Saturday 6 August 2016

1980 euphoria got us into this mess, #Tajamuka, etc. euphoria will not get us out. By Nomusa Garikai

People get the government they deserve; after 36 years we cannot say we do not deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its numerous corrupt and incompetent opposition parties.

We gave President Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs a blank cheque in 1980 to do with the nation as he pleased; we did not have a clue what was demanded of us as the electorate to make sure Zimbabwe was a free, just and prosperous nation. Mugabe had his own ideas of what the nation need, a de facto one-party dictatorship, and went on to ruthlessly impose it! Zimbabwe had seen many other African country attain their independence only for them to slid into chaos and despair as the new black nationalists became corrupt and self-serving tyrants. We should have been on our guard to stop Zimbabwe falling into the same trap; we were not!
 

It has taken the nation 15 to 20 years to finally convince the majority of our people that where Zanu PF was taking the nation was not where we wanted to go. By the time Morgan Tsvangirai and his friends came together to launch their political party it was an agreed fact that the country needed democratic change leading to free, fair and credible elections to move forward. Tsvangirai incorporated this public sentiment in the naming the party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
After the fiasco of letting President Mugabe turn Zimbabwe into a failed state ruined by mismanagement, corruption and tyrannical rule one expected the people to be a lot more vigilant and diligent in defining what democratic changes they wanted. Sadly, that was not the case. Just as the people had granted Mugabe a blank cheque to define what post independent Zimbabwe was to be, they did the same again with MDC. Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were left to define what democratic changes were required. As it turned out Tsvangirai et al did not have the foggiest what these reforms were much less how they would be implemented.
Zimbabwe has had many chances to implement democratic reforms and break the Zanu PF dictatorial strangle hold on the nation with the best chance being during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. This GNU chance, like so many others, was wasted; MDC was supposed to implement the agreed reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented because Tsvangirai and his friends did not have the foggiest idea what these reforms were, as I have pointed out about.
In a country with a vigilant and diligent electorate who understood, in this case, what the democratic reforms were about and how they are to be implemented; they would have seen to it that MDC implemented the reforms. Zimbabweans are NOT the vigilant and diligent electorate, they too like MDC leaders had no clue what the reforms were and that is why they never pushed MDC implement the reforms.
What makes our situation even worse than ever is that even with the benefit of hindsight, of the rigged 2013 elections because no reforms were implemented, the people has still not woken up to the reality that implementing the democratic reforms is the key to ending the corrupt and tyrannical dictatorial system of government Mugabe and Zanu PF fostered on the nation. It is not enough to remove President Mugabe if only to replace him with another dictator. It will not be enough to remove Mugabe and Zanu PF because as long as the state president continue to wield undemocratic powers over state institutions she or he will use those powers to consolidate their hold on power and thus create a new dictator.
What we need in Zimbabwe is to dismantle all the vestiges of the Zanu PF dictatorship and thus remove the present dictator, his dictatorial party and make it impossible for another dictator and his/her dictatorial party to emerge in future. The only sure way for this to happen is for the nation to implementing all the democratic reforms. Sadly, that will never happen unless we have an electorate that finally takes its responsibility to be vigilant and diligent with the urgency and seriousness it deserves.
The very fact that many Zimbabweans still consider Tsvangirai and his MDC friends as possible future leaders even after these MDC have already proven beyond doubt that they do not have the foggiest idea what the reforms are is itself proof that Zimbabweans are not yet ready to embrace democratic change and good governance. Following the likes of Joice Mujuru and her Zim PF who are Zanu PF in all but name makes one despair; it shows that despite all the trials and tribulations we have gone through these last 36 years, we have nonetheless learnt nothing!
Ultimately, people get the government they deserve; we deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF government complete with its corrupt and incompetent opposition parties because we are a naïve and gullible nation!
The political euphoria generated by the recent street protests is comparable to the euphoria of independence in 1980, to the euphoria democratic change in 2008 and 2013, etc. All the past euphoria failed to deliver the Zimbabwe we wanted because the electorate had no clue where the Promised Land was or how to get there. The present #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka, etc. euphoria will too get us nowhere because we still do not know where we are going!

10 comments:

  1. “Phew what a humorous week I have had! I hope, dear reader, you have found the week just as mirthful. If not, here we go . . . First, the spectacle of tajamuka hoodlums convening under a false bravado of "hatichatya", we no longer fear, only to scatter in sixes and sevens at the mere sight of police water cannons! Bararamhanya netawindi yose,” wrote Manheru.

    There is something sicken when someone finds inflicting suffering on an innocent person funny especially when the person inflicting they suffering is the one with the statutory duty to protect.

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  2. The economic meltdown is the invisible hand stirring trouble in Zanu PF and the country at large; the present economic situation is not socially of politically sustainable!

