President Mugabe hands over the Mbuya Nehanda trophy to Sergeant Evelyn Fimba who was the overall winner in the women’s category of the President’s Medal Shoot competition while Air Force of Zimbabwe commander Air Marshal Perrance Shiri looks on., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Sunday, 11 August 2013 00:00
Logun Mhukahuru
Zimbabwe Sunday Mail
By August 1 2013, rumours of a resounding victory for President Robert Gabriel Mugabe and Zanu-PF in the 2013 harmonised election had started to spread like veld fire and, within hours, the whole country virtually exploded into wild scenes of celebration whose ripple effects we still feel even today. But things were not the same — and surely will never be the same — at Harvest House which had been engulfed by an avalanche of cancerous afflictions that demanded urgent attention.
Right on the heels of a landslide victory for President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, Zimbabweans are once again seized with the Heroes’ Day celebrations. Just as Harvest House is burning, the good Lord, agreeing with the national calendar, has, one more time, presented the sons and daughters of the soil with yet another opportunity to gather and continue with our celebrations. As Zimbabweans congregate in their respective provinces for the annual Heroes’ Day festivities, as is our tradition, one thing is guaranteed — partying shall continue unabated for Zanu-PF across the length and breadth of our beautiful Zimbabwe. Hatidzore tsvimbo nekuti gudo ravhara kumeso!
As such, therefore, the simple assignment on our hands as Zimbabweans is to go out in numbers to our nearest celebration centres and honour our heroes, whose spirit stood by us during the trying times of a decade- long onslaught by our enemies. Bearing in mind that the war is not yet over, in this electoral victory we have just overcome the biggest hurdle, so let us, most importantly, keep the prevailing peace and tranquillity as we maintain the celebratory mood and keep the fire burning.
For interest’s sake, imagine Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Douglas Mwonzora, Luke Tamborinyoka, the Makonis and other sell-outs officiating during the Heroes’ Day celebrations. Now the commemorations would be “null and void” indeed, a “huge farce”.
But alas for our detractors, the carnival has indeed come right on the heels of a resounding victory for the colleagues of the very comrades we intend to honour.
It was in itself unimaginable for Zanu-PF to lose the just-ended 2013 harmonised election set on the eve of commemorating the departed heroes.
These fallen heroes, in their honourable graves, would never have allowed such a taboo to belittle their living colleagues and the revolutionary spirit.
But as the intriguing story of a new political dispensation continues to unfold before our eyes, I strongly believe that it is imperative for every Zimbabwean to pay particular attention to these defining moments.
There is an interesting irony deeply embedded in these monumental events; that they are apparently more critical to the losing MDC-T and Mr Tsvangirai than they are to the victorious Zanu-PF and President Mugabe. The former has much more to do than the latter.
And as I write, Zimbabwe is witnessing historic moments that demand a solid decision-making process, especially from the MDC fraternity. And for some funny reasons, history tends to record, with indelible ink for that matter, such decisive moments.
Unfortunately, the MDC formations have imposters occupying influential leadership positions and this explains the party’s spectacular failures in making worthy decisions.
It is at such a juncture in the political history of a nation that real leaders are born and polished.
It is indeed at such a time as this that a leader worth the salt should stand up and do what is natural and good to save not only his political career but also the life and the pillars of the political institutions that he purport to lead. As a leader, it is at such moments that you either lead or mislead and such a stern test of character reveals one’s true colours.
As a leader, you are either immortalised or mortified by your handling of such events.
But so far, in respect of all these pertinent demands, Mr Tsvangirai has been found wanting.
With a resounding victory safely tacked in his backyard, President Mugabe can afford to sleep and even sleep late but Tsvangirai cannot afford even a catnap. And while President Mugabe can sit deep into his presidential chair, hold his hands akimbo, close his eyes, and take a deep sigh with a larger-than-life smile on his face, Tsvangirai cannot afford such luxury.
His situation is perilous and hence in need of genuine political management mechanisms.
Such are the distinct scenarios that the loser and the winner find themselves in.
