The ordinary Jacks and extraordinary Dicks of Zimbabwean politics
It’s a new year and it’s that period when people say all kinds of silly things and expect to be taken seriously. From ordinary Jacks to extraordinary Dicks, you hear them mouthing crap and you wonder what inspires this specialisation in crapology. Then you think, maybe they are exhibiting unbound elation that they made into the New Year when other people were not so fortunate. But then, is being alive reason to say silly things? So, imagine the response to the question, “Why are you being silly,” “Because I’m alive!” I am not just talking about the so-called resolutions for the fresh year which history has shown have become fashionable empty proclamations of nonexistent faith, but perhaps importantly I am inevitably referencing the political.
I heard the other day a Zanu PF (who else?) mandarin going on and on about how his party would open up the primary election contests where every Jack and Dick would throw in their hat. He obviously did not include himself, for if he did, it would mean he would also be welcoming challengers within the party to vie for the representation of the rural folk where voters have been taken for granted for 30 something years. But knowing these people and their history of violence where they have indeed become career politicians through means nefarious, the sincerity is suspect as rejection in primary polls automatically means “ABCya” to being part of that plutocracy that knows no shame. So why dice with “economic death” as it were if you can afford not to?
A spook or former spook, whatever his “official” title is, was reported to be challenging a scion of Zimbabwe politics, alleging the nephew of the president had done jack for the people. Predictably, the dreadlocked one struck back with the usual foul language, betraying his aversion for popular democracy. It would be interesting then if the guy fingered for “invading” Kuimba Shiri last year was rejected by the people during the primaries. Would he blame the MDC-T for his loss? He would he blame sanctions? I strongly suspect he would blame it on vote buying, himself knowing only too well of course how this works!
Then I also read the other day another day the MDC-N national organising secretary claiming the MDC-T was bent on turning the city of Bulawayo into some kind of Gehenna, citing policy proclamations by the MDC-T leadership in the city. He proffered all kinds of silly case examples, and I wondered why he was vesting the MDC-T with so much powers, the omnipotency of the gods. It was as if the MDC-T says jump and the people merely ask how high? Surely, does the MDC-T wield that much power over the people of Bulawayo that at the behest of Tabitha Khumalo and others, the city risks being turned into a sinner’s paradise? In any case, all Zimbabwean cities are faced with the same bloody issues whose authors are already known. Yet we have a chap who should know better seeing that he himself has no constituency he represents going on with the crappy political rhetoric “made popular” by such compatriots as Gabriel Chaibva, Jonathan Moyo, Chris Mutsvangwa, Godwin Nguni and many others who have made very self-righteous comments about the PM when they themselves have failed to call Mugabe’s bluff about extra-marital affairs and living with HIV within Zanu PF apparatchiks.
And you can bet your butt that as elections approach, we shall be subjected to even more silly crap from educated men and women in politics. But then hey, politics is by its nature elitist, excluding the voices of the ordinary folks, that’s why we have these petite bourgeoisie intellectuals saying all this kind of nonsense and expecting to be taken seriously.