Mawarire crusade: State vs Citizens

By Desmond Kumbuka

In the wake of the dramatic events surrounding the arrest and appearance in court of social media activist Pastor Evan Mawarire, on spurious charges of inciting violence later changed to the more serious attempting to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means, I expected, as did many Zimbabweans no doubt, a robust and categoric response from beleaguered President Robert Mugabe.

A response either denying Mawarire’s allegations of government dereliction of duty arising from its failure to address serious public concerns about growing unemployment, corruption on a massive scale in government, and human rights abuses among a long list of grievances.

Or the President telling the people why it is wrong for citizens like Mawarire to express their dissatisfaction with the way the supposedly popularly elected government is handling affairs of the state. A government of the people, for the people, and by the people, as true democracy entails, should be sensitive to the agonies of the people and should be seen to share in the sacrifices it expects citizens to make for national good.

Yet, it almost felt like  a missed opportunity when the President, at the recent burial of national hero, Charles Utete, failed to rise to the occasion by not launching into his usual vitriolic tirade against perceived regime-change agents.

Instead, in what amounted to no more than a whimper, Mugabe  cursorily dismissed Mawarire as a nonentity, unknown to him, who should, if unhappy with conditions at home, simply pack his bags and emigrate to a country where his protestations are being supported and funded.

Let’s attempt digest the substance of what the President said about Mawarire. What are the possible implications of his, albeit brief and dismissive, remarks on Zimbabwe and its immediate future?

What are the implications of the President’s nonchalant brushing-aside of Mawarire’s grievances and by implication, those who say he is justified in demanding that government be held accountable for the sorry state of the economy, the democratic deficit and rampant corruption in the corridors of power.

In the words of one newspaper: “The Mawarires, I don’t even know him, and those who believe in that way of living, well, are not part of us in thinking. They are not part of us as we try to live together,” the veteran leader reportedly said.

Let’s pause here and analyse this for a moment. In doing so, let’s reflect on the meaning of that initial statement. “The Mawarire’s, I don’t even know him” – implying that perhaps the President knows every other citizen in Zimbabwe. Delusions of grandeur, perhaps.  “And those who believe in that way of living, well, are not part of us in thinking. They are not part of us as we try to live together” – again, perhaps the incoherence of  old  age.

Is the President suggesting that any person in his, and by implication Zanu PF’s way of thinking, is subversive for expecting government to be accountable for the welfare of those it governs?  Is it wrong for a citizen to demand that the government fix the economy to enable citizens to access jobs and to enjoy decent living standards? Indeed, is it wrong for citizens to say enough is enough of the selfishness, corruption, and impunity demonstrated by the government leadership while the rest of the population wallows in abject poverty?

Is the president suggesting that it is the Zanu PF way of trying to “live together,” as citizens for those in leadership to be protected by law to plunder state resources at will while the rest of the population suffers in silence.

Then the president goes on:” If they don’t want to live with us, they should go to those countries sponsoring them. We will say no, forever” – Well  well, in Mugabe’s  Zimbabwe, as opposed to Tony Blair’s Britain, anyone who dares criticize his leadership should be banished from the country.

This suggests that Mugabe sees Zimbabwe as a personal fiefdom, with a pliant and obsequious citizenry ready to sacrifice its own happiness and wellbeing for the sake of the privileged few in the higher echelons of government leadership.

And then, typically and true to form, Mugabe naively believes for any Zimbabwean to raise his voice against his leadership, there has to be an outside hand – the so called “Third Force”.

But that should not surprise anyone, considering that he still believes or pretends that the economic chaos, much of it the direct result of his disastrous policies, is actually caused by sanctions imposed by the West. This is despite mountains evidence to the contrary – more on that later.

And then, according to the media reports, Mugabe, rather disingenuously, questions Mawarire’s authenticity as a man of the cloth. “Find another environment if you are a pastor. I don’t know if he is a man of religion. A man of religion will speak the biblical truth. First Corinthians, what does it say? Love one another.”

This is garbled talk.

if Evan Mawarire was not a man of the cloth, would that make any difference to his being a citizen of Zimbabwe demanding that the government carry out its bounden duty to the citizens?

I am at a loss as to what he means by biblical truth, but the fact that Zimbabweans are suffering entirely as a result of his failed leadership which has seen corruption spread like a veld fire in his administration is an undeniable truth.

It doubtful  that the import of the message of First Corinthians’ is that one should love and adore their oppressor  while stoically bearing the indignities of poverty  and deprivation caused by the same oppressor.

What part of the Bible justifies the use of brute force, torture and imprisonment to suppress dissent and has been recently witnessed around the country?

