So the WikiLeaks are flooding the political corridors of power. And indeed they have been met with ambivalence.
Some are excited just to see how perfidious Zanu PF politicians are to their leader and ideology while for others, especially those implicated, there are leakages of all sorts of fluids a human body can produce.
It is indeed the greatest betrayal of our recent times. It is not only the betrayal of their leader, but of the entire nation.
Thousands of lives were lost and many people injured during the more than eight elections held in the last decade all for the sake of defending the country from American onslaught!
Yes, senior Zanu PF members were in bed with Americans, the same Americans they purportedly accused of attempting to colonise the country. While some have refuted the contents of the WikiLeaks, none of those implicated has denied having a cup of tea with American officials.
And the agenda for the meeting was none other than to gossip about their dear leader, the leader for whom they unleashed violence to protect.
Yes, one of them admitted that the WikiLeaks reports were true and encouraged his fellow political Nichodimuses, or rather Judas Iscariots, to come out of the closet and own up to their gossiping, which they would rather call succession issue.
Owning up alone may not be enough comrades. Just walk away.
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One wonders how they face their wives and children at home now that it is public knowledge that their fathers are not only liars and gossipers, but betrayers of the values to which they purport to subscribe.
Imagine one of their children asking: “Father is it true that you sold out?”
Just how will their wives face their friends in church or their children at school?
If indeed the succession issue bothered Zanu PF, why didn’t they publicly join other forces of change? We never had a shortage of change platforms.
The WikiLeaks revelations have just made people like Morgan Tsvangirai, Simba Makoni, Arthur Mutambara, Welshman Ncube even Langton Towungana, heroes and more genuine for standing against the man feared by his own people.
Once again I ask: When are new heroes and heroines going to be born?
The current breed has not only outlived their time, but has become detrimental to the future of our country to an extent of embarrassing and risking the health of the President.
Fellow Zimbabweans, including all opposition forces, isn’t it time we offered emotional support to our President for his is a lonely man among hyenas masquerading in sheep’s skin?
The greatest sin committed here is not only in the betrayal of trust, but in giving President Robert Mugabe false confidence that his party is behind him. The greatest sin to the nation is the consistency of presenting a presidential candidate who could have retired at the age of 77 when his health allowed him to enjoy retirement.
Zanu PF stole President Mugabe’s retirement, denying the country an opportunity for leadership renewal.
That he ignored medical advice to quit politics when his party endorsed him congress after congress is as pervious as the US cables.
Perhaps this presents a good opportunity for an introspection of our leaders.
A lot has been written about how African leaders are to blame for the poverty of its people.
One of the reasons avoided by many a writer is the effects of colonialism on the mindset of many old school African leaders.
Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist in his book The Wretched of the Earth tells us that colonialism was partly aimed at encouraging compliance and also to produce subservience, typical of what was demonstrated by those who bow down to the US ambassador.
I was also flipping through the pages of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney, just to find out what makes Zimbabwean leaders who boast of liberation credentials maim their own people in the guise of defending the country from United States invasion and then turn around and bow down to the same Americans and spew a charged hatred against their leader.
Rodney argues that: “. . . the decisiveness of . . . colonialism and its negative consequences for Africa spring mainly from the fact that Africa lost power.”
Perhaps the people we call leaders are without power. They still see Americans as clerics of their destiny hence the confessions.
Rodney continues arguing that: “power is the ultimate determinant in human society, being basic to the relations within any group and between groups. It implies the ability to defend one’s interests and if necessary to impose one’s will by any means available.”
And here we are stuck with leaders who can’t make a decision on what they know is wrong.
And again we ask, what do they mean when they say “in defence of the country?” Which country do they do mean if they are in bed with the enemy?
When they say “in defence of the country” do they mean personal wealth they have acquired through unorthodox means?
Only time will tell.
Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa
