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Writers Articles And Opinions |
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30 October 2010 By Reason Wafawarova
IF one were to give a summary of the tendency of
our times in international affairs, terms and phrases
like democracy, human rights and rule of law would
most likely feature most.
This writer would say the modus operandi for all
this rhetoric is premised on quantity, be that in
reality or by way of pretence or pretext. Numbers,
polls and statistics are so central to the world
affairs of our day.
The so-called globalisation has promoted the
multitude, the mass spirit, mass production and mass
manipulation.
Our entire life as humanity is being geared to rest
on quantity, on numbers and statistics.
Production, politics, education, religion, sport,
Internet and all else seems to rest on quantity and
numbers.
The worker who long ago took pride in the
thoroughness and quality of his work, has been
replaced by brainless, incompetent automations,
churning out enormous quantities of often valueless
products, and generously injurious to humanity and the
environment. The musician who used to take pride in
playing musical instruments has been replaced by
computerised sound systems.
Politicians are now reliant on naught quantity.
In proportion to the increase in politics,
principles, ideals, justice and uprightness are
completely swamped by the array of statistical
numbers.
In the struggle for supremacy and power, the
various political parties outdo each other in
trickery, deceit, violence, treachery, cunning, shady
and shameful machinations; fully confident that the
one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority
as a victor.
Lovemore Madhuku has said the inclusive Government
of Zimbabwe must be given another three years in power
so that the current stability and relative economic
growth may continue.
His views seem to be shared by some Zimbabweans
this writer has interviewed on the matter and the
reasons so far proffered are very clear and simple.
Another election is widely seen as another
opportunity for politicians to resort to dreadful
tactics that will cause suffering to the masses.
People are scared that MDC-T in particular will
manipulate and strangle people for the vote by
inviting ruinous and biting economic sanctions from
their allies in Western countries, something that
almost led to an election victory for that party in
March 2008.
On the other hand, there are some people who feel
that Zanu-PF will in response unleash jingoistic
election violence that comes in the name of defending
national sovereignty.
This of course is seen as a bid to outdo its rivals
for the majority vote, never mind the merits or
demerits of the accompanying rhetoric.
Equally not to be minded is Morgan Tsvangirai and
Nelson Chamisa’s rhetoric that Western illegal
economic sanctions are a method of delivering
democracy and good governance.
The two politicians know they are lying and they
also know all serious thinking people do not believe
them — much as some may share the goal of pushing for
an MDC-T government in the future.
Tsvangirai and Chamisa are, however right in saying
they expect the economic sanctions to result in "real
change".
This simply means that they want to change the
voting patterns through the power of ruinous and
murderous sanctions — a very effective way of
bludgeoning the masses into submission, the same way
knobkerrie and machete wielding brutes would do in
totalitarian states.
So our politicians do not have to worry about the
quality of policy and planning. The trouble of
pursuing these and explaining them to the electorate
is torturous to the mind and may not easily produce
the quantity and numbers needed in a so-called
"democratic election".
This way quality is relegated to chance and to the
bureaucrats while quantity is left to be the business
of politicians — who have no issue at all with
coercion as a galvanising and mobilising tool to
create majorities.
Quantity is only important in the run up to
elections while quality is a long-term every day
challenge that most politicians would rather not
burden themselves with. In fact many of the
politicians simply have no idea what policy and
planning are all about and all they know is
sloganeering and mobilising voters by "any means
necessary" as the late Learnmore Jongwe was fond of
saying, errantly borrowing from Malcom X.
The only reason newly appointed politicians in
Cabinet and Urban Councils are reported to be looting
resources big time is because they know that they will
not get another chance to dupe the masses into office.
Understandably, they want to amass whatever they can
while the sun shines. A relative who is an MDC-T
councillor does not hide his intentions from this
writer.
President Mugabe reportedly told the largely MDC-T
urban councillors "Chinjai maitiro" when he officially
opened the current Parliament, and Morgan Tsvangirai
has threatened to punish heavily the looting clubs,
but the quantity politicians within his party’s ranks
will not listen, or so it appears.
