Clayton Gonese

Clayton Gonese: "Even though autocratic governments are known for being spin-doctors and propagandists, one thing for sure is that they can never spin their actions. As the saying goes, "Actions speak louder than words. Although the Zimbabwean government falsely claims to love citizens and to be committed to service delivery, events that have punctuated the run-up to the SADC summit, which will be held in Mt Hampden on the 17th to 18th August, are tantamount to throwing itself (government) under the bus."

By Clayton Gonese From the day the SADC Election Observer Mission to Zimbabwe released its preliminary findings and observations on the recently held Zimbabwean elections, no day ends without talk in the Zimbabwean streets about SADC. Although SADC used to be talked about in an unfavourable manner as a club of dictators, citizens of Zimbabwe are talking about it in a positive manner. In an unprecedented and probably inconceivable turn of events, the SADC Electoral Observer Mission (SEOM) opened a can of worms by reporting objectively about the Zimbabwean election. It is undeniably veracious that since 1980, most of these African observer missions would come to sanitize disputed elections in Zimbabwe. In spite of glaring and incontrovertible evidence of an unlevel playing field, they would just choose to bastardize the truth, to bastardize the truth on the altar of expediency and selfish motives, but now, the coming of the new Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema and other progressive people within SADC seems to have turned the tables. Full Article: https://nehandaradio.com/2023/09/10/sadc-revolution-some-liberals-within-the-bloc-inspire-new-hope-in-southern-africa/

By Clayton Gonese Even though Robert Mugabe is now late, it is impossible to talk about Zimbabwe whilst leaving out the name Mugabe. To quite a number of people, Mugabe remains a mystery and an enigma. It's very easy for anybody to formulate an opinion about Mugabe by just listening to his fine speeches. But when analyzing his speeches, one needs a deep, inner analytic eye. If you analyze his speeches and appearance using an ordinary eye, you risk arriving at a false conclusion. One will say that Mugabe is now late, it's no longer necessary to analyze him. But reader, history is not just the study of past events. History is the examination and evaluation of the past in order to establish its marriage with the present and the future. Most of the Zimbabwean people, especially the youths, do not know much about Mugabe, they just look at his speeches and appearance to arrive at certain conclusions. To comprehend Mugabe, you need to have a profound appreciation of history, not the history that is found in secondary school textbooks or that which people hear from ZBC, but the history which is a product of one's own personal and rigorous research. Mugabe used a plethora of tactics, a bag of tricks, to overstay his welcome at the helm of Zimbabwe. Some of the methods included violence, press censorship, elimination of opponents, human rights abuses, deception, etc. But today, l'm more interested in his deception as one of the methods which enabled him to stay in power for too long. Mugabe's deception was not just ordinary deception but it was sophisticated, artful and masterful in nature. So many people deceive others but not everyone is a grandmaster deceiver. When it comes to deception, Mugabe is probably second to none in Zimbabwe, he was the grandmaster liar. His lies were not ordinary, that's why ordinary people couldn't and can't notice his lies. It's called carefully calculated deception. In this respect, l will extensively qoute from 3 eminent books that profoundly analyzed the art of lying, viz, The Prince By Nicolo Machiavelli, The Art Of The Lie By Marcel Danesi and a political satire called Animal Farm by George Orwell. The pivot of this article is not to analyze the leadership of Mugabe as a whole, his achievements and failures, but just his sophisticated lies.

Clayton Gonese: "It is on a Sunday afternoon, l'm feeling hungry as l'm trudging my way home from church. I have just been talking to an acquaintance so l'm now alone. As l'm walking slowly, l just think of checking my Instagram account for any updates. When l open, l first see Hopewell Chin'ono's new post but l see Dr Alex Magaisa's picture. Sometimes, l say to myself, Hopewell Chin'ono writes some items eulogizing Dr Magaisa as his great friend. I just think that this one is probably one of those posts."