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  3. "Our country has continued to attract both local and foreign investors owing to the peace and stability that we have managed to maintain," Perrance Shiri said. He commended the AFZ for excelling in various operations, among them: peace, support operations and humanitarian assistance for the less privileged.

    Shiri has always been a willing tool in other people’s abusive hands and it is sad to notice that he has not changed! There has not been any local and foreign investment into the country because Zimbabwe is a corrupt and lawless nation ruled by a murderous and tyrannical regime. Shiri has played his part in propping up this murderous and tyrannical regime. The country is in total melt down and the idiot still thinks his duty is propping up the murderous and tyrannical dictatorship! How stupid is that!

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  4. "The burden is on us collectively to move forward in unity as a people," VP Mnangagwa said.

    "Stability, peace and tranquillity comes from us. If we are united, the enemy will not penetrate. We have some people among us being lured by money and other persuasions to destabilise not a foreign country, but your mother country. This, we must guard against."

    Poor Mnangagwa, the writing is on the wall and yet he continues talking nonsense. Zimbabwe is in a serious economic and political mess because of decades of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. The regime must accept meaningful political reforms followed by free, fair and credible elections. How long does he think Zanu PF can resist political change under the pretext of unity, peace and tranquillity? If is Zanu PF itself that is disturbing the peace and tranquillity by deploying riot Police and its party thugs to stop peaceful street protests calling for peaceful and democratic change!

    Zimbabwe’s present economic situation is socially and politically unsustainable and no among of threats and violent abuse by the regime will stop the people pushing for meaningful political change and thus an end to the economic meltdown!

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  5. @ Ka Zulu

    All you have said is true but only half the story in that you have sort to all the blame on Zanu PF when PF Zapu and us the people are to blame too. It is no secret, for example, that PF Zapu wanted a one-party state just as much as Zanu PF wanted a one-party state and each tried their best to make sure it was them who prevailed. By the same token, the rogue war veterans from both parties have prop up Mugabe these last 16 years!

    As for the people themselves, we are a very laid-back people, we can deny it but that is just burying our heads in the sand. Whereas is we accept our weakness we will have taken the first step towards addressing our problem. We cannot deny that we were naive to give Mugabe a blank political cheque in 1980 which is what Nomusa is saying here.

    We did the same thing with the corrupt and incompetent Tsvangirai, we gave him a blank cheque which he traded with Mugabe for gravy train lifestyles for himself and his MDC friends plus the $4 million Highlands Mansion for himself. We are still refusing to learn from the past because we are agog with excitement convinced we are witnessing the end of the Mugabe tyranny and the beginning of the utopia. All that is certain to happen is the removal of one tyrant only to have him replaced by another!

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  6. @ Stobart

    Sure and who did Bulawayo vote for - MDC village idiots who failed to implement even one single reform in five years of the GNU!

    For your own information Mugabe's vote rigging happened right there in Bulawayo too under your own nose. If you do not believe me then read Senator Coltart's book in which he admitted many people in Bulawayo were denied the chance to vote because their names had been deliberately posted in the wrong constituency, etc. just as happened in the rest of the country. Mugabe cheated Bulawayo just as he cheated Harare, Masvingo and every other city, town, growth point and village. You need to wake up to this simple reality my friend!

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  7. That is just Mugabe propaganda, he has systematically denied the people a meaningful free vote and yet after each rigged election claims that the people elected him. Do you really thing these people "sleeping on pavements" would knowingly and freely vote for someone who has denied them a decent home to live?

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  8. Those who believe in freedom and liberty know that it is not enough to fight for these things when you are the victim but would know that they must fight even harder when they are in the position to deny others these same rights! These rogue war veterans showed the worst wickedness of all; they fought for freedom when they were denied freedom but only to become the next oppressors themselves, oppressing their fellowed oppressed of yesterday!

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  9. How Mandelson met Zimbabwe finance minister just months before $1.1bn bail-out plan.

    Anyone who thinks that the Zimbabwe economy can recover without meaningful political reforms lives in cloud-cuckoo-land!

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  10. The price these people have necessarily paid for not playing an active role in the nation's political affairs is that they understand very little of what has been going on over the last 36 years. Many of the followers of #ThisFlag passionately believe that demanding that Mugabe must fire corrupt ministers and many other such demands would get the nation out of trouble. Only someone who has not been paying attention to what has been happening would believe that.

    After 36 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption anyone with any brain should have realized by now that asking Mugabe to fire corrupt ministers is not the answer the nation should have fined Mugabe a long, long time ago. The question the nation should have been grappling ten years after independence at the very latest was why the nation was unable to remove Mugabe and Zanu PF from office. But of course, if the people have not been following what has been going on it is no surprise that they would be calling for solutions that they should have been demanding five years after independence now, 36 years after independence.

    At this rate we can expect these people to be demanding democratic reforms and free and fair elections in another 50 or 100 years, if at all!

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