In any case, the situation of a loser has always been tricky, especially when you lose on the grand stage where the whole world was not only watching but also expecting you to fare better. What makes Mr Tsvangirai’s situation even worse is that he had made some hard promises of favour to various Western states, companies and individuals including some ex-Rhodies (and various women probably) on the pretext that he was going to win the 2013 harmonised election.
The scenario is further complicated by the fact that, defeat by its very nature is difficult to fathom, and only a fully developed human mind can comprehend defeat. But regrettably, the person of Tsvangirai is miles off this elementary stage in human development.
Yet today and now, more than ever before, Tsvangirai has to make solid and tough decisions. He needs to sacrifice personal egos not just for the good of the nation but, most importantly, for his sake and that of his party.
With virtually all the invited – the only relevant and important – observers agreeing to the fact that Zimbabwe’s 2013 harmonised election was peaceful, transparent, credible, free and fair and, in the same vein, endorsing without any reservations, the victory of President Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF, Tsvangirai has no option but to accept defeat.
Actually the problem is not in losing, it is in the interpretation of defeat. Accepting defeat is neither a sign of failure nor a mark of weakness. In fact, it is a very respectable gesture that paints a good image of a very strong character.
Obviously Mr Tsvangirai does not possess these integral qualities of a good leader hence his interpretation of this electoral defeat reveals more of his weaknesses than his strength.
Basically, your interpretation of defeat determines the nature of your response to it.
But the bottom line to it all is that, response, by any nature and or to any degree, boils down to only two forms; it is either constructive or destructive. Fullstop.
An honest analysis of Mr Tsvangirai’s response to the recent electoral defeat so far reveals that the man has embraced a destructive route. Unfortunately, this path will destroy not only him but also his entire party.
The man is basically leading his party down the drain.
For Mr Tsvangirai, accepting defeat is the only logical thing to do and indeed the first step towards the only way out of the political quandary which he is in.
My pastor would always say; the first major step towards being a born-again Christian is to accept whole-heartedly before the good Lord that one is a sinner.
The very same thinking is constantly repeated in most motivational speeches that if you so wish to solve your problems, the first step which marks the only way out is, to accept that you have a problem.
What this means in short is that, for one to address their problems, they should first and foremost accept their situation.
This first step is the single most important step of them all and failure to accept defeat as in this case of Mr Tsvangirai, basically throws the solution seeking process off the rails for good.
Accepting defeat would actually earn him a lot of respect, an element which Mr Tsvangirai desperately need at the moment not only from among Zimbabweans but also among most Africans and other well-meaning citizens of this world.
That gesture will also save Mr Tsvangirai a lot of humiliation which is guaranteed should he proceed with the trajectory of his current thinking.
For over a decade now, Mr Tsvangirai has been assisted by his confused cronies in misleading not only himself but also the United States of America (USA) and Europe that he is the embodiment of the will of Zimbabweans, a superfluous misconception that has been severely exposed by the just ended harmonised election in Zimbabwe.
This election has dutifully separated boys from men thereby assigning everybody into their respectful and rightful positions in the Zimbabwean body politic. Kugadzirirwa size yako chaiyo, in street lingo.
And as such, Mr Tsvangirai has to disabuse himself of this self destructive mentality that nobody else but him and him only has the right and the mandate to govern Zimbabwe.
The constitution and other unwritten laws governing a democratic society provides for one to be given such a mandate by the electorate in a peaceful, transparent, credible, free and fair election. And Zimbabweans have just concluded this constitutional electoral process and duty.
You do not just wake up from a weird dream — hope dzechando — and claim that you represent the will of the people. So Mr Tsvangirai has to disabuse himself of this profoundly misleading fallacy because a clear and clean mindset is imperative in re-strategising.
Well, it is so obvious that Mr Tsvangirai will have to go back to the drawing board to re-think and re-strategise, but before that, the man has more urgent issues to address.
He has to embark on massive damage control and image re-building exercises across the length and the breath of the country.
Because, besides providing for so many lessons to Mr Tsvangirai and all the MDC formations, one conclusion for certain is that, this massive electoral defeat left Mr Tsvangirai’s personal image, and that of his party, with a huge dent which demands urgent attention.
