(TALKZIMBABWE) If only insults could help Zimbabwe!
If only insults could help Zimbabwe!Arthur Gwagwa–Opinion
Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:59:00 +0000
EVERY day I receive invitations from my Zimbabwean friends persuading me to abandon my conciliatory approach to Zimbabwean politics so that I can join them in insulting President Mugabe just as they do.
Now that Morgan Tsvangirai and President Mugabe are tittering at the threshold of a GNU, fate is now proving my friends wrong and I stand vindicated in holding to my principle that no amount of insults will ever change a leader’s heart. A leader’s heart can only be changed by entreating and respectful persuasion- that is both the African and godly way of doing things!
Having been part of the Zimbabwean human rights movement at one point, my colleagues have brandished me a sell out of the revolution. Some say that I don’t have the facts and that is why I take the stance that I take. Some even think that I was bribed somehow somewhere or I was given a farm back in Zimbabwe. I was neither bribed nor given a farm. I don’t need a farm because I am not a farmer but a lawyer.
I choose my approach to Zimbabwean politics because I think that quiet diplomacy, respect and promoting dialogue are the only ways out of our political crisis. No amount of shouting will. We may bleat as much as we see it fit, but that can only make our voices hoarse.
If shouting and insults were able to deliver us, I am sure we would be delivered by now. The reason why we are where we are is that we have used the same disrespectful approach toward the government but expecting good results. That’s a hall mark of insanity because insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different result.
Now that we have been around the world reporting President Mugabe to George Bush and Tony Blair, are we therefore not embarrassed that we have come back to where we began? Are we not embarrassed that the same Mbeki we all seemed to despise seems to the only man holding the keys to our crisis?
Tony Blair came and went and very soon George Bush will be going but we are still in a crisis! Is Mbeki therefore not right when he says the Zimbabwean problem is for the Zimbabwean people? George Bush will soon be retiring in his Texas ranch and Zimbabwe will be no where near his thoughts but we will always be brothers and sisters.
I have often infuriated a lot of my Christian friends. They invite me to all night prayers to pray Mugabe out of office and I refuse to go. I tell them that God expects us to respect authorities whether they are good or bad so that we can live in peace and that God doesn’t answer hate -driven prayers.
When God sees Morgan Tsvangirai, President Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara clutching their hands together, then he is pleased. I advise my Christian friends to stop praying for Zimbabwe until their hearts and motives are pure otherwise they are just wasting their time. Jesus lived under the most inhospitable Roman Empire but you never saw him doing a prayer vigil against the government but he always gave to Caesar what belonged to Caesar.
I would rather be called a coward, sell out, apologist, ignorant and all other despicable names but what I am not going to do is to shout obscenities because we can never build a nation out of obscenities . We are tearing down our nation by our irresponsible words. Let us reach out to each other and use very measured language in criticising each other especially our Elders no matter how wrong we think they are.
Arthur Gwagwa
London
Labels: ZIMBABWE
posted by MrK @ 7:55 AM
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