South Africa is presently at an interesting political crossroads and one just feels the electricity (pardon the pun) this far side of the Limpopo and you cannot help but wish you were part of the excitement. When people claim to own the revolution – any revolution – there is always a danger of making themselves obsolete, and name-calling of those who decide to stand up to skewed definitions of democracy inevitably tend to only strengthen the resolve of those who decide to challenge and change the course of a country’s political course.

Tyranny and opposition to dissent have for years defined African politics, with popular reformists succumbing to the assasin’s bullet, and for anybody who stands up to give “owners of the revolution” a run for their money has got my support.

The COPE founders have been called opportunists and all sorts of names by the very same people with whom they took a stand against apartheid, but one thing for sure is that all threatened despots always exhibit that atavistic streak and will invoke history lessons as part of that bid to discredit breakaway formations.

But all along they forget that they are the same people who present themselves as champions of democracy, so then why not let the brave men who threw down the gauntlet be and let the people decide?

Too bad there have not been such bold moves in Zimbabwe where fear still dwells in the hearts of grown men that they wouldn’t dare cross the path of the founding fathers.

This entry was posted on December 18th, 2008 at 10:03 am by Marko Phiri and is filed under Inspiration, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.