That Mr Tsvangirai has a mammoth task of undertaking an extensive fire fighting mission is indisputable but there is no guarantee that the public relations directorate in his office will be up to the task.
Remember how they failed, spectacularly, to restore the dignity of their boss after his infamous sex scandals, and there is no assurance whatsoever that they will manage the current scenario which actually require the best of public relations practitioners.
What further complicates the public relations assignment is that Mr Tsvangirai has already embraced blindly some grossly misleading advice from the West on how to manage this massive electoral defeat.
This brings me to one of my many problems with Mr Tsvangirai — his readiness and eagerness to seek counsel from USA and the West even if it is clear that the advice is not good at all. One would naturally hope that by now, Mr Tsvangirai would have realised that his fascination and over-reliance with America and Europe has cost him quite a lot back home. But as usual, Mr Tsvangirai is way too slow to have learnt a lesson from the embarrassing electoral defeat he suffered at the hands of President Mugabe and Zanu-PF.
Tsvangirai’s greatest undoing lies in his deeply flawed character which is compounded by severe short-sightedness and a strange disability to think and react faster than naturally expected.
As an individual, Tsvangirai cannot see beyond his nose, he can neither feel nor think on his own yet his sinking ship demands that he immediately evolve into a character that can steady and steer it out of the storm.
But considering the hilarious flaws ingrained in Tsvangirai’s DNA and the limited time he has to achieve all these mountainous demands, I bet my last cent, the man and his party will not make it.
Tsvangirai himself is well aware of his shallow mental faculty and in an attempt to cover-up, he has hired some people to think for him but unfortunately for the poor man from Buhera, those very same people are now taking him for a ride.
Tsvangirai ceased to be his own man years ago. And today, Tsvangirai finds his tumultuous political career bedraggled and hanging precariously by the skin of a tooth and part of the solution demands that he become his own man urgently, something that he has never been and he can never be probably.
The other reasons that have discouraged Mr Tsvangirai from accepting defeat and or congratulating President Mugabe for winning the 2013 harmonised election is fear and pride.
By going against council from America and the West, Tsvangirai will be biting the hands that feed him and so he is very much afraid of that. On top of that, the man is way too pompous to accept that the people have chosen somebody else over him.
To overcome fear and pride, one has to dig deep into his character and summon the guts to suppress these two colossal threats to human dignity development.
If he was a true leader, Mr Tsvangirai was supposed to humble himself and accept the election results.
If Mr Tsvangirai was indeed a genuine leader, he should respect the will of the majority of Zimbabweans who have spoken loud and clear on whom they want as their leader(s).
Condemning the very election which he voluntarily participated in creates more questions than answers.
If the 2013 election was a “huge farce” how then does he explain his voluntary participation in?
He actually had more rallies than President Mugabe himself, which shows his willingness to win the very same election which he suddenly believes was a “sham election”
It is absurd, naive and stupid on the part of Mr Tsvangirai to say the result of an election which he consciously and willingly participated in is “null and void” simply because the result, authenticated by the signatures of his own election polling agents, is not in his favour.
If Mr Tsvangirai knew, before the election process started, that it was leading into a sham election, why then did he legitimise it by voluntarily participating in it.
Or else he came to that stupid conclusion after he surreptitiously got information that he had lost to President Mugabe which will therefore imply that there is no sincerity and honesty in Mr Tsvangirai’s treatment of the election results.
Because frankly, what Mr Tsvangirai is up to shows that the poor man from Buhera has already gone much further along a wrong turn such that coming back is as tedious as going all the way to the dead end.
Honestly I am both amused and puzzled by the paradox that Buhera provides in contemporary Zimbabwe.
Buhera has, since time immemorial, provided Zimbabwe with the finest of individuals in politics, the academia, business sector etcetera and the very same Buhera has also given us this Morgan Richard Tsvangirai.
Anywhere, those with grey hair (even from Buhera) will tell you that hapana tsime risina dafi — The infamous paradox of Buhera — Kikikikiki.
Fellow Zimbabweans, let us peacefully and responsibly enjoy the Heroes Day.
Charira!!!!
logunmhukahuru@gmail.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment