baby-securocrat like Nyikayaramba is a serious crime and a direct insult to the people of Zimbabwe who elected the former on 29 March 2008.
It is the highest level of unreconstructed bigotry which has to be rebuked by the strongest contempt it deserves. We thought the literal, Shona meaning of his name ‘Nyikayaramba’ would remind him that ‘ the people are not interested anymore’. His spurious fits of anger and outburst against Prime Minister Tsvangirai will not change facts on ground that securocrats, are not Zimbabwe whether they salute the former or not.
One South Africa Sunday Times journalist, Marvin Meintijies, writing on the Yadda-Yadda space in the 26 June 2011 edition explicitly puts it correctly when he said “…such people are operators of note, opportunists de luxe, self-serving, short sighted and their insecurity shortcomings mean they are often very belligerent(or unnecessarily militant, in this case)” .
The people of Zimbabwe know the real threat to state security and no one including Nyikayaramba can successfully fool them. So the sooner Zanu PF appreciate reality and disengage totally from the denial mode the better because like the climate, politics of the day is changing and also that no amount of intimidation will scare democratic forces.
Change in Zimbabwe is just by the corner and as certain as death it is coming without fail, whether Zanu PF remain rigid of they put on the flexibility mode.
Meet you in, Luanda, Angola in August Cdes.
Tallent Chingovo is a senior member of the MDC-T Youth Assembly.
