Maravi

(HERALD) Beware fanaticism of the new convert

Beware fanaticism of the new convert

THE Bible gives us the story of the murderous Saul who after being smote by blinding flash of proselytising Divinity, transforms and becomes the good disciple Paul: a new man in the full employ of God, thought to deed.

This violent encounter with Divinity reduces the rampaging murderer to a pleading wretch, suing not just for peace but also for a new mission.

Munoda kuti ndikuitireiko Ishe?

To which the triumphant God responds: "Ita basa rangu."

Thereafter, the new man Paul becomes a staunch disciple, a true servant of God, one never to be swayed from the path of righteousness.

And his value far surpassed the number of converts he brought to the Church, his new taskmaster.

His real value derived from his status and person as an antichrist-turned-Christian disciple, thereby proving God’s overwhelming power.

His status as a "turned" murderous heathen proved a more persuasive sermon than anything the Church could ever muster.

"Turns" are a vital expression of triumphant power, proof that a cause is convincing, indeed is potent enough to overwhelm, to subdue, to convert and then to redeploy.

Britain’s Saul who became Paul

In the world of realpolitik, my readers will know someone called George Orwell, lesser known as Eric Blair — his real name.

Famed for writing Animal Farm and the futuristic 1984, this Englishman in fact began as the Saul of British politics, but ended up as the Paul of the British Intelligence Establishment.

He was a communist to begin with, a dominant player of the British Left, and thus a splitting headache to the paranoid British State. It helps to recall that the threat of communism reached spectre proportions soon after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Europe, more specifically Britain, lived in mortal fear of this "noxious" ideology that seemed to breed in harsher social conditions so abundant under aggressive capitalism.

Not helped by the aggressive "Soviets" who preached "world revolution".

Britain, as the more mature form of capitalism, saw itself as especially vulnerable to this incendiary ideology.

After all Marx, the father of this deadly ideology, lay on her soil and had predicted that the conditions of the working class in Britain were ripening fast for a social revolution.

And looking at the matter, they indeed appeared so.

Animal Farm?

Using the Labour Party as a foothold, the Soviet Union was very active in this land of monarchs, winning many converts, particularly among the British intelligentsia.

Britain had a definite crowd on the left, much to the great worry of its State.

And the great October Revolution was elaborating itself aggressively, extending its tenets to practically all disciplines.

Capitalism looked embattled and dangerous people like Eric Blair had to be watched, won or "slept eternally".

Blair was a communist agitator, a compelling producer of "agitprop", agitation propaganda.

He moved places and countries, all the time focusing on the proletariat urging them to rise to lose their chains.

Such a role, quite naturally, drew the interest of the British intelligence establishment, with the ultimate result that Eric Blair — fortuitously going through a phase of disenchantment with communism — got "turned" and redeployed as an operative of the British Intelligence, against Russian-aligned leftist cells in Britain and Europe.

Declassified documents released by the British government in the late 1990s, make Blair match the biblical Paul in serving a new cause.

Few know that the famous book — Animal Farm — was actually an M16 project meant to fight communism at the level of ideas.

By the way, America was doing the same, and even deploying such "turns" to mainland Europe, to fight the ideas of Communism.

Blair’s value lay in that he had been a devout communist who had undergone a Damascene conversion.

I wonder if politicians shall ever be able to pay back what they owe the Church and its great book, by way of tips on how power is defended and vouched for.

The Saul who remained a Saul

Sweden’s Sten Rylander has come to a realisation that sanctions against Zimbabwe do actually exist, are hurtful and have been counter-productive both to their proponents and their intended beneficiaries, the MDC-T.

How sudden that moment of epiphany was, I cannot say.

But he now wants them removed, and pledges to convince his home government and possibly Europe that these sanctions must now go.

And for that realisation, he gets acres and acres of space in our papers, which look more grateful for this change of heart than Government.

But there is one small, yet very important, detail which the Press has buried in the haystack of wordy excitement.

The man is "outgoing" not only from Zimbabwe — his latest and apparently last mission — but from government service in Sweden!

Paradoxical equation

Impolitely put, the man simply no longer matters to Sweden and for exactly that reason, to Zimbabwe too.

He matters no more, except as a small and useless footnote announcing that the man was once here, once upon a time — soon to be a long, long time.

