The Sunday Mail
The Sharp Shooter Vukani Madoda
For the first time in a very long time, I was touched by what became of Evan Mawarire as he cut such a lonely, lost and mortified figure in New York last week. Dressed in the same old checkered shirt he has managed by buy for himself ever since earning a few pieces of silver following his Iscariot moment earlier this year, Mawarire reminded me of that proverbial
prodigal son who squandered all his keep on harlotry and a loose lifestyle in a foreign land far, far away from home.
The sight of him wobbling to pick up his school-boy satchel and strapping it sheepishly on his back as he backed off from the Zimbabwe Embassy amid the spectacle and scorn of resilient President Mugabe supporters who called him a “Green Card traitor”, cast a sad representation of a dejected lad who has run out of treacherous ideas.
He should have seen it coming, there is no smoke without fire. The several times he tried to upload live emotional selfie videos, the sound just let him down. And we are talking of someone whose gadgets were connected to New York City’s Internet, right at the heart USA. Somehow, he ran out of breath before those who visited his Facebook page could hear a single word of what he was trying to say.
Then by what I call a stroke of very bad luck on his part, sound was perfect as some voices of chanted, “We got a traitor lying that he is being hunted back home!” At some point, I actually felt that it would be much safer for Mawarire if he was in Avondale, Harare.
In that foreign land, they are careless about what befalls a black man on the streets. His life seemed to be in real danger right there in his self-imposed exile in the land of slave masters. There was absolutely nothing safe about what he was doing or trying to do.
But what exactly is this Mawarire fella trying to do? Isn’t it he has already been awarded asylum and he now has a Green Card? He can now also provide for his family as well as send his daughters to school so what is the fuss all about?
He did the job, he got paid so why is he risking life, limb and reputation embarrassing himself in front of the whole world like that by unconstitutionally calling for a new Government in Zimbabwe?
The things that people do for money! Did Mawarire even comprehend the speech made by President Mugabe at the United Nations General Assembly?
Does he understand how sanctions work and how they ensured that he could ill-afford school fees for his daughters when he was home? And for him to brag that, “And then I told Aliko Dangote that in Zimbabwe, Government ministers loot investors’ money” indicates that he does not understand any of that.
Without appearing anti-Semitic, Mduduzi Mathuthu had to tweet, “The man is Nigerian for God’s sake. And you think you’re qualified to lecture him about corruption?”
In fact, Mawarire is calling on investors to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe in addition to the sanctions that are already illegally in place. Who is really going to suffer? Is it the Government? Is it President Mugabe? Is it Zanu PF? Surely, a duller pastor never existed.
Instead of using the Viagran energy he exudes criticizing the Government of the day, Mawarire would make himself more useful by joining the Presidential call to end sanctions illegally imposed against Zimbabwe.
President Mugabe has, for the past 15 years, been tirelessly calling on the US and Britain and their allies to remove the illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe because what they have only achieved is to plunder the basic needs of the majority of the people of Zimbabwe.
But a pastoral fool who finds himself in metropolitan New York makes a clumsy clarion call against foreign direct investment. Indeed, the gods were not far from the truth when they said, “when you are dead, you do not know that you are dead; it is difficult only for those who are living”. The same applies when you are stupid.
Jonas Karlsson, the Swedish actor and author must have been referring to Mawarire when he said, “Stupid people don’t always know that they’re stupid.
They might be aware that something is wrong, they might notice that things don’t usually turn out the way they imagined, but very few of them think it’s because of them. That they’re the root of their own problems, so to speak. And that sort of thing can be very difficult to explain.”
Surprisingly, things such as sanctions and their effects are also difficult to comprehend not only for the Mawarires of this world but even for a neighbouring State President. Completely unprovoked, President Ian Khama of Botswana perennially finds himself on the wrong side of history by reducing himself to low levels.
One wonders if Botswana is still a British Protectorate, the title given to colonies that were collaborators with the imperialists. Surely, what does Khama get from talking about Zimbabwe’s leadership like that? Does he have a political party in Zimbabwe?
The same goes for Mawarire. He has no political party and no intention to vote in 2018 but still continues to huff and puff like a billy goat lost in the Kalahari Desert.
What are they hoping for, a coalition between a frail Morgan Tsvangirai and an unpopular Joice Mujuru? Are they fooled by the uneasy holding of hands that the two opposition leaders did for show in Gweru a couple of weeks ago?
Whatever the Khama-Mawarire-Nera plot, or is it #tajamuka or #thisflag, last week’s events saw them going up in smoke. As it stands, not even ambers are left, just ashes!
Dubulaizitha!
