Maravi

(HERALD) My Turn: When Zuze takes ‘kalata’ to his boss

My Turn: When Zuze takes ‘kalata’ to his boss
Wednesday, 27 July 2011 02:00

IT is a tale akin to the legend of Zuze; the illiterate messenger who stole a loaf of bread from a delivery consignment but, unknown to him, the delivery note he eagerly brought back to his boss revealed that the consignment had been one loaf short on arrival.

‘‘Imwi akalata, imwi akalata, munapita kumuzungu mwati ndaja chingwa kuseri kwachidzele, nenani timve achimwene! (How dare you inform the baas (white man) that I devoured a loaf behind the anthill, answer me!),'' lamented poor Zuze as he belaboured the letter with a sapling behind an anthill, leaving it tattered and torn.

However, unknown to him, he had orchestrated his own exposure and punishment.
I was reminded of this primary school tale after reading utterances made by MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai at a rally in Chegutu this week where he said violent protests were an option for the MDC-T in its quest to unseat Zanu-PF.

I found this statement ironic for a number of reasons not least the fact that Tsvangirai has sought to build his unenviable political career on the back of masquerading as a long-suffering democrat.

Firstly, the MDC-T is not in opposition, it is in Government. Tsvangirai himself holds the esteemed office of prime minister in that government with a special brief of overseeing the implementation of Government programmes. So who would MDC-T supporters be protesting against and/or deposing? It appears the MDC-T leader is keen to chop the bough he sits on.

Secondly, why resort to protests when a roadmap to elections has been drafted and agreed upon by the parties to the GPA? A scandalous roadmap whose origins were traced to the parallel structures in the PM's own office and which Zanu-PF surprisingly acceded to even though it was clear that any roadmap had to come from three documents; the country's electoral laws, the Constitution and the Sadc guidelines and principles governing the conduct of democratic elections.

As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, the end point for the inclusive Government is in the booth. The irony of it all is that it is Tsvangirai and his party who are resisting elections and are already issuing boycott threats while the ‘‘tyrannical'' Robert Mugabe and his ‘‘unpopular'' Zanu-PF are itching to go to the people for a verdict.

So what exactly is this, our Prime Minister, talking about?

Why try to walk the road to perdition, a road that has brought him so much embarrassment and grief over the years?

Has he already forgotten the spectacular flops that were his calls for mass actions and stayaways over the years, culminating in the ill-fated Save Zimbabwe Convention that imploded at Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfields even though the likes of Christopher Dell had made Tsvangirai believe Zimbabwe had reached ‘‘the tipping point?'' That the country was ready for an unconstitutional change of government?

We all know what happened in Highfields when MDC-T supporters thought they could overrun Machipisa Police Station.

Thirdly, and most ironic of all, Tsvangirai talks of Egyptian or Tunisian style uprisings in Zimbabwe in blissful ignorance of the fact that Egyptians and Tunisians were rebelling against their leadership's politics of western appeasement, or to put it bluntly puppetry.

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak fronted the type of governments Tsvangirai hopes to foist on Zimbabweans.They fronted client states sworn to protecting the interests of Western big business at the expense of their own people who were completely shut out of their own economies.

Ben Ali was an American stooge and his regime had the tacit support of the United States, Israel, France and Italy. To Uncle Sam, the Tunisian regime fulfilled a security role in the Arab Maghreb.

In 1987, a soft coup d'état deposed president Habab Bourguiba in favour of his interior minister Ben Ali, a CIA agent trained at the US Army Intelligence School, Fort Holabird, in Maryland.

As soon as he assumed power, Ben Ali set up a military commission in conjunction with the Pentagon, which met each year to review the protection of US interests in the Arab Maghreb.

Suspicious of the army, Ben Ali gave it a marginal role, starving it of resources with the exception of his special forces that trained with the US military and participated in Uncle Sam's regional "anti-terrorism" activities. The ports of Bizerte, Sfax, Sousse and Tunis hosted NATO vessels and, in 2004, Tunisia joined the "Mediterranean Alliance" under the auspices of Nato.

Ben Ali systematically bled his country as he guaranteed the US bases to launch sorties into the Arab world. Every big firm was requested to yield 50 percent of its capital plus the accompanying dividends to Ben Ali and his cohorts.

However, things turned sour in 2009 when Ben Ali became greedy and attempted to extort western firms. The State Department promptly began preparing for his inevitable demise. Some 60 figures were identified and trained to take over in the post-Ben Ali era.

The rest as they say is history, and the self-immolation of the street vendor Mohamed el-Bouzaz just provided a spark to well laid cinders.

As for Mubarak, his regime was used as a buffer between the Arab world and Israel, the real power behind the US. Egypt, along with Tunisia, was among the biggest recipients of western Foreign Direct Investment, the two were hailed as model economies of the Arab world.

In terms of IMF, World Bank and World Economic Forum manuals, Tunisia and Egypt ranked highest among liberal economies where, thanks to liberal policies and privatisation, their FDI ranged in the billions.

Their tax regimes became a standard of how to appease westerners.

Their attitude to the West was touted as a lesson for all Arabs but through it all the people were shut out from their own economies.

Tsvangirai should know that Zanu-PF's fallout with the west came about because the party and the Government it led sought to give black Zimbabweans a stake in their economy which can not be said for Egypt and Tunisia.

Talk of the land reform programme and the indigenisation and economic empowerment drive. No sane Zimbabwean can oppose those.
Tsvangirai stands for the obverse.

In other words, what Tunisians and Egyptians were demanding is what has been achieved and implemented in Zimbabwe without street protests. We had to win those rights after a gruelling 14-year struggle for independence that Tsvangirai - who now postures courage before western cameras - had no stomach for.

It is highly irresponsible for Tsvangirai to talk of violent protests as if avenues to democratic expression have been closed.

He is in government; his party is in government, a Government that was put in place to ensure that all political parties - with representation in parliament - work together to create an environment conducive for the holding of elections whose outcome would be accepted by all and bind all.

So serve for either a penchant for violence or fear of defeat at the polls, I do not see any reason why Tsvangirai should dream of violent protests? Unless of cause he hopes for the Libyan scenario where his handlers would rush in with bombs claiming Robert Mugabe is clamping down on ‘‘peaceful'' protesters.

Whatever the reason, Tsvangirai would do well to remember the age-old axiom, ‘fire once teased snarls all the way to ash'. Moto unopisa hausi wekutamba nawo!

caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw

Labels: CAESAR ZVAYI, LYBIA

posted by MrK @ 3:46 PM