The Standard
Sundayview
By Odrix Sithole Moyo
Saturday, 27 June 2009
ALLEGATIONS by teachers against the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) and its secretary general, Raymond Majongwe in particular have prompted me to respond. Studio7 aired a PTUZ meeting in Gweru where Majongwe was allegedly heckled. We were told that Majongwe and PTUZ had sold out on the teachers’ cause.
For us to analyse objectively the allegations against these people, we need to interrogate these two perspectives. We can only do that by also looking at past and current national contexts. We need the whole picture.
We are emerging from a period of extreme polarization. The polarization had human skeletons, real casualties. But the polarization only began after the 2000 Referendum on the Constitutional Commission Draft.
Given this background, where then do we place the PTUZ and Majongwe debacle? What are their credentials? Majongwe and the PTUZ are by-products of President Robert Mugabe’s rulership.
They surfaced as a reaction to Mugabe’s style of management. Majongwe earned his kudos as a staunch Mugabe critic from his early days at the University of Zimbabwe and he has been consistent. It was a mere expression of exasperation over perceived state heavy-handedness against voices of dissent.
At the helm of the state machinery was Mugabe. It was not by design that activists such as Majongwe found themselves at the mercy of security agents. It was an innate human reaction to perceived injustices.
Such voices of dissent were very few because of the obvious resultant violent response from the ruling elite. Majongwe bears permanent scars inflicted on him by state security agents. His crime has been to stand up for the cause of teachers.
When he and his colleagues were brutalized, it was not because they were leading an insurgency or a terrorist organisation. Their sin was to state the glaring facts. Not more than five among those now calling Majongwe and the PTUZ sell-outs were ever terrorized by state security agents. If you were never part of the real heart of the struggle, how then do you label the real legends of that struggle traitors?
Simply, the struggle has assumed another dimension. Just like the MDC/Zanu PF struggle has reached another epoch, so is the struggle by the likes of the PTUZ, Women of Zimbabwe Arise and the other progressive forces.
If the allegation is that they received material inducements, the question that should be addressed is: from who in this government and in what form were the alleged inducements? Are the alleged benefits tangible or assumed?
We know who is in control of the government institutions. Our teachers must look at the whole picture as the MDC and Zanu PF try to outwit each other ahead of the next elections.
It’s not in their interests for them to be fighting each other. At least in Senator David Coltart, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture teachers have an honest man.
My observation is that over three quarters of the teachers would rather they were paid handsomely, like their regional counterparts. If the criticism of Majongwe was coming from people with impeccable activism credentials I could accept them, but not from armchair critics. They are charlatans. We know the legends of past Uhuru struggles.