If anyone is in denial of the truth, it is Mugabe, his wayward wife and the protective coterie of hangers-on who cannot or refuse to see that their inept management of the state has reached   catastrophic levels and the population is feeling the pinch.

They are in denial of the fact that, despite the frantic running-around and all the diplomatic claptrap to bamboozle donors and potential investors, poor governance characterized by policy inconsistencies and rampant corruption in almost every facet of government administration, remain an albatross around its neck.

Mugabe himself, whose foreign travel proclivities show remarkable insensitivity towards the country’s precarious finances, can be said to show little love for his compatriots who must survive on less than a dollar a day, and now have to go for months without salaries.

He refuses to acknowledge that Mawarire’s, message of peaceful demonstration against failure by the government to fulfill its basic mandate as the custodian of the people’s wellbeing resonates with the unheeded cries of the suffering masses.

While I do agree with the President that not all so called men of the cloth are true preachers of the word of God. I am appalled by the crass attempt to make light his skepticism of Mawarire’s authenticity.

It is doubtful anyone found funny his rather banal joke about spelling the word GOD in reverse – which then reads DOG. Listeners were left wondering whether this gratuitous jibe was meant to provoke mirth or shock his audience with the ignominy of the targeted man of the cloth. The less said about this kind of morbid humour, the better for everyone concerned.

Then came proof that the President is either grossly misinformed about events on the ground or it was the usual presumption that criticism of the government equates to calling for violence against the State.

Followers of Evan Mawarire’s “#ThisFlag” videos must have been astonished to hear the President claim that the cleric was “urging people to resort to violence to resolve issues” when the plain truth is that in each and every video that went viral on social media, Mawarire had specifically pleaded with people to avoid violence.

Not to be outdone, the state media, despite journalism ethics that demand objectivity and fairness in reporting, attempted to portray Mawarire as a wayward, publicity-seeking political upstart whose “Thisflag” crusade was part of a western-inspired regime-change campaign.

This is surprising when one considers that in researching their articles, they must be aware of  the massive wave of commentary on social media by disaffected citizens, at home and abroad, complaining about the selfish and arrogant regime that has shown to be  indifferent to citizen concerns.

When all is said and done, the state media, The Herald and ZBC in particular, must be held complicit to formenting violence by refusing to acknowledge the legitimate grievances of the people to the extent that the masses are left with no option but to resort to violence.

By demonizing those, like Pastor Evan Mawarire, and refusing to accept that people are genuinely unhappy with the state of affairs in the nation, government is letting slip a golden opportunity to put things right before it is too late.

The greatest undoing of the government is taking people for granted and treating citizens as little children whose thinking and feelings are of no consequence. A case in point is the current cash dilemma that has bedeviled the country resulting in failure to pay salaries to civil servants on time.

President Mugabe and some of his less astute ministers, perhaps with the exception of finance minister Patrick Chinamasa who, inevitably, must to confront reality head-on, keep promising that the current crisis is temporary and things will return to normal soon.

How soon is soon –  many of us must wonder.

If the government is struggling to pay June salaries now which is towards the end of July, and there is no visible evidence that there is any money coming in from anywhere besides routine police and Zimra (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) extortion, where and when will the broke government find the money to pay the outstanding salaries for July and then August, and September going forward.

Are the civil servants themselves so naïve as to believe that by some miracle money  will suddenly materialize to pay them their salaries on time when it’s as clear as daylight to everyone that the government is stone  broke and clueless on how to tackle the problem?

The current negotiations with multilateral lending institutions, for obvious reasons, give no definite timelines. In fact, it all sounds  like negotiations about negotiations about negotiations that will probably  yield too little too late in the end.

The layman’s understanding about loans (zvikwereti) is that one has to pay back a loan before they obtain a new loan – but where you negotiate loans to clear other loans in order to obtain new loans that you will have to paid back through other loans is in the realm of the stratosphere.

The situation in Zimbabwe is clearly no longer a question of playing politics where the ruling party assumes that any criticism of its policies is all about the opposition seeking fervor with the electorate.

Pastor Evan Mawarire’s crusade is the beginning of a conscious reaction of a hitherto silent majority no longer content to entrust their struggle to opposition formations that are variously encumbered by partisan interests power struggles. The current citizen uprising, as evidenced by the success of the Mawarire stayaway of 6 July, has the advantage of spontaneity and demographic anonymity.

President Mugabe may still feel confident that his widely disputed victory in the 2013 harmonised elections guaranteed him continued tenure at State House, but precedents elsewhere around the globe show that where the demands and wishes of the population are repudiated or ignored, it only requires a tiny spark to ignite a conflagration.

Desmond Kumbuka is a Harare based freelance journalist and can be contacted on [email protected]