The Sunday Mail
In the absence of worthy opposition, fine and promising Zanu-PF comrades are now turning on each other in a bare knuckles fight. History will tell you that politics is by its very nature confrontational. There is no such thing as an idle politician.
Either you are idle or you are a politician, but never both.
To remain relevant, one has to keep at it, being combative and contentious in order to maintain lingering significance. For that to happen, there has to be an opponent, a worthy one for that matter. In his celebrated masterpiece entitled 1984, George Orwell aptly said “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
Peace therefore means that there is fertile ground for war. There is peace in Zimbabwe today, and you know why?
Because there is no opposition to talk about. Bring on a worthy opposition and all hell will break loose and I mean war in terms of tongue-lashing and reactionary ideologies that destabilise the peace.
But with the likes of a moribund MDC-T and a People First putchist cabal that threatens to launch in spite of its failure to thrive, peace will prevail.
Unfortunately, just like in football, during the years when there is no World Cup contest, premier league teams battle it amongst themselves due to lack of a renowned competition to anticipate. We have seen these fights before and we will continue to see them as long as politics and governance is alive.
We have seen how in the past both revolutionary parties of the liberation struggle, that is Zanu -PF and PF Zapu joined hands to fight a common enemy, the Rhodesian Front, which they defeated with gusto but soon after defeating that apartheid regime, the stage was set for them to face off in elections that Zanu -PF resoundingly won.
The much talked about notorious period of the early 1980 was a result of the war which had created peace, hence Orwell’s assertion — war is peace, which meant that, also the opposite is true,
Fast forward to 1999 and members of the two revolutionary parties that had merged into one following the 1987 Unity Accord sort to forever bury the hatchet and square off with a new threat in the form the of a Western-sponsored puppet party called the Movement for Democratic Change.
The launch of the MDC strengthened the Unity Accord as both Zanu -PF and former PF Zapu members found a real reason to join forces and subvert the new enemy, which they have nipped in the bud for the last five presidential and parliamentary elections.
However, the demise of MDC in the aftermath of the 2013 elections created an opposition vacuum that has no left comrades of the same party turning against each other, more for sport rather than supremacy.
The first casualty was Dr Joice Mujuru and her entourage of blind followers such as Rugare Gumbo, Didymus Mutasa, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, Ray Kaukonde, Jabulani Sibanda and other like-minded political failures who have fallen by the way side together with the disgraced former Vice President.
This cabal clearly understands the opportunities that arise out of an opposition vacuum and therefore they are now in a futile bid to launch a political party called People First, even though it has no people to put first.
But until and unless People First has some form and structure, the opposition vacuum will exist and comrades within Zanu -PF will continue to be at each other’s throats for lack of an opposition to talk about.
For as long as the MDC and its multiple facets and suffices remain dead and clueless and for as long as People First continues to be next-week’s dream, comrades within Zanu -PF will whet their political rivalries against each other as the perfect training on how to deal with the real enemy in the unlikely event that MDC will be re-born or the improbable event that People First survives its impeding stillbirth.
Come 2018 and if a real threat of People First or MDC exists, comrades in Zanu -PF will put their differences aside, unite, and take on the enemy for yet another landslide victory.
Indeed as Orwell aptly put it, “freedom is slavery”. Surely, comrades in Zanu -PF have now become slaves of the freedom which they fought many, many years ago. The freedom has made them slaves to bickering and banter which although is amusing at times, are actually episodes that are being done at the expense of more important things such as the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of sound polices for those that they govern, those that they made free.
This brings me to what many view as the reason for the seemingly bare knuckles ding-dongs that we have witnessed in recent weeks — the succession issue.
Who will succeed President Mugabe? Who is worth of succeeding President Mugabe? Who is so ambitious so as to try and fit into those big boots? Whose head does that mighty cap fit? Who will raise their hand in nomination?
We are not talking of succeeding Nelson Mandela here because that was done with ease. We are talking of succeeding that lion of Africa called President Robert Mugabe.
That iconic Pan-Africanist who makes Kwame Nkrumah or Julius Nyerere or Patrice Lumumba or Thomas Sankara look like they were barely figments of the African renaissance.
This is President Robert Mugabe we are talking about, you do not succeed him with lousy haste. On this succession issue, let me sign off by providing Orwell’s brilliant advice — “ignorance is strength.”
Dubulaizitha!
