Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) MDC paradigm shift! What paradigm shift?

COMMNENT - " the MDC is not short of media outlets to promote their “paradigm”. What paradigm? " - the MDC's 'pardigm' is extreme neoliberalis. Privatisation, which will see Zimbabwe's natural resources fall into foreign hands; 'free markets', which will see whatever is left of Zimbabwean manufacturers be destroyed by western taxpayer subsidized cheap imported goods. Eddy Cross is on record as wanting to reduce the number of government employees from 300,000 to 75,000 - massive job losses, and no private sector to make up the difference for many years to come. Their 2008 manifesto is online here (thanks to Cho of Zambian Economist).


MDC paradigm shift! What paradigm shift?
Philip Murombedzi
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:33:00 +0000

THE statement issued by the Movement for Democratic Change leader, Morgan Tsvangirai on the state of the talks on Thursday should be read in the context of the current political crisis obtaining in Zimbabwe and how that crisis started. The MDC leader, who has become almost infallible in the eyes of many Zimbabweans who choose to ignore their history and struggles, said that Zanu PF had not made a “paradigm shift”.

What paradigm shift?

The MDC accuses Zanu PF of not having made a paradigm shift, yet the events on the ground do not point to a shift of position on the part of the MDC itself.

Journalist and broadcaster, Tanonoka Whande, on a pirate radio station yesterday called on Zimbabweans not to support the “dictator” and put aside all their differences and support the MDC leader. I found this argument rather simplistic. For some of us to support the MDC we need to witness a paradigm shift they are accusing the ruling Zanu PF of not having made.

How can you ask Zimbabweans to support a party has no position on imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, globalisation and north-south relations? If it has, we have never been privy to that position since its inception. It has no position on sanctions, on Black empowerment, or affirmative action. It has no position on indigenisation or Black advancement. Actually the MDC has a position on sanctions: it promoted them.

Those who make excuses for the existence of the MDC should let us know what the position of the MDC with regards to the above is, and then we can all consider joining (or not joining) the party.

The MDC has spread stories of genocide in Zimbabwe and called for Western intervention to oust the Zanu PF government of President Robert Mugabe, yet admitted culpability to that violence in a joint communiqué released soon after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. In the joint communiqué, the party admitted to using violence to destabilize the country (and by implication, effect regime change). Its marriage with former colonisers and countries that are former colonisers would make any party wary of its intentions.

Here are some of the points raised in the statement by the MDC leader yesterday (October 9, 2008) (italised) and my responses to those points:

MT:

“On the day we signed the agreement the people of Zimbabwe breathed a sigh of relief and their hopes for a final resolution of this crisis were raised. Unfortunately, no progress has been made since then, to bring the Zimbabwean people to the beginning of the path of recovery. Instead, the economic crisis has worsened with people spending all their days in endless cash queues. We now live in an environment characterised by hunger and starvation and we are days away from seeing people dropping dead on the streets.”

COMMENT:

The MDC leader called for sanctions against Zimbabwe. He was a regular face on BBC’s Frost programme barely two years ago and was also on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation endless times calling for sanctions against the country. In 2007, Tsvangirai said, "The role of the international community, including Australia, in pressurizing Mugabe to relinquish power is very, very important," in Zimbabwe – openly advocating sanctions against the country.

How could Tsvangirai be the same person to try and take Zimbabwe out of the same
situation that he was advocating only recently? Those who try to defend Morgan Tsvangirai today should ask themselves why Zimbabwe’s meltdown coincided with the formation of the MDC and why the raft of sanctions were imposed at about the same time.

It is unprecedented for a country, anywhere in the world with the resources that Zimbabwe has, to experience the deterioration we have seen in recent years without an invisible hand. What is that invisible hand and why are Zimbabweans their own worst enemy?

MT:

I believe suffering knows no political affiliation and both Zanu PF and MDC supporters are suffering under this economic crisis.

COMMENT:

Did the MDC leader think about this before he did his cross country advocating sanctions? It is true that sanctions are not selective and all those MDC supporters who voted Tsvangirai into power are not spared in this current crisis. In fact most of them suffer while the MDC leader is globetrotting around the world calling for more sanctions against the country, or not denouncing them. Recently, the MDC watched silently as their friend Britain (according to MDC National Chairman, Lovemore Moyo’s address to the Labour Conference last month) and the U.S. fought hard to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe through the U.N. Security Council.

