It is the great Nobel Prize winner, Albert Einstein, who is
credited with exclaiming “The definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again, but expecting different results”.
What the great man did not say is how, once they have panicked,
the otherwise seemingly, sane people can behave with the certified insane.
If a bee flies into the house it will fly into the window again
and again until it dies. A housefly is smart enough to try other ways out.
However go after the fly with that “determined to get you Mr fly” – close the
doors and windows, lift the floor rag and swat hard as if to kill the flies hiding
under the rag, etc. – even the seasoned housefly will panic. They will fly
straight into the window again and again and again.
A short insecticide spray is enough to finish off the housefly
problem for the day; the mere whiff of the spray will get every fly in the room
locked into panic mode.
It is most disconcerting when seemingly sane human beings panic
and behave like panicked houseflies; sadly Zimbabweans have been doing just
that.
In 1980, Zimbabwe was one of the top five rich countries in
Africa, a middle income nation; today we are the poorest nation in Africa. Zimbabwe’s
economic collapse has been a relentless match to the bottom. What has been
insane about it all is that the nation has been stuck with the corrupt and
incompetent Zanu PF dictatorship throughout the last 38 years.
Ordinarily the nation would have been able to remove the corrupt
and incompetent Zanu PF; we have failed to do so in this case because Zanu PF has
usurped the people’s freedoms and basic human rights including the right to
free and fair elections and even the right to life itself. Zanu PF has rigged
elections to stay in power against the democratic wishes of the people.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is decades of
Zanu PF gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. The people of Zimbabwe should
have focused on stopping Zanu PF rigging elections, the only sure way to remove
the party from office. Zanu PF has used brute force to create and retain the de
facto one party state but instead of people keeping a cool head and fight for
the individual freedoms and basic rights the people panicked into accepting the
vote rigging and Zanu PF’s rule as fait accompli.
For the last 38 years the nation has been caught up in this
insanity of making the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship work.
“The current socio-economic crisis in the country is untenable
and demands that the two major political parties — Zanu PF and the MDC Alliance
— hammer some kind of deal that will help better the lot of citizens who are
now burdened beyond measure by the two protagonists’ endless bickering, while
the country is on fire,” argued the News Day Editorial.
“The (Zimbabwe Council of Churches) clergy has since the run-up
to the July 30 poll been pushing for dialogue and we hope both parties will see
wisdom in that. There is an urgent need to inclusively map the way forward.
“We
hail the church for its continued efforts to bring the political principals to
the negotiating table, failing which the politicians will only drive the
country down the abyss.”
The fear of the abyss has some people mentally locked into the
insanity, the panic button is super-glued in the “on” position, and so they
have long stop thinking or listening to reason.
For the umpteenth time Zimbabwe’s economic and political problems
steam from the country’s failure to remove the corrupt, incompetent and
tyrannical Zanu PF thugs from office. The thugs have just rigged the 30 July
2018 elections and instead of demanding that the regime step down the Church
leaders are only after a solution that will allow Zanu PF to stay in office
regardless their pathetic track record of economic blundering and failures.
It is not so much the politicians who have driven this nation
right up to the edge of the precipice but rather the panicked clergy and such
like who, even after 38 years, still support Zanu PF dictatorial rule hoping
against hope that it will deliver freedom, economic prosperity, etc.
Chamisa cannot have his cake and eat it too. He has refused to accept that Mnangagwa won the elections because process was rigged. Many people believe the process was indeed flawed and illegal. One of the blatant vote rigging acts was the denying of 2 to 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote. Is Chamisa then saying elections in which 2 to 3 million were denied the vote is legal just because he won these elections?
ReplyDeleteWe cannot accept this kind of nonsense where millions are denied the vote but the result is allowed to stand just because one is considered the winner.
Chamisa should have never gone into these elections without making sure the reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections were in place. He did go into these elections knowing Zanu PF will rig the process but clearly did not care as long as he won the rigged elections. We want leaders who care about the rights of all Zimbabweans and not leaders who do not care as long as they get a seat on the gravy train.
The elections were rigged and if Chamisa thinks he can claim to have had 2.6 million votes and expect us to believe that figure and consider him legitimate then he has something else coming!
Our ZCC clergy have accepted the basic reality that Zanu PF has failed to bring about any meaningful economic recovery. They, like millions of other Zimbabweans out there, were bowled over by President Mnangagwa's "Zimbabwe is open for business!" drive. They were convinced he had opened the flood gate of new investors and lenders ready to take full advantage of the many golden business opportunities the country had to offer. But after near a year of the "new dispensation" and still not even one investor to show for all that effort, the penny has dropped that President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta will never bring about the economic recovery.
ReplyDeleteOur Church leaders may be stupid but not that stupid not to have realised that Zanu PF leaders are corrupt and incompetent and they are the root cause of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown.
Our Church leaders are stupid but not that stupid to have failed to realise that Zanu PF has managed to stay in power all these last 38 years regardless of the party's pathetic economic performance because they rigged the elections. The Clergy know that Zanu PF has cheated and even committed wanton violence including beatings, rape and even murder just to retain the party's iron grip on power.
38 years of appeasing Zanu PF by letting the party remain in power whilst the nation makes all the sacrifice to revive the economy have not worked; the nation has sunk deeper and deeper into the abyss.
Zanu PF does not have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe. Zanu PF does not have the divine right to continue to loot to feed the insatiable appetites of the few ruling elite whilst millions live in grinding abject poverty. These are the fundament truths and realities this nation has avoided for decades with the tragic consequences we see all around us. We must now deal with these realities.
Zanu PF rigged the 30 July 2018 elections, they cannot rule the country without the mandate of the people. Mnangagwa and the junta must step down - that is not negotiable!
The ZCC clergy are seeking a way to keep Zanu PF in power at all cost, is both a cowardly and stupid act, we must reject the time wasting foolishness with the contempt it rightly deserves!