Of course, his folly will stand up, and the generation that follows us will certainly find it humorous that he only "saw" sanctions he busily implemented here, on the eve of his departure.

Rylander the private person appears more discerning than Rylander the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of Sweden!

When he mattered in the equation he was blinder than a mullet.

When he had the power, he could not see; when he finally saw, he no longer had the power, status and influence over events and inter-State affairs.

The evil that the man did

In his days, Rylander did much that got him to see and work for harsh sanctions against this country.

He organiaed against this country, for the realisation of Sweden and Europe’s selfish goals here.

Was he not part of the Fishmonger Group, in fact a leading part of it?

Was he not being used by the British and Americans to listen in corridors, used precisely because of his wartime contacts with the nationalist leaders?

Was he not responsible for recruiting ambassadors from very respectable African countries in order to turn these against Zimbabwe?

How many regime-change institutions did Sweden fund during his tenure?

How many errands did he run for MDC-T, including the fund-raising one held not far back this year, in Pretoria, involving the likes of Judith Todd?

Who does he want to mislead?

Who does he want to ingratiate himself with? Who funded Mavambo?

Who is part-funding Dabengwa?

And all those stupid media projects? Who funded Madhuku and his weird programme?

Who funded the Chibebes?

He must think us quite daft.

Haunting losses of Belgian-Congo

But Rylander is a Saul who can only be a Saul. He is a useless "turn", a Saul who cannot be a Paul.

He is past use to the Church. He has lost his limb, his eyes, his power — whether to kill or convert.

I will never forget his damaging input in framing the way Europe views Zimbabwe; a role he played on claims that he was one of the most senior Africanists around, well known and knowing the Native as to provide guidance.

Alongside his colleagues, he stalled the Zimbabwe-EU dialogue, he together with Xavier Marchal, the EU’s outgoing man here.

Both jellied, but for different reasons.

Rylander sought to use his tenuous association with liberation movements to anoint himself Godfather of governments formed by those movements.

It is a typical liberal trait, to want to control and de-radicalise liberation movements to make them safer for capitalism.

Marchal interpreted his role here as rescuing the white farmer from "his" lost land.

Marchal was Europe’s representative to the CFU, never to this country.

And this was not fortuitous.

I will let him speak for himself: "I think Zimbabwe was special for me because I have gone through that, because I was born in the Congo . . .

"My father had a plantation which he lost and I witnessed that when I was a teenager so I have been exposed to that and I think that is the reason I became involved in Zimbabwe."

Ruined by two nostalgias

And you thought he would be involved on the side of the black peasant?

In the two men, Zimbabwe became a victim of two nostalgias: of a liberal who got involved in the revolution in order to have credentials for controlling that same revolution once it ascended to power and became a government; of a son of a white plantocracy in Belgian-Congo who used his deployment here to seek a vicarious repair to what his father lost in the Congo, by taking on the cause of the white settler farmer here.

Neither nostalgia could have saved Zimbabwe in its present struggles, and — yes — time moved too; too slowly, during the tenure of these two most hostile men.

I played a part in warding off threats spawned by their activities here.

I am gratified they both go away bitter and defeated and though it is early in this piece I must say: "Icho!"

Two factories of falsehoods

Last week there was a public spat between Chamisa and Charamba, all centred around the Sadc Summit, then pending, and the so-called outstanding issues that seem to come, go, come, come, go, come and ad nauseam, depending on what season it is in the MDC-T camp.

Chamisa said Zimbabwe would be discussed, spurred by a raft of outstanding issues which the "duplicitous Zanu-PF" will not want to attend to.

Charamba took a different line, stressing that a progress report would be tabled for noting by the Organ Troika, which in turn would present it to Summit, again for noting.

Far from being intractable, Charamba added, the so-called outstanding issues had shrunk to a mere three, out of the 27 incrementally (not originally) raised by the MDC-T.

He added the three principals had in fact conveyed this to the mediating President Zuma, through a letter penned by one of them, Mutambara, and

signed by them all.

Bolstering that letter to Zuma was an implementation matrix setting out timelines for each action envisaged in that agreement. Chamisa dismissed all this, throwing a slur at Charamba whom he described as "a factory of falsehoods".

