Some say tomato and others say tomayto . . . ! I bet this sounds familiar! Some say Nato and others say Nayto . . . ! Some say noted and others say endorsed.
It’s all about phonetics and semantics!
“Noted or Endorsed . . . ”, the difference is the same, in the context of the Lusaka/Johannesburg Zimbabwe deliberations! The devil is in the details!
In meetings generally, when an item is noted, it is carried through as adopted. Johannesburg adopted the Lusaka Resolutions and the Zimbabwean GNU principals were directed to specifically proceed accordingly, period!
It does not bode well for people occupying such high and important offices as the leaders in the GNU to quibble over trifles while a nation burns.
What good do semantic noises bring to the people of Zimbabwe who have suffered under a dark cloud of very, very poor politics for decades? Millions have been impoverished, pauperised and rendered jobless, with savings decimated and pensions completely wiped out.
What difference do semantics bring to the widows and orphans who previously survived on rentals from extensions to their homes, which homes have now been demolished in the Murambatsvina dragnet, which dragnet left mountains of rubbish, but removed the people?
What good do semantics bring to millions who were forced to leave their home country, to sojourn in foreign capitals to eke a living?
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What good do semantics bring to the thousands of civil servants who earn slave wages, and the thousands dying in their homes, because they cannot afford hospital fees and the cost of drugs?
What good do semantics bring to the child who walks the streets because his/her parents can no longer afford school fees?
Has the Zimbabwean politician lost his conscience? Beyond you and your small political party, Mr Politician, there is a sea of people yearning for solutions and normalisation of Zimbabwe’s seemingly intractable problems, which you created.
People want to get on with their lives, but to you, politics is everything . . . it’s the only game in town. Look beyond yourself and your small political party, for heaven’s sake!
The rich and comfortable politician can never adequately represent the interests of the poor, toiling masses.
The social classes are too different. That is why in African custom they say, never send a bellyful to collect firewood, unless you are prepared to have a late supper.
For years now, the AU, Sadc, the Troika, South African President Jacob Zuma, the facilitator, and Lindiwe Zulu and her team have put aside their own countries’ business to create time to try and help Zimbabwe to get its house in order and all they get is insults from arrogant and overfed politicians with inflated egos.
The so-called principals in Zimbabwe’s GNU have completely lost the plot on why they are in this quasi-legitimate construct.
The so-called GPA and GNU are a makeshift construct of convenience, put together by Sadc because the electoral process, which gives the efficacy of legitimacy of any ruling class, was subverted.
Stripped to bare essentials, there is no de jure government in Zimbabwe, only a de facto one. So, where does the arrogance of these guys come from?
For these fellows to attend a full Sadc meeting on Zimbabwe’s problems, come back home, and quibble and make semantic noises about the meaning of “noted” and “endorsed”, before a hungry and tormented population is very disheartening.
Who do they think they are, really?
Zimbabweans waited with bated breaths, for substantive progress on this seemingly intractable debacle which is costing millions of much-needed dollars, only to be given an English language lecture on the semantics of “noted” and “endorsed”.
Is this what they are spending our money on? What rank nonsense!
If we had our way, we would lock some of these truculent gladiators in a Greek or Roman-type amphitheatre and leave them to pummel each to death, while we get on with a more viable and civilised genre of political play.
“Noted, and not endorsed”, so they say! Sadc and President Zuma have the patience of a saint!
How can the fate of 15 million people be sacrificed on the altar of runaway egos of a bunch of underperforming individuals who put their personal interests before that of 15 million lives?
They cost us millions, flying all over and staying in expensive hotels, getting hefty per diems and allowances and yet they come back with no substantive results, but nonsensical semantics, harangues and childish grandstanding, day-in-day-out!
Don’t they realise that, the more we move away from the conflicts of the past, the more we galvanise and consolidate our victory as a people?
Zimbabweans don’t deserve this Inquisition. They need to be told that now there will be free and fair elections. It’s a pity!