They will argue that the people voted them in and
only the people will remove them — after they have
made good personal use of the opportunity the people
gave them in the name of democratic elections.
What a pride that Zimbabweans suddenly discovered
that they are the highest literacy in Africa, never
mind that the discovery was made by the UNDP and not
by the highly literate Zimbabweans themselves, the
same way Zimbabweans suddenly discovered that they
possess about a quarter of the world’s diamond
deposits, never mind that the discovery was announced
by some nameless Israeli.
So we have this quantity oriented education system
that produces the highest literacy rate in Africa but
the literates themselves cannot calculate their own
literacy rate, getting pleasantly surprised that the
UNDP has told them that they are up there in the over
90 percent elite class with Europeans.
And did we for years use diamonds as catapult
missiles to down flying birds for meals as the UK’s
Daily Mail recently reported? We the highest literacy
on the continent of Africa — the highly patriotic
nation that cares so much for its God-given natural
resources, the well respected defenders of sovereignty
on the African continent.
And when we finally were made to discover by aliens
what manner of riches lied in rural Marange — what did
we do? The only invention we contributed immediately
was coming up with a Shona name for the newly
discovered diamonds — or is it a Nyanja one — ngoda?
With our highest literacy what did we do? There was
the Zimbabwean version of scrambling for gold.
Mothers, toddlers, young boys, fathers, prostitutes,
thieves, executives, police, soldiers, teachers,
lawyers, foreigners, dogs, guns, helicopters and all
were suddenly part of Chiadzwa, as we used our highest
literacy to exploit this sanctions-busting miracle of
Zimbabwe, all in search of kurarama as we say.
This writer’s sibling left his job with the Public
Service and was at Chiadzwa for months, hunting for
this ngoda miracle and some of his narrations about
his experience in the Chiadzwa bushes beats what we
saw happening in the bush during the liberation
struggle. Mwana akashiringinya akashereketa achimhanya
nemasango veduwe.
They slept in the bush, had no food and they had to
put up with deadly bullies called Mashurugwi. At least
he bought a television set for his young family and a
mobile phone for himself, apart from whatever else he
did with the proceeds of his explorations and
adventures.
So we have a highest literacy rate that produces
this kind of confusion, even when presented with the
best opportunity to shape our own economy. That is
what quantity has done at the expense of quality
through our own education system.
Where were top geologists from our very renowned
University of Zimbabwe when we were killing birds for
meals with diamonds? Why did our politicians,
professionals, and our government officials join the
despised makorokozas and thugs at Chiadzwa in the
insanity that the illegal diamond extractions were?
Our first Cabinet at independence was once
described as the most learned in Africa. These victims
of quantity education successfully recycled their own
education to our young ones and Tendai Biti correctly
condemns an education system that taught us to apply
for jobs as opposed to making business proposals; his
hidden intentions aside.
Our religion is better left untouched, on account
this writer is a sheep in one of the flocks, and would
not want to invite the ire of the men of God, or worse
still, to be fried forever in hell after the trumpet
does its sounding, and that could be any time.
But what is it that we are seeing with churches
competing for members and outdoing each other with
trickery, false prophecies, fake conduct, cunning and
shady machinations? We have even seen violence raising
its monstrous head in the church too.
Quantity has taken control of even the sacrosanct
place of God Almighty Himself. Quality is for the
losers and quantity is for the winners, so it seems.
The Internet now seems to be largely about
influencing quantities of people as quickly as
possible and the quality of influence barely matters.
One has to look at Zimbabwe’s online "news sites" to
see how base some of the so-called journalists have
become.
This is why any political pissant can announce
whatever stupid rhetoric or rumour that may cross his
mind on any of these many websites that often
practically stand for nothing. Takers will always be
found.
For politicians, the only God at the Altar seems to
be Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to
the character of others, to the nation — all this is
of no moment. We have not far to go in search of proof
to verify this sad fact.
It only takes a casual look at the next politician
one comes across, or may be every other politician.
Our own Prime Minister has a proven record of putting
the whole nation on the firing line, if only to
increase the heat against his political opponents.
This is precisely why Zimbabwe is currently under
the wrath of illegally imposed ruinous economic
sanctions — shamelessly mobilised by Morgan Tsvangirai
in his fight against the President of our country.