When numbers do add up

A day after the Summit, MDC-T secretary-general and co-negotiator Tendai Biti, called a Press brief at which he issued a statement that read in part: "It will be recalled that pursuant to the Maputo Troika meeting of 5 November 2009, the negotiators of political parties were asked to deal with 27 agenda items of dispute, a task they concluded on 3rd April, 2010.

"Following this, the principals debated the negotiators’ report on 8th June 2010, and forwarded a report to the Sadc facilitator, President Zuma, on 10 June 2010.

"Of note is that of the 27 dispute issues, the principals agreed on 24 leaving outstanding the deadlocked issues of (a) the swearing of Roy Bennett (b); the appointment of the Attorney-General, Johannes Tomana; (c) the appointment of the RBZ Governor Gideon Gono.

"Also of significant is that on the 4th August, 2010, the principals agreed on an implementation matrix on the 24 agreed issues." Twenty-seven minus 24 gives you three, does it not?

I don’t know how, gentle reader, you read the foregoing.

As for me, I am left with a distinct impression that Tendai Biti has become a second "factory of falsehoods", after Charamba, which is why the world needs less of these two "mendacious" men, and more of Chamisas who must multiply for truth’s sake!

But that is to skate the real point.

The bloated factory

I have been watching closely how the MDC-T and its information factory has been working, especially after claims of a rift between Tsvangirai and Biti, and certainly after the withdrawal of Mudzuri and company from Government, at the behest of their leader and Prime Minister of this country.

You will also remember that this recall percolated right down to affect staffers in the Prime Minister’s Office.

These had to be moved over or around, depending on the severity of judgment against them.

That, too, created its own problems as MDC-T confused civil servants under PSC, with its own activists who are answerable to its hierarchy at Harvest House.

You will also recall that I was dismissive of all those changes, arguing they portended little if anything at all, to national politics. I still stand by that position.

Relevant to that whole movement (or is it vibration?) is Jameson Timba, now Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, and Ian Makone, the man blamed or praised (depending on where you stand) for being the man behind the Prime Minister and leader of MDC-T, Morgan Tsvangirai.

The great retreat to Government

But one thing I underlined was that the MDC-T leader had triggered a vicious power struggle which could very well swallow him up.

I still underline the same today, and with better confidence now that what then was incipient and thus a matter of speculation and conjecture, seems quite well pronounced, quite evident, now.

The fault-lines are clearly etched, and are taking a heavy toll on the faction.

Hence the apparent disjuncture in its supposedly homogenous voice.

MDC-T suffers from multiple images.

It is interesting that the eye of this storm is the Prime Minister’s Office, not the MDC president’s office located at Harvest House.

MDC-T has beaten a hasty retreat from itself as a party, to embrace the structures of a Government it does not own, let alone control.

Governmental offices and ministerial instruments have now become lairs for its haunted, frightened members, real offices of political asylum for a buffeted leadership.

Another violent split?

There is so much confusion at Harvest House, some of it quite dangerously violent.

It remains a mystery to me why the appalling violence that took place at Harvest House — right in the City Centre — this last Sunday, ahead of Chitungwiza party elections, went unwitnessed or unreported by the media.

It was so engulfing that even the Americans through their Studio 7 could not hide it.

Harvest House is no longer an easy habitat for the party, with signs analogous to what preceded the breakaway of Welshman Ncube and company now abounding.

As we move closer and closer to the party’s congress deadline, the fight will become even more vicious.

And the retreat to Government offices is threatening the integrity of those offices too, at the very least by way of their functionality.

Warring factions are seeking to reorganise and recruit from their ministerial portfolios.

MDC-T is revealing politically significant schizophrenia, with disenchanted officers talking, if not organising against the party.

New promotions and appointments in the Prime Minister’s Office have bred zealots, enthusiastic new converts bursting with fanaticism.

These men know no measure and are responsible for the infantile publicity I alluded to last week.

Trading loyalties

Much worse, there is continuous movement(s) between factions, between personalities, as fortunes and misfortunes see-saw, as loyalties are traded, pawned and auctioned to the latest bidder.

Erstwhile comrades become inveterate foes, and vice-versa.

It is appalling for MDC-T, sumptuous news for Zanu-PF and MDC.

And MDC’s push for leadership change can only embolden those in MDC-T seeking the same, will it not?

Much worse, it is set to shake MDC-T’s power base in Matabeleland, which is why Tsavngirai’s show in Bulawayo only two weeks back remarkably revealed panic.

