Outrage is seldom random in Zimbabwe’s political soap opera. It is cultivated, sharpened and unleashed with deliberate intent. The ongoing war of words between Temba Mliswa and retired Air Marshal Henry Muchena is not merely a clash of personalities.
It is a revealing moment, one that exposes the selective deployment of memory and the moral evasions that continue to define Zimbabwe’s unresolved past.
Mliswa has chosen to resurrect the ghosts of 2008, directing his fury at Muchena and a cohort of retired generals. In a series of posts on X, he did not mince his words.
“These individuals carry the baggage of a checkered past, marked by violence inflicted upon countless innocents,” he wrote, before adding, “the same military leaders… orchestrated a brutal campaign to secure Robert Mugabe’s hold on power.”
In another pointed barb, Mliswa declared, “You cannot preside over bloodshed and later posture as custodians of constitutionalism.”
It is language designed to sting, to indict and to morally disqualify. Yet it is also language that reveals more by omission than by expression.
For 2008 was not the handiwork of a few rogue generals acting in isolation. It was a systemic operation, executed through the machinery of the state.
At the centre of that machinery was the Joint Operations Command, the nerve centre of Zimbabwe’s security establishment during moments of political crisis.
Its influence during the post-election violence is well-documented, its reach extending into rural communities where fear became a political instrument.
To speak of that period, therefore, is to speak of power in its most organised form. And within that structure, one name cannot be ignored: President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
At the time, Mnangagwa was not merely adjacent to power. He was embedded within it. As a senior cabinet minister, Mugabe’s chief election agent, and subsequently the head of the Joint Operations Command, he occupied a position of immense influence over the state’s response to electoral defeat. His role has long been the subject of scrutiny, both within Zimbabwe and beyond its borders.
Yet in Mliswa’s forceful condemnation of Muchena, Mnangagwa is conspicuously absent. Not a mention. Not even a passing acknowledgement.
This silence is not accidental. It is political. The selective framing becomes even more apparent when placed alongside Muchena’s own response.
In his rebuttal, the retired Air Marshal dismissed Mliswa’s accusations as reckless and dangerous, warning that “irresponsible statements that seek to inflame the nation without regard for unity must be condemned.”
He went further, suggesting that Mliswa’s intervention was less about truth and more about provocation: “We will not be lectured on constitutionalism by those who thrive on sensationalism.”
The exchange, though heated, is illuminating. Mliswa positions himself as a moral crusader, invoking the suffering of 2008 to challenge the legitimacy of the retired generals’ current stance on Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3.
Muchena, in turn, frames Mliswa as an opportunist, exploiting national trauma for political gain.
Between these competing narratives lies a deeper truth: both men are engaged in a struggle not just over policy, but over the ownership of history itself. And history, in Zimbabwe, is rarely neutral terrain.
The violence of 2008 was not simply an episode of electoral misconduct. It was a defining moment that exposed the fragility of Zimbabwe’s democratic institutions and the extent to which state power could be mobilised to suppress dissent.
More than 200 lives were lost. Thousands were displaced. Entire communities were traumatised. The scars of that period remain etched into the national consciousness.
To invoke that history, therefore, is to enter sacred ground. It demands honesty. It demands completeness. It demands courage.
Mliswa offers none of these in full measure.
Instead, he presents a curated version of the past, one that isolates certain actors while shielding others.
By focusing his attack exclusively on Muchena and his colleagues, he constructs a narrative in which culpability is narrowly defined and conveniently located outside the current centres of power.
It is a narrative that allows him to appear principled without incurring the political cost of confronting those who still wield authority.
This is the essence of selective outrage. It is not the absence of truth, but its partial application.
The implications are profound. For if the standard Mliswa advances is that those implicated in the violence of 2008 are unfit to speak on matters of constitutional reform, then that standard must be applied universally.
It cannot be wielded as a partisan weapon, deployed against retired figures while sparing those in office. To do so is to transform accountability into an instrument of factional struggle rather than a foundation of democratic renewal.
The current debate over Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 only heightens the stakes. The proposed extension of presidential terms and the life of Parliament has already generated significant controversy, exposing fractures within the ruling party itself.
The intervention of retired generals, calling for a referendum, has added an unexpected dimension to the discourse.
Mliswa’s response must be understood within this context. His attack on Muchena is not merely retrospective. It is strategic.
By invoking the alleged sins of the past, he seeks to delegitimise the retired generals’ present intervention. Yet in doing so, he inadvertently undermines his own argument.
For the question inevitably arises: if historical complicity disqualifies one from participating in constitutional debates, then what of those who remain at the helm of the state?
It is a question Mliswa studiously avoids. And this avoidance speaks to a broader malaise within Zimbabwe’s political culture. Accountability is seldom pursued as an end in itself.
It is pursued selectively, often in service of immediate political objectives. The result is a fragmented moral landscape in which justice is unevenly applied and historical truth is perpetually contested.
The absence of a comprehensive truth and reconciliation process has only deepened this crisis.
Without a formal mechanism to interrogate the past, political actors are free to interpret it as they see fit, amplifying certain narratives while suppressing others. Memory becomes malleable, shaped by the exigencies of the moment.
Mliswa’s intervention is emblematic of this condition. It is not a genuine attempt to reckon with 2008, but a self-serving tactical deployment of its memory.
It seeks to expose, but only partially. It condemns, but selectively. It remembers, but incompletely. Zimbabwe deserves better.
A nation cannot move forward on the basis of half-truths. It cannot build a democratic future while its past remains selectively acknowledged.
The events of 2008 demand a full accounting, one that encompasses all those who wielded power, regardless of their current position or political alignment.
This requires a different kind of courage. Not the courage to speak loudly against convenient targets, but the courage to speak consistently, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it carries political risk.
Until that standard is embraced, the country will remain trapped in a cycle of selective memory and selective morality, where outrage is abundant but justice remains elusive.
Mliswa has, perhaps unintentionally, provided a mirror to this reality. In his words, we hear not only an indictment of others, but an echo of the very contradictions that continue to undermine Zimbabwe’s search for truth.
