Tuesday 13 December 2016

Democratic transformation demands a parallel rise from subject to objective thinking By Wilbert Mukori

Patrick Guramatunhu you are spot on; (Trevor Ncube tweet “torched a storm”)

·       Trevor Ncube was stating a fact, Tsvangirai is corrupt and incompetent.

·       Ncube’s conclusion that those who continue to follow the said corrupt and incompetent Tsvangirai cannot call themselves part of the transformative Zimbabwe, is a logical conclusion

·       You are right that telling these MDC supporters these bear-knuckle home truths should have forced them sober up and carry out so serious introspective and objective reflections

·       It is sad that instead of sobering up the MDC supporters have flewn into a rage and thus proving that they are incapable of looking at issues objectively.

·       You are also right to conclude that; with an electorate that is incapable of objective thinking, like these MDC supporters; Zimbabwe’s dream of becoming a healthy and functional democracy will remain a pipedream. Democracy demands an electorate that capable of rising above the run-of-mill subjective thinking and look at issues objectively, evaluating the facts and listening to reason and logic.

Joel Montgomery was given one of the best definition of objective and subjective thinking.
  
“An objective perspective is one that is not influenced by emotions, opinions, or personal feelings - it is a perspective based in fact, in things quantifiable and measurable. A subjective perspective is one open to greater interpretation based on personal feeling, emotion, aesthetics, etc.,” he wrote.

“For example: I may take an objective perspective that the Bible is the most published book in all of history.  This can be verified as a factual statement by looking at publishing records and statistics.

“A subjective view would state that the Bible is the most influential book of all time, or that it is the greatest book of all time.  I cannot verify these statements with fact - only through opinion.”

Whilst MDC leaders and supporters alike have readily agreed that the 2013 elections were rigged they have however stubbornly refused to discuss why Mugabe was able to blatantly rig the elections when the principle objective of the 2008 GPA was to deliver free, fair and credible elections. They have deliberately introduced subjective issue in the discussion for one purpose only, to cloud the issue so that they never admit that Tsvangirai failed to implement the reforms which would have stopped Mugabe rigging the elections.

These MDC members remind me of some corrupt and incompetent individuals workmates of mine and I had to work with in valuing and awarding tenders. We were able to award the project to the best company on merit and nothing else because the tender awarding procedure was very specific:

a)    Open envelop A, containing detailed specification of the plant to be supplied and work to be carried.  

b)    Open envelop B, containing all the technical bids. Each bid was then compared to the requirement of the specification in a) and any that failed to meet must-have requirements were discarded.

c)     Open envelop C, select the financial bids of only those suppliers who sailed through b) above. The bids were then checked to ensure the meet all the financial constrains called for in the specification in a).

d)    Only those suppliers whose technical and financial bids met the specifications were then grade and the one offering best value technically and financially was awarded the contract.

Following the laid-out procedure eliminated unnecessary pointless arguing about awarding the tender to a company because it has lowest price when the company would not have made it past the technical selection. If you want a sports-car, you are not going to buy some fuel guzzling banger with a top speed of 50kmp just because it is the cheapest on offer!  

By failing to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU, Tsvangirai has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he is corrupt and incompetent; this is a historic fact.

If we are serious about transforming Zimbabwe from the corrupt and tyrannical autocracy to a healthy and functional democracy, which is what Trevor Ncube was talking about, then we specifically need competent and visionary leaders, ideally. If we cannot get the competent and visionary leaders, then we must get leaders with some common sense, at the very least. Surely Zimbabwe has a few men and women out there with some common sense our job is to create the right political environment to allow them to emerge.

Someone like Tsvangirai with a proven track record as a corrupt and incompetent leader does not even make it on the shortlist because he does not have any common sense.

Some Tsvangirai supporters have often reminded us how he was assaulted by Mugabe’s thugs, for example. His been beaten is surely no excuse for him to betray the nation by failing to implement reforms much less justification for the nation to overlook he is corrupt and incompetent and elect him back into office to carry out the very task he failed to do during the GNU – implement the reforms.  

