FALL TO RISE, SLEEP TO WAKE
When I woke up this morning and thought of the thousands of Zimbabweans who confronted tyranny with their votes this weekend I was reminded of Robert Browning’s words:
“One who never turned his back but marched breast forward;
Never doubted clouds would break;
Never dreamed though right were worsted wrong would triumph;
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better;
Sleep to wake.”
In my mind these words epitomize the spirit of the MDC and its courageous supporters countrywide which has been demonstrated in the stunning urban council results. “Stunning?” some may ask. After all the MDC lost Kwe Kwe and Kadoma and lost a few small towns in Mashonaland. Kwe Kwe and Kadoma were both Parliamentary seats we won in 2000 and were of course seats we should have won. That, some may argue, is hardly stunning.
But I am elated and the events of the past few days are indeed highly significant. If one needed any confirmation of the significance of the results one only had to watch ZTV last night, as I did, to appreciate how crushing these results are to ZANU (PF). The results, some of them (!), were only announced, almost in passing, twenty minutes into the news bulletin. Believe you me had ZANU (PF) been happy with the results they would have been first up.
Why then is ZANU (PF) devastated and why are these results stunning? It is because: