Those
who choose to deny the past and often forced to relive the same mistake.
“In
the years and decades after World War II, the German society – while
overwhelming rejecting Nazi ideology after the traumatic experience of the war
– chose not to deal with the specific Nazi crimes too intensively,” wrote Max
Sollner in an article entitled “Why Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany”
“Generally
speaking, the Holocaust, or what the Nazis had euphemistically called ‘the
final solution’, was a taboo topic in West Germany in the 1950ies and 60ies. It
was rarely talked about publicly and not taught in school extensively like
today. In that atmosphere, trivialization and belittling of Nazi crimes could
fester.
“Therefore,
it comes as no surprise that in 1960 the first law against Holocaust denial was
passed as a reaction to the re-emerging anti-Semitism in German society: On
Christmas Eve 1959, just a couple of months after its widely celebrated
re-opening, the synagogue in Cologne was besmeared with swastikas and
anti-Semitic slurs by two members of a right-extremist party.”
Today,
the outright denial and even the trivialization of the Holocaust in public is a
federal crime, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. There are similar laws in
other European countries.
There
are three very important things the passing of the law denying the Holocaust:
1) Scientific facts such as the
fact that the earth is just another planet going around the sun and not the
centre round which all others revolve or that humanity is a creature of
evolution and not “made in the image of God” have been hard to swallow. But no
amount of denying these fact have changed the reality one iota. Indeed, by
accepting reality, truth and facts and not deny them to message our vanity mankind
has progress in leaps and bounds.
If
something happened, it happened it must be acknowledged as a historic fact,
reality and truth.
2) It is offensive to deny and/or
trivialize someone else’s suffering; a common enough bully tactic.
3) Those who fail to learn from
history are destined to repeat the same mistakes.
“The
mind-set of the deniers was seen as the foundational myth of new forms of
anti-Semitism that focused on the state of Israel and its alleged moral
blackmailing of the German state based on the – in the eyes of these
anti-Semites – ‘historical lie’ of the Holocaust,” wrote Sollner.
In
Zimbabwe, we are caught in our own denial of historic facts and, like all
deniers of facts, truth and reality, are paying dearly for our folly by
reliving the same mistake over and over again. Many Zimbabweans are in denial
that Zanu PF has been rigging elections!
“Beyond
a coalition, the most important thing to focus on is electoral reforms to level
the electoral field,” commented Dewa Mavhinga in a recent Daily News report.
“If
the opposition fails to secure electoral reforms then they must ensure they
have the tools and mechanisms to monitor, track, and expose electoral rigging
for the world to see and be convinced beyond a shadow of doubt. It has proven
difficult to demonstrate that the 2013 elections were rigged in the absence of
hard evidence to back up those claims.”
The
Daily News referred to Mr Mavhinga as “(human) rights and political expert”. He
is very confused expert, to say the least!
It
is easier to establish that Zanu PF rigged the July 2013 elections as a
historic fact by looking at the evidence of what happened that year in the
context of what happened in the 2008 elections because the two are a
continuation of the same electoral process. There is all the “hard evidence”
even Mr Mavhinga would not deny that Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2008 election.
The
regime “cooked” the March 2008 vote to deny Tsvangirai the outright victory to
force the run-off. In the run-off, the regime then employed wanton violence to
force the electorate to force for Mugabe.
The
regime “declared war on the people,” complained Tsvangirai as he announced his
withdrawal from the race.
Mugabe
declared himself the winner of the presidential run-off. No one; not even the
SADC or AU election observers, renowned for giving a thumbs-up to some dodgy
election processes; would accept the result as a true reflection of the
democratic wishes of the people of Zimbabwe. SADC forced Mugabe to sign the
Global Political Agreement (GPA) agreeing to the implementation of a raft of
democratic reforms to ensure future elections are free, fair and credible.
