By Patson Dzamara
That Mugabe together with the majority of his incorrigible minions are in the sunset of their political and earthly lives is undebatable. For most of them, political and even natural death due to old age is imminent.
Ever since the formation of ZANU PF in 1963, the revolutionary party has never been this weak. At the center of its weakness is none other than its strongman Robert Mugabe. This Mugabe is an enigma and a headache even to his followers. On one hand he is the linchpin of and source of power in his party, but on the other hand he is now a liability to that same party built around him.
Mugabe and his ZANU – PF acolytes know that his and ultimately their end collectively is near even though they try hard to pretend by putting up a brave face regarding that. They also know that the end of their political road means a gnashing of teeth for them. That is the reason why they are doing all they can in order to prolong their political life.
Unfortunately for them, their end is inevitable, unavoidable and irreversable. Nothing and no-one can change that. Covertly and overtly, their end is captured in the imminent political collapse. This collapse is close to nothing that has been witnessed since the attainment of independance in 1980.
In the next 5 years, Zimbabwe is going to go through a political rebirth of herculean proportions. There is going to be rapid changes and some unlikely and some as yet unknown individuals are going to be a part of the legion which shall lead us into a better Zimbabwe.
The truth of the matter is that the majority of politicians on either sides of the coin are not going to be a part of the new order. The beggining of that process shall be marked by the political and in some cases natural deaths of the old order’s architects and custodians.
I watch action movies at times and in those movies death is inevitable. Through watching those movies I have learnt some truths about how people view death and how they actually die. The biggest lesson I learnt is that people actually fear death but what they fear the most is dying in solitude.
Where necessary and possible, people seek death companions. Action heroes and villains position themselves to go out in a blaze of glory in which they take as many of their opponents and some of their allies along with them.
A few years ago, I read an article about a young woman in Europe who had contracted the HIV virus. She went around sleeping with as many men as she possibly could without using protection despite the fact that she knew her HIV status. When asked why she acted irresponsibly like that during an interview, she stated that she was afraid of dying alone and that she needed death companions.
What is obtaining in Mugabe’s world and in ZANU – PF can be an apt attestation that indeed people are afraid to die on their own. They always seek companions. There is absolutely no doubt that Mugabe and his ZANU – PF are working overtime to recruit as many death companions as they possibly can. They are afraid to die on their own and they want to drag all of us to their graves.
The million dollar question we ought to answer is whether we are going to fulfill Mugabe’s wish to have us accompany him in his death? Are we going to allow ourselves to accompany him in his death and are we going to be buried together with him?
For me and for right thinking Zimbabweans, especially the youths, the answer is no. We are not going to accompany Mugabe and his ZANU – PF in their death, Grace Mugabe will. We did not accompany them in their opulence and ‘joys’ of oppressing us, we are therefore not going to die with them neither should we allow them to die in power.
We are going to vote them out of power and most critically we are going to fight for our vote which carries our wishes and voices. Young people, now is the time to organise ourselves. If our elders wish to continue on the path of frivolity while we are all being dragged to the grave by Mugabe, let them do so without us!
It is time we take our collective destiny into our hands. For too long we have been the playthings of the powerful, second-class citizens in our own nation.
The time has come for us to say ‘Enough!’ and cross the rubicon. We must not allow ourselves to be Mugabe’s death companions.
Patson Dzamara is a leadership coach and author, political activist and analyst based in Zimbabwe.