The corruption, the complete rottenness of our
recent political structures have never before stood so
thoroughly exposed, and never before have the people
of Zimbabwe been brought face to face with this Judas
nature of their political leadership — a leadership
that preaches with zeal from across the political
divide that they are beyond reproach, that they are
the mainstay of our institutions, the true protectors
of our rights and liberties.
Yet the crimes of some politicians have become so
brazen that even the blind can see them, but for some
reason such politicians muster up their minions, and
their supremacy over the people is somehow assured,
often with the people themselves apathetically in tow.
We have somewhat a population so cheated that it has
become acceptable that politicians are a dishonest and
self-seeking lot.
Both in the Western democracies and in the
developing countries one gets these trends where the
masses are duped, betrayed, outraged a hundred times,
but will somehow decide in favour and not against the
victors — the politicians.
There is this minority that will always ask why the
majority seems to betray the traditions of democracy
by voting back wayward politicians as was the case
with George W. Bush’s re-election for a second term.
The entire planet was shocked by the behaviour of the
American majority — as many of the US citizens
apparently were.
Questions were asked: Where was the judgment of the
American majority? Where was its reasoning capacity?
We know that Barrack Obama may get a second term in
2012 despite his "surge" in the Afghan war — an act of
aggression that has resulted in the September 27, 2010
pre-trial testimony involving 12 soldiers facing court
martial for charges that include unprovoked killing of
civilians, dismembering corpses and taking body parts
as souvenirs.
This is not an isolated case in the atrocities of
Obama’s Wars. In February, after killing five
civilians, three women and two men — in a bungled raid
in the village of Khataba, Paktia Province, the US
soldiers used knives to carve out bullets from the
female victims’ corpses — so they could hide evidence
for the shooting.
Why would the majority live with these deplorable
acts from politicians they vote into power?
Emma Goldman wrote way back in the book
"Anarchism": "That is just it, the majority cannot
reason; it has no judgment. Lacking utterly in
originality and moral courage, the majority has always
placed its destiny in the hands of others". Was she
right?
The majority is so incapable of standing
responsibility that it many times follows its leaders
even unto destruction.
Dr Stockman wrote, "The most dangerous enemies of
truth and justice in our midst are the compact
majorities, the damned compact majority"
There is an inherent lack of ambition and
initiative within compact majorities so much that
majorities hate to commit to innovation or any new
challenges.
It is easier for the majority to persecute the
innovator than it is for it to condemn the deceitful
politician.
Goldman argues that the majority often wants to be
dominated, to be led, to be coerced and this is why
minorities will accumulate all the wealth and tread
upon the majority with impunity.
The individual educator imbued with honesty of
purpose, the innovator and explorer of new ideas, the
writer and artist of new ideas — and the aspiring
young adult that wants to take part in the shaping of
affairs in one’s own country are all daily pushed to
the wall by men and women whose learning and creative
ability have long become decrepit.
This is why almost half of Kenya’s MPs have each
their own little political party they lead. The number
of Members of Parliament who lead their own little
parties and are in coalition with the major parties is
just amazing.
Who would guess that there is a party by the name
Chama Cha Uzalendo led by an MP by the name Gitobu
Imanyara in Kenya?
The party is only for his constituency Imenti
Central, and that is quite normal in Kenya today. It
is an expression of distrust in the traditional
political structures.
Political parties mushroom in Africa partly because
disgruntled young political aspirants are pushed to
the wall by those sitting in the positions they aspire
to occupy, and resultantly they have to create their
own political space to compete with people who should
be their mentors.
These challenges in Africa are not resolved by
Western intervention.
The West has similar problems in their own
backyards and if anything they worsen the problems of
Africa each time they carry their stethoscopes to
Africa’s political wards.
What we need to focus on as Africans is quality. We
need a majority that follows quality and not a
majority that is in itself just quantity, lacking in
assertiveness, and follows whatever it is that they
are misled into by elites and politicians.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome.
It is homeland or death.
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can
be contacted on
wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafa warova.com
or visit
www.rwafawarova.com
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