The same party remained mum when the German company, (Munich-based Giesecke & Devrient GmbH) stopped selling money printing paper to Zimbabwe and two-thirds of the 1000-strong workforce took leave. Yet the same party has the audacity to blame the Reserve Bank for the country’s current cash crisis.

Tsvangirai promised what he called a “President’s Fund for Victims” of US$500 000 when he returned from South Africa and Botswana in early June 2008. What happened to that Fund? Or was that a way of winning votes in the June 27 Presidential runoff? If the MDC were also culpable of the post-election violence (as per the joint communiqué) what was their game plan when they set up the Fund, and who paid into that Fund?

“The time for peace and prosperity is beginning. The MDC President's Fund for Victims of Political Violence will begin by providing an initial Z$150 trillion dollars to begin the process of supporting victims of political violence to rebuild their lives,” Tsvangirai said on May 26.

The MDC said it had selected a board of trustees from churches and grassroots organizations to administer the Fund and an independent firm of accountants would audit it. The MDC leader was meant to give details of that Fund, but no-one heard of that Fund afterwards. What happened to it? What happened to the board? What happened to the Trustees?

This empty rhetoric has become characteristic of the MDC and Zimbabweans have been taken for a ride for too long. I wonder whether such rhetoric will be transformed into real action when the MDC leader become Prime Minister, or it will remain intact.

MT:

I stated at my last press conference that given a nation in such a state it was necessary to put a government in place in order for us to begin the task of ensuring that the problems facing our country are dealt with.

COMMENT:

What could have prompted the sudden realisation that problems facing “our country” should be dealt with promptly, especially from a man who whose political fortunes were predicated on those problems? For a man who has advocated sanctions and openly encouraged Western countries to take action against his own government and country, this statement is not only mischievous but is grossly irresponsible.

MT:

We have actively engaged our colleagues in Zanu PF with a view to ensuring that we have agreement on the outstanding issues.

COMMENT:

Those are the same people he went around the world calling killers and murderers. What happened for the MDC leader to turn around his thinking in the past few months? Perhaps this is the paradigm shift he is alluding to! Now that the MDC leader is staring high office in the face, his rhetoric has completely changed and he calls Zanu PF members his colleagues. Maybe the term “principal” has made him come to that realisation.

Interestingly, the MDC leader complained about the “hate language” in the media and yet allows the newly elected Speaker of Parliament, Lovemore Moyo, to use the same hate language that undermines the confidence of the members of Zanu PF in the power-sharing arrangement. The MDC spokesman, Nelson Chamisa, is on every blog and every web-based media organisation spreading the same “hate language” about Zanu PF and yet complains about the language used in The Herald. Ironically, in the same statement where he complains about hate language by Zanu PF, Tsvangirai labels the same people he is calling his colleagues “insensitive to the needs of the people”. How could the MDC leader have it both ways? What makes him believe that it is the MDC (which called for sanctions against its own people) that is sensitive to the needs of the Zimbabwean people? And is this language not divisive and does it not threaten the power-sharing arrangement?

The MDC should realise that what is good for the goose is good for the gander and if they wish Zanu PF to desist from using “hate speech” in the media, they should also desist from using such language themselves. The independent media is filled with hate speech against President Mugabe and Zanu PF and the MDC is not short of media outlets to promote their “paradigm”. What paradigm?

Zimbabweans have a right to choose their political affiliation. Each individual has the right to choose whichever party they want to belong to. It has become almost a crime to belong to the Zanu PF party and membership of the MDC is considered the only viable option, yet these are the same people who cry for democracy and the right to belong to any political affiliation they so choose.

The MDC for me is not, and will never be a viable option. It is a party characterised by unique and frightening theoretical and practical weaknesses and I will not subscribe to such a party. Such weaknesses are now beginning to show as the various interest groups that aligned with the MDC for expediency are beginning to take their own identity and shape. I am a Zimbabwean, born and bred. I love my country and my people and I want to see them progress. I have every right to choose which party I belong to without undue influence from anyone, living or dead. For now, I will exercise the right to choose which party I do not belong to, and it is the MDC.


philipmurombedzi@yahoo.com

Labels: MDC, NEOCOLONIALISM, SANCTIONS

posted by MrK @ 9:55 PM