The Herald
By Nathaniel Manheru
AT the risk of sounding overweening and elitist, I have repeatedly maintained MDC is the West’s bid to foist an ignorant leadership on Zimbabwe, in place of an enlightened one. To what end, it is not difficult to say.
After all, the doyens of British foreign policy have long advised the Blair government that the basic problem with Robert Mugabe is that “he is too educated and thinks like us”. I do not know whether the President takes this for a compliment.
Most probably he considers it an insult and curse, for Britain has declined to an unthinking nation, a nation no longer associated with anything cerebral. It has suffered a hefty decline, some kind of time-honoured hemorrhaging of intellect commonly known as senility.
It is a hoary society in a giant stupor, a society that has long lost the quick of its intellect. Tony Blair is no Augustan citizen, one typifying the famed British “age of reason” which fired human thought and lifted its discourse. Instead, he is a fitting character for Alexander Pope’s “Dunciad”: thoroughly unthinking and susceptible to a baser drive.
Like his kinsman on the other side of the Atlantic, he so ably represents the drool of the prosaic, and is only redeemed by the absence of that drunk and clownish face as burdens the unhappy torso of his cousin who presently misrules America, pilfers the riches or Iraq and marches his country’s youth to the siraha, the slaughterhouse that Iraq has become.
Blair’s two completed terms have yielded not a single wisecrack, the kind Churchill delivered so copiously and seemingly so effortlessly. Speechwriters are fired by good causes that edify mankind, never by unjust wars triggered by baser instincts. I feel pity for biographers. To attempt a biography of such a man is to banish the sublime for the trite and even the absurd.
What would only spur on such a sterile inquiry is human search for an answer to the one riddle that haunts our time, namely, why so mature a society crowns and cedes leadership to such out and out mediocrity. The man’s plight is compounded by the daunting fact that his tenure has been defined by unjust wars and unrewarding provocations that masquerade as sprite foreign policy.
He has denied himself the glory of big wars motivated by the defence of grand ideals, the kind that Churchill fought. And unjust wars are no settings for brilliance, whether by way of deeds or thought. You intellect is warped and even deadened by sterile self-defence and flimsy rationalisation.
It’s a repeated preoccupation for this little grandson of Hitler whose only reward is merited derision. His reign offers humanity no glimpse of grandeur, although, admittedly he provokes the finest in those who resist him and his cousin on the other side.
Well, it appears that the British public is beginning to register its frustrations with him, if the latest developments on the parliamentary front are anything to go by. But then, what recourse does such a public have, given the mediocrity that seems to afflict the Conservatives. Hence the decline I refer to.
A Ndebele kingdom in Lesotho
But that is not my subject. This week we had Gibson Sibanda, the presumed elder statesman of one MDC faction, pushing for the founding of a Ndebele State. Within that vision, he spoke of that state as an outcome of peaceful power devolution, justifying it by drawing a parallel with Lesotho. If you take the man seriously, his logic quickly eludes you. If you take him humorously, you conclude his is a crude invitation to Zanu-PF to redeem his faction by a second Unity Accord.
It is a very strange way of drawing attention to himself, a dangerous way of grabbing headlines. What is the man saying? Is he suggesting autonomy or irredentism? Surely Lesotho is a full and sovereign state and did not come about through power devolution.
In any case devolution from where? From South Africa? May be that is too high a point to be comprehended by this simple villager who approximated shrine from an (s)oiled shop-floor.
Bulawayo: A tribal miscellany
Let us go tribal for a while. Present day Lesotho is made up of the Basuthu people, themselves tracing their origins to one ancestry: that of the legendary King Moshoeshoe.
Not quite what we have here. Today’s Matabeleland is a melting pot, a miscellany of sub-groups whose common denominator is their diverse origins defying the cognateness enjoyed by the Basuthu or the Swazis. I repeat: Matabeleland is not coterminous with the Ndebeles – politically, linguistically, tribally or by any count however dubious.
It is a tribal miscellany, thanks to the 19th Century Ndebele kingdom philosophy of incorporating conquered tribes within their system. The majority of the people in that part of Zimbabwe trace their origins to tribes other than Ndebeles.
Thanks again to colonialism, that part of the world has diverse groups drawn in by the pioneer column as it trekked into the country. Thanks again to the colonial federal logic of industrialisation, Bulawayo played magnate to migrant labourers who trekked from all over Southern Africa in search of jobs.
Above all, thanks to the tribally blind human urge for sex, most people, near or far from the Nguni past, have the blood of other tribes happily coursing through their veins. I challenge Sibanda or Ncube to prove his Nguni connection, let alone his Nguni purity, the same way the Dhlodhlos may, in vain. In Matabeleland, as in many parts of Zimbabwe, hybridity and multiculturalism rules.
Today, the MDC would be wiped from the face of Bulawayo if it sought and solicited a Ndebele vote exclusively, whatever that means. Clearly the organising principle underpinning Zimbabwe’s politics today is wider than tribe. Support it or not, this is one salutary result of the Unity Accord of 1987, and the various measures the ruling party and its Government adopted to make that accord real.
This is as much and as far as we have evolved in our quest for nationhood, a quest born out of traumatic differences and divisions experience has taught us to eschew.
An old man dreaming of a toddler’s suckle
Gibson Sibanda is old enough to recall the tortuous route to national unity. He is old enough to know what a Zimbabwe divided along tribal lines means to all of us. His fellow faction leader, Welshman Ncube knows that too. Both of us happen to have been at the local University, the only University then, during that never-come-back-again era of division. He knows what went on at the University as tribal divisions at the national level replayed on campus.
