The Sunday Mail
Well, July 31 is now five days away; it will come and go largely without incident, but it simply represents the largely mutating strategies of the country’s sworn enemies.
EONS ago, on one fine, clear and starry-skied evening, Bishop Lazi, who was seated around a fire with fellow clansman, was floored by a blindsiding mighty clap from a concerned elder barely seconds into whistling what he thought was a hearty, melodious tune.
As he later learnt, it was actually a painful but necessary and needful reminder that you simply do not whistle away into the village night — and for good reason.
Over the years, village folk have rightfully learnt that whistling at night, which is sometimes interpreted as a distress call by animals, usually attracts nocturnal creatures that lurk in the dark.
They could be creepy-crawlies, slithering and poisonous reptiles, or marauding beasts.
You surely would not want some of these creatures showing up at your doorstep.
Although hyenas were not common in Bishop Lazarus’ village, it was not uncommon for them to use it as a thoroughfare in their once-in-a-generation migrations to new hunting grounds.
One such exodus unfortunately happened years after the forgettable fireside slapping incident, when the loathed laughing mammals — normally associated with witchcraft — passed through the village.
You see, whenever adrenaline-fuelled fear takes over the senses, it becomes an exercise in chaos, pandemonium and confusion.
In such circumstances, survival instincts naturally take over reasoning, rationality and mobility.
And, on the fateful day, we all found ourselves, including our dogs — who ordinarily were supposed to be protective sentries providing the first line of defence — scampering to the nearest hut from where we barricaded ourselves from perceived mortal danger.
Do not be fooled, dogs only bark at animals that do not present any reasonable danger to them, but when the consummate blood-thirsty killers of the wild approach, they will abandon everyone, including the very masters who feed them, to their own fate. Kikikiki.
It for this reason that you should not take barking dogs — both literally and figuratively — seriously sometimes.
Clearly, it is bad enough for the dreaded creatures of the wild to invite themselves to your doorstep, but its even worse to wittingly or unwittingly invite them through recklessly careless acts.
And this is precisely the reason why life in the village is governed by strict and non-negotiable dos and don’ts meant for the common good.
Wise village elders often counsel and warn that one who takes an ant-infested log home should not be surprised or complain when lizards, or worse creatures, become their daily guests.
Land of the Free,
Home of the Brave
It is a lesson that is now being painfully discovered and grudgingly learnt by protesters in the US, particularly in Oregon’s largest city, Portland, and in Chicago, among others.
Ever since the cold-blooded and callous murder of George Floyd, a black man, by white police officers in Minneapolis (Minnesota) on May 25 this year, most American cities, not least Chicago and Portland, which are already reeling from the coronavirus, have been plagued by anti-racism protests.
It is hardly surprising that these folks have taken the unprecedented measure of braving the potential dangers of the novel virus for the past 62 days to express pent-up disgust and contempt against a system that has enslaved them for the past 400 years.
Naturally, these protestors have been symbolically attacking and toppling the statues of man who presided over egregious abuses of blacks.
Statues of Christopher Columbus — the Italian voyager who led the way for European colonisation of the Americas — were vandalised in Boston, Miami and Virginia.
In Minnesota, the three-metre tall bronze statue of the man, who we were taught by the colonisers to eulogise as “a great man” through song in this part of the world, was toppled, while in Boston it was beheaded.
Statues of the Confederate soldiers, who represented countries of the South that doggedly fought in the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 to keep black people as slaves, were also sprayed with graffiti and variously vandalised.
Had this nascent revolution been allowed to blossom, it would have succeeded in dismantling statues of some of the founding fathers of America.
Apparently, some dumb folks among us do not know that George Washington,Thomas Jefferson and James Madison — three of America’s founding fathers — were slave owners; so, too, were some ex-US presidents such as Andrew Jackson and Ulysses S Grant.
If you don’t know these chaps, all you need to do is to look at some of the US-dollar bills in your pocket, where they are immortalised.
Remember the conversation we recently had on statues. The Bishop told you that they are a symbol of cultural and moral ethos, including the soul of a nation.
They define a people and a civilisation.