Matabeleland is going for narrow politics and hey, MD and Dabengwa’s Zapu will ascend, albeit temporarily.

After all both are not seeking presidency of this country, in fact cannot seek it.

They seek leverage for negotiating with Zanu-PF for concessions, for comfort.

Subtle damages

But within this whole boiling pot are very subtle, skillfully managed moves deployed, seemingly in the course of loyal service, of diligent performance, yet designed to chisel away the standing and credibility of targeted leaderships.

And then you have "loyal" officers who do not seem to know how to save the whole formation from embarrassment, and thus end up overreaching and thus compounding the party’s woes.

To all this mess add the hand of the outsider and the whole thing gets thicker than a witch’s brew.

MDC-T’s dilemma

How does all this relate to the Sadc Summit? Let it not be forgotten that the verve of MDC-T is media-based and defined. Bereft of a real cause from the beginning, the MDC-T as a component of an inclusive Government finds itself firmly immersed within a Zanu-PF defined agenda.

The issues of the day relate to initiatives introduced by Zanu-PF: the land, agriculture, indigenisation, mining, sanctions, etc, etc.

All these are brand names for Zanu-PF with the MDC-T haggling over how best to present and implement what is preponderantly a Zanu-PF programme.

As a player in Government, the MDC-T has unveiled no programme that gives it identity.

Retiring the MDC manifesto

Meanwhile, by attending to the MDC-T’s outstanding issues, Zanu-PF has been dismantling and retiring MDC-T’s manifesto, well ahead of elections.

And the contents of the matrix sent to Zuma, most of which came from MDC-T, clearly shows a party clutching at straws.

Just try and picture a submission to Sadc focusing on "transport arrangements for principals"!

Or "security aides" for the principals! Or timeline for circulating Cabinet and Council of Ministers rules to the public!

You call such petty administrative matters "outstanding issues" worthy of a whole Summit of 14 countries?

Little wonder that the Summit simply told the Prime Minister to please go home and getting those little matters implemented.

MDC-T’s strategy of using summits and lobbying to validate its cause has worn very thin.

Its promise to "share power in order to take it" rings louder for its hollowness.

The rush to compile non-existent outstanding issues, the rush to Sadc is a plea for consequence against yawning emptiness.

And time can only make matters worse which is why the faction agitates for early elections it is most ill-prepared for.

The vain hope is to induce unity, founded on a self-preservation instinct. Except that after the unexpected recall of ministers, few now locate this instinct within the structures of MDC-T.

It opens a whole can of worms I rather not deal with for now.

Deflection exercise

Clearly the so-called outstanding issues play a role other than a desideratum of matters to resolve.

They amount to a "Biblical Star" before a warring Israel on a difficult and trying journey out of bondage.

It is an outward point of focus, to minimise debilitating introspection.

This is why Chamisa needs to keep popping up enormous figures. It’s a deflection exercise.

MDC-T needs issues which remain outstanding forever, for its survival sake.

The real strategy is to wear down these so-called issues, until they slim and become wafer thin, until the formation becomes even more ridiculous even to itself, and before all.

Enduring Zanu-PF

And it’s interesting that the real issues on the matrix belong to Zanu-PF: sanctions, external radio stations, external interference, parallel government and the role of subversive NGOs.

Equally interesting is that to all these is no definite timeline, meaning Zanu-PF can politic over them into the next election, suitably using them to rehash the image of MDC-T as a puppet of the West.

And looking in the horizon, sanctions are not about to go away, which means Zanu-PF can continue to organise around them.

As for MDC-T, it can only hope that some madcap in Zanu-PF bashes its head hard enough for a photogenic image, around which it can draw sympathy.

This is why the phony stories of arrests and violence are coming back, in order to rehabilitate its image as the persecuted party.

Except the MDC does not see a mighty sea-change going though Zanu-PF which has been re-inventing its own image, away from the temptations of violence.

After all, there is a lot going on for it, as its long gestating programmes begin to bear fruit, as testified by the MDC-T itself, through the Finance Minister.

It is called third-party endorsement in marketing.

I wonder what name we give such endorsement when it comes from competition itself.

Another Saul-turned-Paul?

Icho!

nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.com

Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, SANCTIONS, STEN RYLANDER, ZDERA

posted by MrK @ 6:01 AM