Politics is about Putin on a mask

By John Zhira

OPINION – Political leaders like Vladimir Putin and Robert Mugabe portray themselves as paragons of virtue, and as the heroes of their people. Waza blogger, John Zhira, feels that most of this is a facade; a charade meant to manage perceptions at the cost of honest political discourse.

When I moved to Harare, I had a neighbour called Mdhara Chitsatse. Maybe our shared taste for the wise waters had something to do with it, but we struck up a rapport in my first days there, despite our age difference. He was a middle-aged man, and I was just a student.

One evening, Mdhara Chitsatse invited me to join him for “one or two.” We went to a local shebeen, a house where alcohol is sold illegally from someone’s living room, and I soon found out that “one or two” actually meant more like a dozen.

Mdhara Chitsatse had no qualms about spending a lot of money on beers. Broke student that I was, I immediately grew to like him even more. But then his youngest son showed up at the shebeen, “Daddy, there is no salt at home, and mommy said I should come and ask you for money.”

Miffed by the public humiliation, Mdhara Chitsatse slapped the kid, and sent him crying to his mother.

Not so rosy

The taste of my beer went immediately bitter. I wondered how the man could justify his fancy clothes, and buying so much beer-for a relative stranger no less- when things were obviously not so rosy back home.

In Shona they have a saying that goes: chakafukidza dzimba matenga, which translates to, ‘the roof hides what happens in a home.’ This means that one should always take the image that anyone projects of their own homestead with a pinch of salt, because one is never really privy to the full details.

This also applies in the case of whole countries. Politics is a lot about perception and public image, like images of Vladimir Putin, posing on a huge black bear with wings and laser eyes, shouting “Democracy!”

Opposition leaders in Russia- those not yet assassinated- will tell you that it’s an elaborate play, with well-rehearsed parts.

The same occurs in many parts of Africa: leaders will project an idealized image of being great and democratic, but their own people know the true story.

External and internal legitimacy

Political leaders have to derive their legitimacy from sources both internal and external to their country. These two sources are mutually reinforcing. Internal legitimacy serves as the basis for becoming the external leader, in the same way external legitimacy can be used to further buttress internal oppression.

Take the case of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, for example. He is only able to be both the SADC and AU chairman because of his position as Zimbabwe’s president. And he tells his compatriots that he’s the best president the country could have at the moment because, ‘look, even the region and the continent believe in my leadership!’

When he goes to international conferences and summits, with an entourage of a hundred aides- at times including his daughter- Robert Mugabe is like Mdhara Chitsatse, or Putin. He puts on a show that everything is hunky-dory back home: ‘my people are happy, my people are fed, my people think I am the greatest leader in the world. In fact, I AM the greatest leader in the world.’

Fiddling while Rome burns

Mr. Mugabe recently spent more than a million dollars on his 91st birthday. This at a time when the country is facing a devastating drought, with food imports likely to top $200 million dollars. The country has been disqualified from the 2018 FIFA world cup because a coach wasn’t paid.

Prisoners are rioting in protest of inhumane treatment and inadequate food, students went on the rampage at the University of Zimbabwe, civil servants are on the verge of going on strike over unpaid salaries- the list is endless. While Mr. Mugabe trots the globe, ordinary citizens are like the starving children back home; lacking even their daily salt.

Truth has a price

And telling the truth has its costs in Zimbabwe: Just like Mdhara Chitsatse who couldn’t stand to be humiliated, the Zimbabwe government does all it can to gag the narrative that something is amiss.

The Herald newspaper, a lickspittle government mouthpiece that people jestingly call the Pravda, recently suspended a sub-editor for allowing the headline: “February inflation points to a dying economy”.

Noted journalist, government critic and activist, Itai Dzamara, has been missing for 11 days after being kidnapped by suspected state security agents- but Zimbabweans are happy, according to the state.

Enough is enough

Anecdotes tell how some of the Russian bureaucrats were surprised by the fall of the USSR, as they had begun to believe their own lies from the Pravda: that everything was fine.

Leaders can easily take their citizens for granted, but just like the possibility that Mdhara Chitsatse’s son may one day lay a fist on his father for his paternal shortcomings, there is an entirely new generation of Zimbabweans that is about ready to say: enough is enough.

Source: wazaonline.com/en