By Maynard Manyowa
Led by Grace, Zanu PF is the embodiment of the entire opposite – Disgrace. So much so, you could throw a dart at a picture of any of its leaders and make a reasonable argument that whoever you hit is the worst human being to ever live.
The rap sheet is long and diverse. From murder and genocide all the way to petty theft and forgery. There is no honour among criminals, and Zanu PF, together with its supporters, sympathizers and even enablers are guilty of any and every crime possible.
So much so, you can open a random page in the Criminal Codification Act and make another reasonable argument that anyone with a hint of Zanu PF has committed that crime.
You would think that given all that, there is nothing more they can possibly do, nothing new right? Well, wrong.
An article published in the public owned but state operated Sunday Mail on the 21st of August 2016 represented a new low, even by Zanu PF’s very low standard.
The article claims former Vice President Joice Mujuru was responsible for the death of a man named as Cde Chipembere, because Rhodesian forces descended on them during an intimate moment.
There are no words to explain just how retarded, inhumane, foolish, and evil such a narrative is, even as a joke.
In a country where sexual assault is such a huge problem, it is disheartening to read views as misogynistic and barbaric as these.
It is common place that the entire story is a lie, and a ridiculous one for the matter. Even in the world of make believe, Harry Porter and Peter Pan, such lies would be rejected.
That the editors at a national paper genuinely believe that Rhodesian forces stumbled upon a couple enjoying the forbidden fruit, and went on to lose a helicopter to a fully naked man, before somehow killing him is proof that someone’s imagination is working faster than their brain.
But what is extremely worrying is the endorsement of misogyny and perpetuation of a rape culture.
Zimbabwe reels from the challenges of sexual violence, and our courts are forever packed with rapists on trial.
One of the very reasons that is the case is the rape culture that is so engrained in our society.
If for arguments sake, a woman engaged in sexual relations with a man, how does that make her guilty of any tragedy that befalls her?
Does a woman have sex with herself? Does a woman court herself for sexual favours? So why then propound a view that blames a woman for sleeping with a man?
This is the same retarded thinking that blames a teenage girl for pregnancy, as if she plucked it off a tree.
The fact that even in their mischievous imaginations, the editors at the Sunday Mail believe that men are an amoeba kind of object with no spine of their own speaks volumes about the kind of upbringing that some of these journalists went through.
Yet indictingly, it speaks volumes about the leadership of our country. We all know that such an article would have been penned in the very highest of offices in the land, as a way of attacking Joice Mujuru’s momentum.
It is a new low. This is not even below the bar. It is digging deep with picks and shovels below the bar.
It shows that our leaders are not conscious of the perverse nature of their views. It shows gross insensitivity and shallowness. Instead of working to fix the country, the highest offices in the land spend their days engaging in malicious rumour manufacturing.
The notion that Robert Mugabe is a Machiavellian mastermind with deviously brilliant ideas underpinning his every move has been brought into doubt with every ill-judged move.
Zimbabwe has known some dark days but this, from one of its biggest publications and backed by leaders who purport to liberators, is among the most chastening.
- Maynard Manyowa is political analyst and a contributing editor for Khuluma Afrika – a nonpartisan center for analysis & investigative journalism