This is why Donald Trump, who has had no problems in describing the protestors as ‘terrorists’ perpetrating “acts of domestic terror”, signed an “executive order on building and rebuilding monuments to American heroes” on July 3, which has prompted the deployment of inter-agency state security agents ostensibly to protect federal buildings and monuments.
Well, this is where it gets interesting.
These “storm-troopers” — made up of agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the US Marshals Service, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — have reportedly been driving around in unmarked vehicles, forcefully seizing protesters from the streets and detaining them “without probable cause”.
They have also been firing tear gas and crowd-control munitions on demonstrators.
Contrary to the norm, or what many Americans thought was the norm, these agents, who are invariably clad in combat-style camouflage, do not identify themselves or display their names.
And the reaction from the anti-Trump brigade has been nothing short of hilarious.
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US house of representatives (the equivalent of our House of Assembly), accused the “unidentified storm-troopers” of “kidnapping protesters”.
Another house of representative member, Jamie Raskin, was even more apoplectic.
He seethingly remarked: “This banana-republic-style secret police unit has unleashed violence against the people of Portland — mothers, veterans, students — in complete defiance of state and local officials.”
However, thanks to the CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan, we now know that there is nothing untoward in these methods.
“I have been in law enforcement for almost three decades, the use of unmarked vehicles is a standard procedure, standard practice among every local, state and federal law enforcement agency in this country — actually in the world. It is nothing new.”
Faced with mounting pressure for unleashing these dreaded creatures, Trump defiantly tweeted on July 19 that: “We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators.”
All this drama is happening in the so-called land of the free and home of the brave. Kikikiki.
You see, these “barking demonstrators”, who have been described as “leftist fascists”, are systematically chipping away at the values that define Americanism, and have, therefore, invited the bone-crunching and fierce slap down from the creatures that protect the American state.
America will not be apologetic for a past that used blacks as draught power to power its economy for the past 400 years.
It will never apologise for a racist and imperial system that continues to define its economic supremacy at the expense of economically subjugated economies around the world.
July 31 beckons
So the fundamental question is: if America is prepared to take these extraordinary measures to defend its “buildings” and “monuments” — themselves the symbols of the American state — what could they possibly do to those who seek the weaponise anarchy in order to upend a constitutional order?
Bishop Lazi once told you that while humanity should ordinarily be using the vicissitudes caused Covid-19 as a Godsent opportunity to introspect, turn away from evil and reconcile themselves with the Creator, the Hobbesian proclivity for evil would always prevail.
They are those who hoped, and still hope, that the extremely challenging economic environment that will result from the fallout of the coronavirus would naturally be a beachhead to launch a decisive assault against Harare.
This is why their networks in the media, labour unions, non-governmental organisations and civil society have been very active of late, staging one political stunt after another, which is directed by some daring foreign missions.
But they should take President ED’s July 10 warning seriously.
“I urge those who purport to represent workers to do just that. It is a one-way traffic lane. Political ambitions and views belong to another lane. Choose the lane you walk on. Those in politics must seek the mandate of the people every five years, through the ballot box. That is the constitutional way, that is the rule of law way, that is the democratic way,” he said.
The Bishop will help them out: Essentially what this means is that those who behave as bonafide trade unionists and NGOs will be treated as such; those who behave as politicians will be treated likewise; and those who want to behave as agitators, anarchists and terrorists would naturally invite the interest of the creatures that safeguard our sovereignty, nationhood and Statehood.
It is like whistling at night in the village.
These closet agitators, who are the barely disguised dormant quislings of neo-imperial and colonial forces, should have the courage of convictions to come out in the open.
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of mouth,” says the Lord in Revelations 3: 16-17.
Well, July 31 is now five days away; it will come and go largely without incident, but it simply represents the largely mutating strategies of the country’s sworn enemies.
They might fool impressionable millennials, who do not know the schemes and skulduggery that happen behind the scenes, and sheepishly swallow social media theatrics hook, line and sinker, but how do they think they would run rings around those who know how these evil strategies have evolved from the 1960s to now? Kikikiki.
Zimbabwe came at an expensively sacred price that anyone of us cannot possibly afford.
The streets would never be an arbiter of political power and no amount of chicanery would ever succeed here.
Not then! Not now! Not ever!
Bishop out!
