Zimbabwe: Disaster forging ties with calamity

By Tanonoka Joseph Whande

There is a song from way back when that is one of my favorite golden oldies.

Shock The Monkey is a song “that tells how a person starts out working in the world with his/her own ideas/dreams. But, as time goes on and they work for others they are forced, or “shocked”, into doing what they are told to do if they want to get along or even survive in the world”.

Sounds like what most African governments do. There has to be a stop to the abuse of African people at the hands of those supposedly elected.

Obviously, Botswana’s habit of one person being allowed to appoint his or her successor is no better than what we are witnessing in most SADC countries.

We should all be ashamed of this prevalent political maneuver that steals so much from so many.

While there exists in Botswana a trend of one person appointed by one person appointing another person to lead a nation in the absence of a single vote being cast for that person, we have in Zimbabwe and South Africa where, as in Botswana, whatever party in power can abuse protocol and the constitution to perpetuate their stay in poor.

Although they yap about democracy and all that jazz, there is nothing democratic in South Africa.

No country in SADC is democratic. None. Just a lot of clever pretenders.

They are all good at demanding this or that and squeeze the blood out of suffering people while they rejoice in extravagancy with money that’s not theirs.

By all accounts, 2015 started badly for Africa before it even arrived.

Apart from rotten politics worldwide, the people no longer seem enthusiastic about politicians.

Politicians are all the same and they all end up doing the very opposite of what they promise voters during their campaigns.

The mediocrity of so-called leaders in our SADC region is frightening. A cursory look at what is happening in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa makes me want to cry.

Zimbabwe especially has been hit the hardest in terms of a vacuum of leadership. Our president rode to prominence on the crest of a populist wave and on the back of the euphoria of liberation yet he possessed a closed mind, something that became obvious as soon as he started to get rid of those lieutenants who did the thinking for him.

What is happening in Zimbabwe today is more than tragic as there does not appear to be anyone who can step in to fill the void.

All opposition parties are watching with glee as Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF disintegrates and takes center stage in a nation whose economy is an embarrassment to banks that, unsurprisingly, are going bankrupt by the day.

Instead of paying attention to the struggling nation, the leadership is embroiled in political cannibalism to the extent that the president is not only being taken to court by his onetime deputy but has been reported to regional leaders for undemocratic political misconduct. Ironically, Mugabe, as the current SADC Chairman, will receive the complaint against himself from a powerful group that once constituted the backbone of his presidency.

In the meantime, politicians within the disintegrating party are fighting over farms which they continue to seize and allocate among themselves. There is no more pretense about seizing the farms to give landless Africans pieces of land. It is greed in its most sincere purity.

But that is not all, Robert Mugabe’s young lass is herself leading the pack in grabbing more and more farms. It is painful to see Grace, who already owns many other farms acquired in similar fashion, evicting hundreds of families from these farms and razing their dwellings to ashes so she can put some wildlife animals where these farm workers had lived with their families for decades.

There is something devilish, something evil to see a woman, a First Lady who wants the nation to call her “Mother”, displacing little children only a few meters from her orphanage built on forcibly acquired land.

That is very neat, is it not, that she evicts children so as to care for animals and build orphanages for homeless children.

But that is not all.

The Acting President, Emerson Mnangagwa, continues to find himself embroiled in issues and activities that will certainly provoke a backlash when Grace and her husband return from frolicking in Singapore.

Mnangagwa continues to make himself the center of attention as if he is already Head of State. Such behavior is totally unacceptable to African presidents.

In my last two or so articles right here, I predicted that “they” will not allow Mnangagwa to become president.

That battle started as soon as Mugabe appointed Mnangagwa to be one of two Vice Presidents. The so-called Gang of Four, comprising Jonathan Moyo, who, along with Patrick Zhuwao (Mugabe’s nephew), Oppah Muchinguri (now Minister of Higher Education) and Savior Kasukuwere (Minister of Environment), are believed to be very close to Grace Mugabe and are the ones who fought to remove former Vice President Joice Mujuru while at the same time elevating Grace Mugabe’s profile, are already on the war path against Mnangagwa.

They are not happy with Mnangagwa and are complaining that he did not deserve the Vice Presidency and accuse him of forgetting who made it possible for him to sit in the chair he now occupies.

But I predict worse is to come for Mnangagwa who now, as Vice President, has to vacate a ZANU-PF political caliphate carved out for him personally after failing to win parliamentary elections elsewhere.

Mnangagwa’s son, Emerson Junior, expressed interest in taking over his father’s parliamentary seat.

But just the other day, Mnangagwa’s wife, not only expressed an interest but already submitted her CV for consideration to take over the parliamentary seat.

As Zimbabwe slowly bleeds, the nation is forced to gawk in dismay at how low politicians can sink.

Above all else, it has become very clear that Zanu-PF’s interests were never with the people.

To say that Zimbabweans are shocked is an underestimation. We watch in bitter disappointment as the betrayal of the nation is glorified by those who managed to perch themselves in positions of authority.

When we cry and hope for deliverance, we are always made to wait and when deliverance finally comes, it is always too late.

Oh, by the way, part of the lyrics of the song I mentioned earlier also says: “don’t like it but I guess I’m learning”.

I don’t want to learn; we have been shocked enough.

We can only take solace in the absence of military coups in Zimbabwe because, given the caliber of our military generals, it would be a disaster forging ties with calamity.