The Sunday Mail
Despite their supposed genius and intellectual heft, Western scientists are still grappling with establishing the causal link between lunar cycles and madness.
While there is innumerable anecdotal evidence to suggest the moon could have an effect — unfailingly adverse — on the mental state of human beings, or even animals and insects, including irrefutable evidence that shows that some amongst us have routine and cyclical bouts of lunacy, conclusively establishing that link has been incredibly difficult.
In fact, words such as “lunatic”, “lunacy” and “loon” were etymologically hewn from the Roman moon god called “Luna”.
US psychologists such as James Rotton and Ivan Kelly even subjected this theory to rigorous scientific inquiry.
Well, Bishop Lazi, as a man given to spirituality and was known during his school days for an incurable numerophobia (fear of numbers) and arithmophobia (fear of arithmetic), doesn’t lose sleep over all this scientific gobbledygook.
The Bishop will not trouble himself with such senseless inquisition.
In any case, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Our ancestors once quipped: why do we have to measure the length of a snake with the buck of a tree when the reptile is actually there for the eyes to see?
And the snake walked, still walks, on two legs in the form of my aunt.
Depending on phases of the moon, especially when it is either shaped in the form of a waxing crescent or a waning crescent (mwedzi mutete), she is routinely transformed from sanity to rank madness.
Argh! That woman!
When she is in her zone of lunacy, she often scampers to the nearest anthill or molehill from whence she would launch into unending tirades that usually leave everyone emotionally bruised.
However, we have become inured to it: we often take a cue from the moon to get a sense of when the next public village bashing would begin, or, conversely, we would hear from the verbal thrashing to know which phase of the moon cycle it was.
But life, as it always does, also goes on in the village.
It still does.
So, if those two US psychologists are still interested in pursuing this subject matter further, kindly tell them to give the Bishop a buzz, he will happily provide them with a viable guinea pig.
Looney Young Man
We will also point them in the direction of that boy leading the rag tag opposition formation that is hurtling towards its congress next month.
Yes, that boy who has wet dreams of one day becoming the man in Zimbabwean politics.
Well, in Acts 2:17, the Lord says “In the last days I will pour out My Spirit on all people; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams”, but Nelson Chamisa sees different kind of visions, if we could call them that.
One would need a Richter magnitude scale to record his mood swings, including the way his mind seems to constantly zoom from being stable to being looney.
The Bishop has already begun marking his calendar for the dates the young man is given to making bizarre statements with a view of extrapolating them to the various lunar cycles.
At his rally on July 28 last year before the elections, the excitable and impressionable Chamisa told his starry-eyed supporters that Robert Mugabe was a welcome ally for the MDC-Alliance.
In his own words, he said: “Robert Mugabe is a citizen of Zimbabwe, former president, the president of the First Republic who is going to hand over to the second president of the Republic — myself here, present.” Kikikiki.
We all know how it panned out.
But you would swear by your mother that this is not the same guy who was bashing the same old man on Wednesday last week.
“Mr Mugabe is one of the people who violated the rules of secrecy of the vote by indicating that he will vote for us. We are not in the business, as I have always indicated, of choosing supporters or voters.
“The relationship (between him and Mugabe) is that of a former president and an incoming president. That is the relationship. Beyond that, there is no relationship.” Kikikiki.
By the way, this is the same guy who organised “the guys from Mbare” on August 1 last year to unleash Armageddon in Harare, but when it all came unstuck, he called the same “guys from Mbare” stupid.
Well, you might think this is an isolated case.
Then — boom! — just after the independence celebrations, on April 19, his goons must have thought his Twitter account had been hacked.
Their commander, who they affectionately refer to as Wamba Dia Wamba, was mellowing, they should have thought.
“Where we are going now requires us to think and act together as Zimbabweans. Our dire situation is no longer about MDC or Zanu-PF but about Zimbabwe. We have a nation to build and a generation to defend. We have the power!” he tweeted away.
Barely a week later, the tone had changed.
He was now talking about how they cannot be a 2023 without a 2018 and a whole litany of other political mumbo jumbo.
The next time you get confused about what he would be saying, just mark your calendar, dear reader, it would be useful in future.
But as one writer once said, Chamisa is like that village urchin who is tolerated by the community as long as they stay away from the fireplace, for they risk burning down the whole village.
The Bishop heard whispers last week that the young man is contemplating to again mobilise the muscle power from the “guys from Mbare” under the guise of protesting against rising prices.
And his retinue of media apologists are beginning to sound the war drums that will become the sound track of their envisaged offensive.
Unfortunately, there are no tutorials on Statecraft — the Bishop would have recommended one to the power-hungry political toddler. So, unfortunately, we will just watch him politically wither like Kizza Besigye of Uganda and Mmusi Maimane of South Africa, who have built unenviable reputations for perennially losing elections.
Psychiatrists will actually have a field day with this chap on their couch.
If I were patient enough, I would volunteer a therapy session with him, but Bishop Lazi doesn’t suffer fools.
Nor does the Holy Book.
Proverbs 26 is particularly uncharitable.
“Just as snow should not fall in summer, nor rain at harvest time, so people should not honour a fool.
“Don’t worry when someone curses you for no reason. Nothing bad will happen. Such words are like birds that fly past and never stop.
“You have to whip a horse, you have to put a bridle on a mule, and you have to beat a fool.
“There is no good way to answer fools when they say something stupid. If you answer them, then you, too, will look like a fool. If you don’t answer them, they will think they are smart.” (verse 1-5)
It adds: “Never let a fool carry your message. If you do, it will be like cutting off your own feet. You are only asking for trouble.
“A fool trying to say something wise is like a crippled person trying to walk.
“Showing honour to a fool is as bad as tying a rock in a sling.
“A fool trying to say something wise is like a drunk trying to pick a thorn out of his hand.”
Argh!
I guess we have no option but to accept that there is no village that doesn’t have its fair share of looneys.
But they must never — never ever – be allowed near the fireplace.
Bishop out!
