Tambanavo Chamanyawi: Dear Zimbabweans, our suffering is enough to ignite a revolution

By Tambanavo Chamanyawi

The maddening suffering which Zimbabweans are going through is enough paraffin to ignite a revolution with far reaching consequences to the oppressive regime of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

So catastrophic is the situation to the extent of compelling the majority of Zimbabweans to give up on their lives in face of looming starvation.

The entire population across political divides has been reduced into paupers who can neither afford decent meals nor taxi fares. The regime is openly abusing Zimbabwe without vaseline.

The Citizens have only one option. To immediately get rid of Zanu PF by all means necessary in order to salvage themselves from inevitable demise. Circumstances seem to have put the masses in the mode and mood to do anything to rescue themselves. Only a spark is missing.

Zimbabweans are in a worse situation than the Bosnians who couldn’t stomach the Sarejevo incident which sparked the First World War. The Zimbabwe provocation is way too much.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand—heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914.

Imagine! Zimbabwe’s opposition party MDC A which almost won the last plebiscite was outlawed by the courts. How much is much to warrant a bloody confrontation with these oppressors?
The niggling has now reached appalling levels with the Party leadership getting arrested for demanding access to their headquarters, Harvest House.

Only a few weeks ago, female MDC A youth leaders MP Joanah Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova were abducted, raped and tortured overnight.

What more is required to compel Zimbabweans to liberate themselves from the marauding autocratic tendency of the ED administration?

Other two youth leaders surrendered themselves recently to a partisan police force to be tortured before being charged with trumped up allegations. Deputy Youth spokesman Womberaiishe Nhende is clinging to his dear life with a thread after being tortured in police cells.

These youth chaps must physically resist this regime and stop these sheeply submissions to the rogue establishment. At what point will enough be enough to warrant an outright defiance of the regime?

Apart from the ravaging hunger which is taking its toll on skeletal inhabitants due to daily sky-rocking of food prices, the ED’s government has intensified its trashy treatment of Zimbabweans. Soldiers are occasionally poured into the streets to publicly baton-stick citizens whenever the regime feels like exhibiting its muscles.

This is continuing after the August 1, 2019 incident where soldiers shot dead six citizens in the streets of Harare in broad daylight. ED’s family and their cartels are openly looting state coffers on a grand scale without shame. His ministers are falling over each other to deluge his children with government tenders. The good for nothing regime has literally stopped offering services to citizens.

Zimbabwe roads have been buried by potholes while water taps have run dry in most cities. The health structure has completely collapsed while the education system is subjected to daily destabilising knock-backs. What more can upset Zimbabweans to eventually kick the asses of their persecutors?

Neither the soldiers nor police officers entrusted with the hangman’s duty are being cushioned against torrents and tides of the prevailing economic agony. This is vague? Why are they allowing themselves to be condomised by selfish handlers who do not even give a hoot about their welfare?

Mass arrests are underway as COVID 19 lockdown rules are roped in to bludgeon everyone into submission. Everyone is on the regime’s wanted list. Not confronting these ruling gorillas is more dangerous than confronting them. It is safer to immediately take them head on than waiting for them to purge everyone one by one. Kusi kufa ndekupi?

The way lockdown rules are enforced in Zimbabwe resemble a security scare more than a health challenge. The regime and its accomplices are openly pushing their nefarious political agenda at a moment when their victims are pinned down by lockdown rules. The rules are now being weaponised to their advantage, clearly defining themselves as beneficiaries of the pandemic.

Even the shortage of bread which sparked the Russian Revolution of 1917 has failed to perform a similar trick in Zimbabwe. Bread in Zimbabwe is both unavailable and expensive. Today the bread price ballooned to $53 literally sentencing the majority of Zimbabweans to a breakfast of mbambaira and red tea with lemon.

On March 8, 1917 Russian demonstrators clamoring for bread took to the streets of Petrograd. Supported by huge crowds of striking industrial workers, the protesters clashed with police but refused to leave the streets.

On March 11, the troops of the Petrograd army garrison were called out to quell the uprising. In some encounters, the regiments opened fire, killing demonstrators, but the protesters kept to the streets and the troops began to waver. The regime is being buoyed by the display of overt cowardice by the file and ranks of MDC A.

The Zimbabwe narrative is a tale of two political parties in one country but that are both at variance with people’s expectations. Zimbabweans expect Zanu PF to deliver on its electoral promises or pass the button stick to MDC A. The ED administration is clearly deaf to such expectations but instead expect citizens to submit to their arm twisting tactics.

On the other hand MDC A is missing on clear political shoot out opportunities. The level discontentment in the country coupled with Chamisa’s acute appeal to the masses can be easily converted into a political score.

The MDC A leadership is shockingly expecting the masses to lead themselves into their streets. The leadership must stop drawing lines on the sand and confront the people’s enemy. All the inputs, apparatus and conditions are available except for the spark. Come on!

Tambanavo Chamanyawi is a Zimbabwean political commentator based in Cape Town, South Africa