Zanu PF and The Herald: hate for hate’s sake
I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I came across a Zanu PF campaign insert in today’s Herald.
That politicians will say anything to get votes is standard fare for all campaigns, yet the Zanu PF brief shows pictures of blacks being chased by white cops with dogs on leashes back in the 1960s. 1896 photos of Ndebeles shackled. A sign outside a motel that says “This motel is not multi-racial.” Then we have Joshua Nkomo walking with Fidel Castro, Nkomo and Mugabe smiling at a press conference decades ago, that famous picture of Lookout Masuku with the man then known as Rex Nhongo, gets one thinking where exactly this party locates its relevance in Zimbabwe’s contemporary political space and discourse.
If a party keeps reminding voters of the past 100 years, surely it must be questioned if it has any clue about the future of the nation.
Only the foolish dismiss history’s relevance to a nation’s collective memory, but is that what Zimbabweans want, to be constantly reminded about the “evil settlers?”
Some folks have said Zanu PF has only succeeded in alienating its erstwhile supporters by that obsession with politics of belligerence where anyone who holds divergent views is quickly labeled an associate of the settlers. Even loyal supporters who do not agree with some of the nonsense risks expulsion and lumped together with MDC as a puppet of imperialist!
Just recall Jonathan Samkange who actually sued a fellow “party cadre” after the comrade said Samukange was an MDC plant. Samkange sued, saying that accusation was enough to get him killed!
“Defendant, in associating the plaintiff with the MDC party, intended to injure plaintiff’s reputation and personal security especially in light of Zanu-PF’s slogan, namely, ‘Down with MDC’ means kill MDC members. Defendant is inviting Zanu-PF members to kill plaintiff. The threat is real and potentially injurious to plaintiff’s physical being, feeling and association with other members of the Mudzi community,” Samkange said in papers filed in the Harare High Court.”
That Zanu PF stokes racial hatred is fact well known, and this campaign has become no different, but I would like to believe voters are more sophisticated than Zanu PF imagines.
As Tsvangirai said the other week: “Just wear their T-shirts, but you know what is deep down your heart.”