The Sunday Mail
Politics, just like religion, is the opium of the people.
Come to think of it, politics is in fact a religion, where power is supreme and worshipped.
Most of the major upheavals and convulsions the world has ever seen – from the Crusades in the 200-year period between 1096 and 1291, where Christians and Muslims tussled for control of holy sites considered sacred and dear to the two religions, to the two World Wars — have been caused either by politics or religion, or both.
In all these bloody episodes, the cost on human lives was staggering and unconscionable. While historians estimate that close to five million people perished during the Crusades, the two World Wars killed people on an industrial scale, as about 100 million people died, with World War II accounting for between 70-80 million souls.
Unbelievable!
So, in politics, as in religion, the stakes, which are invariably existential, are extortionately high. As Bishop Lazi always say, politics in not a beauty pageant but beastly business.
And it obviously cannot be transacted by clowns, a lesson that is being sorely learnt by Ukraine. You see, in 2019, people in this former Soviet republic elected a 42-year-old Jewish comedian called Volodymyr Zelenskyy as president.
Ironically, for someone who studied law, he took a liking to comedy and managed to wow his way to the highest office in the land, beating seasoned and veteran politicians, who, however, flagged the callow politician’s vacuity.
They were right.
Besides being young, good-looking and popular, Zelenskyy did not have a single political bone in his body.
During his campaign for political office, he did not have any party affiliation and deliberately chose to evade rallies and debates.
Instead, he increasingly relied on social media platforms to push his message through jest.
With absolutely no political party, no serious advisers, no ideology and no clear message to sell to the people, he could not even appear on scheduled TV debates with his then-rival and now predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.
On April 14, 2019, when he was a no-show on one such planned debate, Poroshenko was left with no option but to hold a “one-man debate”, through which he eerily and presciently warned of the dangers that lay ahead for Ukraine.
“I do not like that a presidential campaign in Ukraine looks like a silent movie,” he said on the day, adding: “I must say: Ukraine’s fate is in danger.”
How right he was.
But sometimes if you are a puppet, you don’t have to break a sweat, as you can “fortuitously” land the top job.
It doesn’t matter if you are an imbecile or degenerate, as long as you can take instructions from the puppeteer, that is all that matters.
Ever since the collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 31, 1991, the US has been actively working to check the power of the Russian Federation and gain a geopolitical advantage over its adversary through expanding its sphere of influence in former post-Soviet republics.
As has always been the norm, Washington has been doing this through subsuming some of these republics into NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) — essentially coalescing forces into a military pact to do its bidding – and installing puppet regimes in some jurisdictions such as Ukraine.
Not surprisingly, ever since its independence in 1991, Ukraine, which sits on Russia’s doorstep, has not known peace, as it has been the subject of political intrigue by powerful forces seeking to create a client regime in Kiev.
You might have heard of the Orange Revolution that engineered the downfall of Viktor Yanukovych, who was aligned to Russia, and the rise of Viktor Yushchenko between 2004 and 2005.
We now know that Washington actually poured US$14 million for the operation and deployed US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats and US non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to sway sentiment.
The Democratic party’s National Democratic Institute, the Republican party’s International Republican Institute, the US state department, USAid, as well as Freedom House NGO and billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Institute were actively involved in ensuring that this meddlesome political exercise was successful.
The same playbook was used in Serbia earlier in 2000, where US ambassador in Ukraine Richard Miles plotted the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic.
The same diplomat also used the same strategy three years later in Georgia, where he helped US-educated Mikhail Saakashvili bring down Eduard Shevardnadze through an youthful student movement called Khmara.
But, the efforts of US ambassador to Belarus Michael Kozak to overthrow president Alexander Lukashenko through “Operation White Stork” — driven by a youth movement called Zubr — in 2001 using the same modus operandi came unstuck.
Interestingly, in Belarus, the operation took a regional dimension as fellow youth in countries such as Serbia were mobilised for the operation.
In 2004, the UK Guardian’s Europe editor, Ian Traynor, who unfortunately succumbed to cancer in 2016, wrote an article to expose the US’s geopolitical manoeuvres through so-called “colour revolutions” driven by youth to gain a foothold in former Soviet republics.
“US pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organise focus groups and use psephological data (analysing elections) to plot strategy,” he wrote.
“The usually fractious oppositions have to be united behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance of unseating the regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic and objective grounds, even if he or she is anti-American …
“Apart from the student movement and the united opposition, the other key element in the democracy template is what is known as the ‘parallel vote tabulation’ … ”
In Ukraine, however, the comedian-cum-politician, Zelenskyy, is slowly and painfully realising that politics is not a skit, but messy and beastly business.
Kiev now finds itself in a tight squeeze from a Russian bear whose existential instincts cannot fathom a NATO-aligned Ukraine at its doorstep, in the same way China would not tolerate a US client state in North Korea, nor would the US accept its adversary holding sway in nearby Cuba.
Our memories are still fresh on how NATO, under the guise of implementing a UN resolution, attacked Libya in March 2011 with the goal of ousting Muammar Gaddafi.
It has all gone downhill since then.
From its former glory under the maverick Gaddafi, the North African country is gradually becoming a failed state.
Young Politician & Colour Revolution
For Bishop Lazi what is striking about the evolving political situation in Ukraine with our evolving politics is the makings our own “colour revolution”, the “yellow revolution” that is fronted by the young Nelson Chamisa’s Citizens Convergence for Change (CCC).
Like Zelenskyy, Chamisa has no ideology, no campaign message, no party structures but hopes to land the top job in 2023 regardless.
He is confident that the power and influence of his Western allies, who he has already exchanged notes with even before the launch of his political formation, will carry the day for him come the elections.
They think that politics is a skit where weighty debates can be reduced to a mere dot. Kikikiki.
But, just as was the case during the colour revolutions in post-Soviet states, we are beginning to see their grand plan for next year’s elections unfolding, with the shadowy US-backed organisation Pachedu using psephological data, particularly the voters’ roll, to plot the CCC strategy of degrading the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)’s reputation in the vain hope of discrediting the harmonised elections before they have even begun.
Its so-called investigations into alleged anomalies on the voters’ roll are being given legs by the usual suspects in the media in order to slowly build up their case.
This is going to be the rallying point going forward. There is now the added dimension of Western-funded shadowy media organisations operating on social media platforms that are expected to bring pressure to bear going forward.
You should have seen the contrived resplendent scenes of Chamisa’s rally a fortnight ago on these platforms.
They need to learn that even if you try blowing a molehill into a mountain, it will still remain a molehill.
The Bishop always tells folks that the regime that sits in Harare, which morphed from a liberation fighting force that prosecuted a 14-year long armed struggle against a heavily armed and conventional fighting force, is a different proposition, as it knows the various covert and overt tactics deployed by mutating neo-liberal forces.
The men and women in the shadows always know what’s cooking.
Of course, the biggest take-away from all this is that puppets have a sell-by and expiry date. You must have heard Zelenskyy squealing last week that his powerful friends, who have been long on rhetoric and short on action, had betrayed him and left him to the tender mercies of the Russians.
He should have learnt from Afghanistan’s former president Ashraf Ghani, who had to flee Kabul last year as the Taliban closed in.
Matthew 23:24-25 tells us how it usually ends for sellouts: “Jesus replied, ‘The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.
“The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born’.”
There is need to think long and hard before messing around in politics.
The stakes can be unimaginably high.
Bishop out!