Surprisingly, Ncube was there at the same rally when Sibanda made this crazy and dangerous proposition. He did nothing to distance himself from it. Until he does, one justifiably concluded this is how his faction wishes to re-launch itself after the Harvest House debacle.
And there is more that lends veracity to this perception. His faction fled Harare and headquartered itself in Bulawayo. Is Bulawayo a mere venue for a forced retreat? Or is it a geographical metaphor of that faction’s politics and political outlook? A week or so ago, I pointed out the preponderance of the white factor in the Ncube camp.
What I should have pointed out is that the Tsvangirai faction is no less white, given the preponderance of the likes of Bennett and Eddie Cross who think they can confront Government. Which bears out my earlier point: the present MDC crisis has nothing to do with its founding deformities which it seems so determined to retain. Both fragments carry its founding maladies and deformities, which is why it is fair to say there is absolutely nothing evolutionary about the present confrontation.
Breaking silence or Zimbabwe?
In the case of the Sibanda/Ncube faction, the politics which motivated publishing of “Breaking Silence” by the Catholics as a cover to the Coltart-led Legal Resource Foundation is beginning to surface and assert themselves as dictating the bourne whither this faction tends politically.
The tribal sermons of Archbishop Pius Ncube banning Shona sermons and songs in Bulawayo are beginning to crystallise into a political programme. Recently, we had an MDC official who made tribally charges remarks well reported by the public media but hotly denied the following day by the same underling.
Above all, we should not forget developments of early Independence when some crazy white man wanted to declare a Ndebele state. We should not also forget the behaviour of western donors who have been nursing that part of Zimbabwe in the hope of “an African Kosovo”.
The Sibanda/Ncube faction think the time is come for such a white-backed political programme. Well, they better think again. Those who provoke history are set to suffer its vengeance. History recalled badly buries one, right up to the fontanel.
Ncube must cure the dangerous ignorance of his political mate, lest Sibanda’s folly buries him too. Both should know they do not get the better of their Tsvangirai by receding into the tribal chrysalis.
Such a sentiment invites wider interlocutors, a very dangerous backlash and a very, very dangerous re-reading of history. And both factions must know that anything that divides the people of Zimbabwe, or questions or threatens the territorial integrity of Zimbabwe, ceases to be an MDC affair only.
It becomes a national issue, certainly a matter of interest to governors of this country who stand to pick the tab of resultant divisions. The MDC, it would appear, will have to be saved from itself.
Same folly twice
Nor is that Tsvangirai side exhibiting any better sense. He tells diplomats and all that he is fighting for broad constitutional reforms, as opposed to piecemeal changes followed by Zanu-PF. He also suggests thuggish action in the streets, in the hope he can oust Government. And last week he tested the waters by deploying his various sidekicks, led principally by Lovemeore Madhuku whose livelihood comes from reckless confrontations with the authorities.
One faction once to break up this country; the other hopes for a coup via thuggish actions. Combined, one has an idea of the kind of leadership a blinking and off-guard Zanu-PF nearly allowed in 2000.
Combined, one has an idea of the leadership Zimbabwe will be afflicted with should the politics of “regime change” triumph. It is not about democracy, transparency or rule of law. It is about inventing a dozing, anti-nationalistic leadership which allows the recapturing of the national heritage by imperialism.
Hail thee H(D)ell
Christopher Dell is headed for the US, hoping such a gesture will unnerve the Zimbabwe Government. Let him think again. I hope he knows the psyche of his hosts. There are tricks to try out in respect of Zimbabwe. Intimidation is not one of them. His trip will be a dumb squid. He will come back the way he left, hopefully better behaved.
If he goads Harare, he will be booted out with little ceremony and gushing ignominy. There is very little of value that is coming Zimbabwe’s way by way of America’s diplomatic presence here, let alone under the ambassadorship of Mr. Hell-bound.
Owing to American hostility, Zimbabwe has staked little in Washington, and could very easily take American retaliatory action on this front. And the sun will rise the same way on the morrow. Nothing dire will follow. In any event we have hit the bottom.
We can’t fall. A revolution which cannot defend itself is not worth surviving. When the consultations are over – and one hopes they take many, many moons – Dell must quietly come back, zip his mouth, enjoy Sunday saunter in safer grounds on decent times. Or else he gets a lifetime serenade his kind will recall for him.
This economy will recover and will be turned around by its people, not by America, which is also struggling to reassert its position in the global economy. Inflation comes and goes and those able and ready to read correct lessons will focus on why the stock exchange continued on an upward thrust, stolidly indifferent to the so-called inflation. They will also know that November, December, January and February are the months when the full impact of the drought registers.
Yes, they will remember all these a transient factors which do not hide fundamentals. Above all, they will factor in the Chinese element; factor in base metal prices, yes, factor in the still to be announced wonder mineral discovered in the Kanyemba area which has sent Americans tripping for audience with the Government they pretend to shun. Mr. Hell, we are okay. Icho!
P.S. UNITED PEBBLE’S MOVEMENT I had a good one from a friend. Complaining bitterly that I had long ignored him, he wondered whether I suspected he had joined UPM. Or the United Pebble’s Movement as he called it! I just went apart with laughter and wondered what the good professor will do with the accretive humour his latest experiment in politics has triggered.
But I was also struck by the appropriateness of my friend’s rendition. Check out who is behind the two independent candidates in Masvingo. I am referring to the two ex-MDC independents brought in by the by-day-Zanu-PF-by-night-Third-Force fringe elements whose hold on the province’s politics hardly convinces even their poor wives. Literally picking rabble from the exfoliating MDC, isn’t? Pebble’s Movement indeed!