Sadly,
none of the democratic reforms were implemented, a fact Dewa does not deny
hence his admission “the most important thing to focus on is electoral reforms
to level the electoral field”. The electoral playfield was not level for the
July 2013 elections either and so how can the result be free, fair and
credible?
Indeed,
a close look at the July 2013 proves beyond doubt the process was illegal.
Nearly one million voters, according to many independent monitors (300 000
according to ZEC’s own report) were denied the vote on the day because their
details were not in the constituency voters’ roll. This would have been picked
up and corrected if the voters’ roll had been released at least one month
before voting day, as is demanded by law. The regime only released a hard copy
of the voters’ roll just a few days before voting commenced.
There
are YouTube video still available for viewing, Dewa should Google “Tendai Biti
witnesses vote rigging in Zimbabwe” for himself. ZEC, the Police and the regime
was aware of all this blatant vote rigging at the time and no investigation, no
arrest nothing.
True,
we do not have any “hard evidence” to ascertain the contribution the bussed hooded
Zanu PF youths casting multiple votes made to Zanu PF’s landslide victory but
that is not because the evidence is hard to get. It is hard to get in this case
because those with the power and authority to amass such evidence are the ones
who have an investment interest in conceal the evidence – which a different
matter.
Mr
Dewa Mavhinga is supported to be a human rights expert; some expert given he
does not seem to know that everyone has the right to free, fair and credible
elections as stated in the UN Universal Human Rights declaration.
“Article
21.
(1) Everyone
has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or
through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone
has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The
will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will
shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by
universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent
free voting procedures.”
For
a political expert one would expect Mr Mavhinga to know that there is no point
in calling for the implementation of democratic reforms this late in the
electoral cycle, there is no way any reforms can be agreed, drafted, implemented
in time to stop Zanu PF rigging next year’s elections.
Frankly,
one does not need to be an expert anything, to see and conclude that Zanu PF
has been riding roughshod over the people denying them their freedoms, basic
human rights and their very humanity!
Zanu
PF has failed to hold even one free, fair and credible elections in all the
regime’s 37 years in power; that is a historic fact. The political reality we
must face and deal with today is that with no meaningful democratic reforms
implemented Zanu PF will blatantly rig next year’s elections.
We silence
those detractors who deny the truth of Zanu PF rigging elections or worse still
pretend the regime can rig the vote and, somehow, lose the elections. After 37
years of rigged elections, it is madness to continue contesting flawed
elections and expect a different result, Zanu PF to lose.
I remember a story of a white farmer who beat up his black work and the drag him behind his speed car until the worker died. The white farmer was never convicted of the crime due to lack of “hard evidence”! This was a very common story during the days of white colonial rule.
ReplyDeleteThe Police saw to it that the hard evidence was never allowed to come to light. Still after a few such cases only a fool would fail to see that this was a pattern; against a white man, the blacks were not going to get justice.
After 37 years of rigged elections surely a pattern of Zanu PF rigging elections is undeniable. One can understand Zanu PF members and apologists hiding behind their fingers calling for “hard evidence” of vote rigged. It is sickening to hear the same nonsense coming from an ordinary Zimbabwean especially one supposedly a human rights expert!
If individuals like Dewa Mavhinga does not know what constitute free, fair and credible elections and, until given “hard evidence”, will pass Zanu PF’s mockery for the real thing. It is little wonder that President Mugabe has taken full advantage of their naivety to blatantly rig the elections.
The tragedy with Zimbabwe is we have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of highly educated individuals and many so called “expert”; sadly, the overwhelming majority of them do not have any common sense. When Zimbabwe finally get regime change, we need to revisit our education system; Zimbabweans are not the poorest people in Africa not just economically but, more pointedly, mentally too.
Biti, you and your friends had the golden opportunity to delivery democratic change during the GNU, you wasted the chance because you sold-out.
ReplyDeleteBy contesting the flawed elections time and time again all you are doing is giving the process legitimacy without changing anything!
If you really wanted to see change in Zimbabwe then you would not contest next year's elections!
@ Phiri
ReplyDelete“Voters know that little or nothing is done to bring the perpetrators to justice, especially if they are members of the ruling Zanu PF, a fear that has taken a heavy toll on the voting population,” wrote Gift Phiri.
“Merely the threat of a repeat of the 2008 violence that Zanu PF is once again hawking ahead of the 2018 elections, and the resulting fear it instils, means that Zimbabwean voters will just cast their ballot for Zanu PF to save their lives.
“The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC), the first body tasked with investigating cases of rights abuses and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) —the largest independent observer group in the country — have both highlighted that overt violence is now being supplanted by more sophisticated forms of intimidation, such as threats of a repeat of the 2008 violence or coerced membership in Zanu PF.”
Zanu PF has been able scale up its vote buying considerable since the 2008 elections using the money looted from Marange and Chiadzwa diamond mining.
In February 2016 President Mugabe revealed that $15 billion in diamond revenue was “swindled”. To date, one and half years latter not even one person has been arrested and not one dollar recovered. The “swindling” has not stopped. In the 2013 elections Zanu PF spend $10 million paying NIKUV to tamper with the voters’ roll, million paying PR companies in UK and USA to spruce up President Mugabe’s image. The party bought new car for each party parliamentary candidate plus paid each $10 000 cash, must have spent billions of dollars transporting the hired crowd to its rallies and latter cast vote, etc., etc. All in all the party probably spent $4 billion, at least, in 2013.
Already the regime has started spending millions buying traditional leaders cars and other gifts, $20 millions buying cars for the party, etc. The will easily party spend $10 billions this time.
When you have more carrots for the key players in the election, you will not need to use the stick on povo as frequently as in the past!
ZEC has said it will register 7 million voters for next year’s election and Zanu PF is busy mobilising 5 million party supporters to register. The party has ways of making sure party supporters get on the voters’ roll who then get the chance to cast multiple votes. Meanwhile many opposition supporter will try to register to vote but fail. Of the lucky few who do register they will not vote because their detail will be posted in some other constituency other than the one they expected. The whole voter registration has been delayed deliberately so that there will not be any time to produce the voters’ roll much less check anything.
Zanu PF is assured of another landslide victory, the vote rigging plans are all working very well and the party will resort to the physical violence but not as much as in 2008!
Our failure to deal with a subject matter conclusively has been one of our great weakness as a nation. Is the Daily News quoting Dewa Mavhinga as “an expert” to underline that the paper’s accept of his views as the Gospel truth?
ReplyDeleteHow many times has the paper quoted MDC leaders saying the elections were rigged? So, whose view does the paper believe and expect the readers to believe?
The issue of whether Zanu PF has been rigging elections and therefore is likely to rig next year's elections is such a fundament matter of such great importance to the nation, the Daily News people do not need anyone to remind them of matter. The least a well-established media house like Daily News should have done by now is commission its own investigation, amass the evidence and settle this matter one or the other.
Quoting a third rate-amateur with no clue what he is talking about as an "expert" is unforgivable! If Dewa knew what he was talking about, that there is no "hard evidence" to prove that the 2013 elections were rigged, then why was he calling on the opposition to implement electoral reforms. If there was nothing wrong with the 2013 elections then why would we need to reform anything? You do not mend something that is not broken!
We have heard the same confusion coming from the opposition camp, the have been calling for electoral reforms, even made the "No reform, no election!" resolution. And yet they are now contest next year's elections knowing fully well not even one token reform was implemented. No one in Daily News or any of the big media houses who interview these opposition candidates almost on a daily basis has ever asked what has changed!
Surely, surely one would expect someone like Dewa Mavhinga, reporters at Daily News and opposition leaders to know what constitute free, fair and credible elections; to compare that template to Zimbabwe’s elections. The latter has serious shortcoming, enough for one to conclude the elections were not free and fair. If people like Mavhinga are so confused they cannot see the woods from the trees it is little wonder that povo are confused!