By the same token, Mugabe’s liberation struggle exploits, regardless how times and how colourful the language he has retold the stories, will never excuse the human misery and deaths his corrupt and tyrannical rule has brought to the nation. Mugabe has inflicted so much human misery because for two decades, at least, after independence; Mugabe could do no wrong, as far as many Zimbabweans were concerned. It was the lack of objective thinking, the same being shown by MDC supporters towards Tsvangirai today, that them from the simple reality that Mugabe was just a fallible mortal like everyone else.


Zimbabwe is in serious economic and political trouble but one of our own making. If anyone thinks that the country has fit rock-bottom and cannot sink any deeper; he/she should look at Libya, Egypt, Syria, etc.; hell-on-earth is very deep, we can and will sink even deeper. If we are ever going to get out of this hell, then must start thinking objective and stop this sentimental nonsense of considering a corrupt and incompetent Tsvangirai a hero!

6 comments:

  1. Finding a cure for an ailment is a challenge and diseases of the mind are very hard to diagnose but even harder to cure! You are talking of cerebral shift from subjective thinking to objective thinking; how will this happen?

    We should not forget that the same people who are blindly following Tsvangirai today were the one who have blindly followed President Mugabe for the first 20 years following our independence. They would not see Mugabe for the corrupt and murderous tyrant he is for twenty long years! When the facts of the ground were Mount Everest high they finally accepted he was a corrupt and murderous tyrant.

    They rejected Mugabe and starting following Tsvangirai, a corrupt and incompetent village idiot; proof that these people were still thinking subjectively. The mental illness afflicting Zimbabweans to make then follow Mugabe was never cured because it is the same that is making them follow Tsvangirai blindly.

    The cerebral shift from subjective to objective thinking has not occurred! It is now 36 years after our independence and one would want to believe a very generous period for the nation to have learnt the keys lessons in self-government. How much longer does the nation have to wait for these seismic plate tectonic shifts?

    Indeed, will the shift ever happen at all because the signs are we are getting even more susceptible to empty rhetoric that even a village idiot like Tsvangirai can con us not just once but time and time again. Instead of the seismic shift being an uplifting one it is dragging us even deeper into the abyss of mindless chatter and despair.

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  2. @Doc

    Forget Tsvangirai’s “women scandals” these are nothing compared to his failure to implement the democratic reforms were far worse and the consequences affect us all. So the only question that matters here is do you believe, by failing to get even one reform implemented during the GNU, that Tsvangirai is corrupt and incompetent?

    If the answer is yes, then surely there is no hope that he will ever deliver the democratic transformation we have all been dying for.

    To argue that we should not be looking for a competent leader now “at the 11 hour” is just another feeble excuse because the GNU ended in 2013 and so why did you not desert Tsvangirai soon thereafter?

    Forget what Welshman Ncube did, what Trevor Ncube or Patrick said; what should be done to achieve meaningful democratic transformation? Keep your eyes on the ball!

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    1. It saddens me to admit this but your are right; we are sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss and not rising!

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  3. When it comes to politics Zimbabwe would struggle to follow the tender procedure of opening envelop A, B and then C. They think they know exactly what they want and so have no time to waste looking at the spec. They will come in with some idea who they want to do the work or will soon make up their mind without bothering to go into any detail.

    Should events prove that the people have made a mistake in making their initial choice they do not bother about carrying out a detailed review and so the nation blunders from one crisis into the next.

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  4. "We also know the extent to which Nikuv International Projects is involved, so we will be pursuing that and we will give you the information, as we roll it out, but we are very much aware of the determination of Zanu PF to rig the next elections and we are ready for that," said Tsvangirai.

    This is just empty talk, Tsvangirai has no clue what to do to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections again!

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  5. So the taxpayer is forking out a staggering $6 million every year to pay politicians under the Political Party Finance Act! Talk of value for money! Here we are paying for our sins!

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