Zanu PF misrule – a tragedy of our times

By Ignatius Banda

Politics is serious business and one needs no professorial airs to get a grip on that fact.

Yet as Zimbabwe moves closer and closer to implosion under the skippership of one Robert Mugabe and his merry band of schmucks, politics has become an arena of laughs galore, and the jokes are not being told by Carl Joshua Ncube or Cde Fatso.

It is as MDC-N rightly noted in one of their many outbursts, this country is run by comedians, and the jokes are indeed writing themselves, with Zanu PF officials being called clowns at every turn.

That Zanu PF long stopped taking itself seriously is evident enough, and it is not just the long-running Joseph Chinotimba gags, but serious government business from education to the economy to wildlife to the larger-than-life character known as Phelekezela Mphoko.

It is no wonder then that each time these Zanu PF politicians speak, wisecracks rush to Twitter and Facebook to spread the comedy.

You just have to take a peep at the rapid fire onliners on Twitter that came after that umpteenth Zanu PF goof when the list of banned imports was posted online.

And then there are the most mind boggling defenders of the regime from a jolly bad fellow by the name Jonathan Moyo who seems to thrive on nettling Zimbos and has fashioned himself as a hopeless dilettante, to one Chris Mushowe who possesses a mysterious PhD (or the PhD possesses him?) insisting his boss listens to people and in public with his eyes closed!

This is the same Mushowe accused of embezzling community trust funds as Manicaland governor.

One online entry about Mushowe reads: “Mushowe is reported to be a former Selous Scout and close (Bishop Abel) Muzorewa ally.”

He was quoted last year declaring: “If it was possible to pray before you were born, I would ask God that I be born a woman. If I were a woman again, I would read a lot and get where you are (referring to Grace Mugabe, First Lady of Zimbabwe (FLOZ). Rhymes with “floosie” doesn’t it? LMAO!

Well, one Zimbo did say that there must be compulsory doping tests for Zanu PF politicians before they make public speeches for it is obvious by the nonsense they spew that they are not entirely in charge of their faculties.

While we laugh at these comedians who insist they must be taken seriously because they are “serious politicians,” elsewhere across the globe, comedians who have not hidden their comic streak have seen it fit to challenge politicians for public office.

Yes, they have seen the futility of vesting any seriousness in a “professional politician” and with good reason.

If these Zanu PF politicians are giving us free laughs but at such a tragic national scale, surely it would make sense for a REAL comedian to take up the mantle and craft his own political manifesto and give State House a shot.

Because Zanu PF politicians have trivialised the serious business of statecraft effectively providing fodder for comedy writers (who however are still spooked by making pot shots at the Black Fuhrer) it would be edifying to see a real comedian taking on these jongwe (cock) suckers.

For they are suckers for real if they still imagine they are taken seriously enough to win 2018.

But then the masters of spin will predictably retort, you are a sucker if you think Zanu PF will lose in 2018!

Yet one still has to question the sense of humour of anyone who would vote for a 94 year old for president.

Or unsavory Kasukuwere declaring that Mugabe must be voted for not because of his age but because of his wisdom! LMFAO!

It’s the in-thing in the crazed agora of European politics where you have comedians challenging political elites for public office, and while some have confessed their bid as a mere spoof to expose the stupidity of politicians, it has told us the simple fact that we have trusted politicians with answers to humanity’s travails for so long they have taken voters for granted.

Philosophical anarchists would thrive in the 21st century where governments such as Zanu PF have only confirmed that the classic definition of the state and its attendant instruments as we know it has brought us nothing but autocratic regimes.

As Zanu PF entrenches its bad governance, it only makes sense then that anarchists would demand that there be no government at all, but the anarchy Zanu PF has peddled is the type where demands for good governance and accountability are appropriated the epithet “lawlessness” and that becomes an excuse to throw legitimate protestors in prison.

But it just ain’t funny no more.

And it is exactly that misguided attitude that has informed Zanu PF’s own comedy show where Zimbos are still expected to cheer when everything points to our lives being fucked by the most ridiculous performers ever seen this side of the Sahara.

Must be Ronald Reagan (the acting president) who quipped that every politician is an actor, yet thinking about it now, one cannot but get goose bumps at the thought of the extent to which Zanu PF has taken its acting.

The revolutionary party has given the term “state actors” a whole new meaning!

Yet it has all become sometimes scripted, often ex tempore make-believe nonsense, and much like ZBC TV, we are still expected to be a paying audience, yet truth be told, while we laugh at the ridiculousness, we are paying, and dearly so, with our lives.

The government’s response to demands by doctors regarding medical aid points to exactly that: we are paying for this long-running comedy show with our lives.

And Robert Mugabe did say doctors must be compassionate and be loyal to the Hippocratic oath regarding physicians valuing patients’ lives.

Well, ain’t he a hypocrite!

Only it is not exactly funny when patients are dying only because they cannot afford medical bills.

Ours has become a painful reminder that bad governance left to reign freely only births the kind of arrogance seen in Nazis who blindly followed Hitler only to later claim as their defence, “I was only following orders.”

The same nonsense we hear from the cops who brutalised mothers and children during the #Zimshutdown week.

Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.