Today, January 1 2013, provides a unique opportunity for me to respond to the provocation by Nathaniel Manheru aka George Charamba contained in the last paragraph of his weekly column published on December 29 2012 by the State-controlled Herald newspaper.
Opinion By Mutuma Mawere
The article entitled: “Zimbabwe: When constitutionalism gets so stale” attempts to locate me under the sub-theme: “When Zanu’s defeat becomes the raison d’ėtre” designed to set the agenda for the forthcoming elections.
Zimbabwe has come of age, but regrettably the immaturity of State actors like Manheru undermines the promise of a dynamic and open market space in which ideas can and should be ventilated on how best the interests of the country, and not incumbents should and ought to be advanced.
After reading Manheru’s weekly propaganda pieces, one would easily conclude that Zimbabwe is still an infant, and more importantly, that he takes Zimbabwean people for fools.
Independence was expected to usher in a new era of openness and transparency, but regrettably any rational mind who reads Manheru’s spin would come to the inescapable conclusion that according to him and his masters, the true purpose of the liberation struggle was to limit freedom by creating a government of some Zanu PF people, by the few wise Zanu PF men and women and for some Zanu PF members and not a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Ordinarily, a party that has been in office for the entire post-colonial journey should be proud of its record and heritage, but alas Manheru would want Zanu PF to run the elections on its competitors or the record of persons perceived to threaten its hegemony on the levers of the State.
One would expect Zanu PF to welcome rather than discourage competition.
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I have lately written extensively on the lessons from the evolution of the mobile phone industry on public policy actions and choices in the hope that people like Manheru would learn to change the language of politics to embrace plural ideas and competition for without competition complacency, decay and inefficiency become the order of the day.
Even small minds would know that when the mobile industry started, the dominant manufacturer of handsets was Motorola, but the torch passed to Nokia then to Samsung and others and the consuming public is better for it.
Had Motorola or Nokia taken the Manheru view that competition is poisonous, we all know who would be paying the price.
Equally, the monopolisation of State power by a few actors imposes costs on the entire nation and arrests the development of the country to the whims of a few often ill-informed, know-it-all and arrogant actors.
Indeed, President Robert Mugabe at the recent Zanu PF conference acknowledged that his name has now become a useful weapon for the corrupt and it is sad that it had to take former South African President Thabo Mbeki to inform him that actors in his government had monetised the State and ministers were asking for bribes to discharge their duties.
Like any person who has dominated the market, President Mugabe would be the last to know the truth because people like Manheru create strategic barriers to the truth using the media for propaganda purposes, all aimed at keeping his principal in the 1979 frame of mind.
The mobile industry has changed and continues to change and the same can be said of Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe of 1979 is radically different from the Zimbabwe of today. People born in 1979 have evolved. Some of them have nothing to show for their existence on earth, while others have rich stories. New entrants have come into the market and they have no knowledge of what it was like, but deserve a better deal.
The leadership skills required at independence necessarily have to be different from the skills required for a 33-year-old nation-state.
The language of power ought to change with the times, but when one reads Manheru’s self-serving diatribes, one would think Zimbabwe has not moved from where it was in 1979.
Even President Mugabe’s children have grown up and the skills expected of him as a parent have had to change in response to the natural passage of time and the maturity of his children.
If President Mugabe’s children can grow up, Manheru must also accept that the same law that applies to the first family applies to all and, therefore, he should at the very least respect the intelligence of other people.
The fact that he holds other people outside the Zanu PF club in contempt undermines the very people that he purports to serve.
Many of the contemporaries of President Mugabe have retired as teachers, doctors, businesspersons and the like. One can conveniently say that many retired people are not tired, but age imposes its own limitations on humanity.
New ideas come up every day and one cannot expect a man of flesh like President Mugabe to know everything and to be superhuman for elections are not capable of transforming mortal human beings into smarter ones in the State.
If it is accepted that no president or even king or queen can rise above other human beings, then it is incumbent upon all of us to respect each other.
The forthcoming election ought to be about where Zimbabwe should be and not where it is coming from.
The unacceptable condition that the country finds itself in forces all patriotic and forward thinking people to invest in change.
Even President Mugabe has accepted that corruption exists in the State, but he cannot place a face to it.
We all know why this is the case. It is because people like Manheru see no evil in corruption as long as it carries the Zanu PF face.
The President would be the last to know what is really taking place, particularly the actions of people closest to him who occasionally borrow his name and voice as currency.
The words used by Manheru such as messenger, sender, comic relief, humour, adopted country, and traitors are solely designed to intimidate with the sole purpose of ensuring that the elections should not be about Zanu PF accounting for its actions and choices, but conspiracies of perceived enemies of the state.
Zanu PF has the sole obligation to run the election on its record and not use verbal, commercial and physical violence. It is common cause that a 33-year-old Zimbabwean knows of no other party in government than Zanu PF and the change in the demographics of the country has to be reflected in its governance.
There is no better time for Zanu PF and its actors to explain why they deserve five more years in government.
In business, it is not unusual for any actor to be given the red card by the consumers, but the experience in politics suggests otherwise.
Those that have failed to deliver the promise are the very ones who see evil in change. Manheru is a true messenger not of hope, but misery. In trying to undermine me, he invokes the term “sender” to suggest that I am not a principal.
Why would I need a principal when my story is very clear? He has threatened before to tell the Shabani Mashaba Mines (SMM) story, but to date, he has failed to walk the talk.
Although I need not dignify Manheru’s approach to conversations, I have come to the conclusion that when the emperor is naked, we all owe it to Zimbabwe to tell it as it is and that is precisely what I will do henceforth.
For the benefit of Manheru and other small minds, Zimbabwe is a place of my birth and a place that I call home and for which I need no qualification to have a voice equal to his or anyone else including his principals.
When Zimbabweans are suffering and when the people who were under the SMM umbrella have been condemned to poverty, while Zanu PF is hypocritically singing the empowerment and indigenisation song, I cannot be at peace with myself fully knowing that even the inclusive government has not included their hopes and dreams of a better Zimbabwe.
My interests in Zimbabwe are not academic or of a proxy nature, but are substantial making me a stakeholder who is and will continue to be interested in how the land of my father is governed.
Other than protecting the interests of his principals, I am not sure what motivates Manheru not to lean forward and listen to the whispers of what is possible when freedom reigns and people are allowed to think and act in pursuit of their self-interests.
I will always be a Pan-Africanist who believes that any inch of African soil is my theatre to act and, therefore, my Zimbabweaness can never be greater than my African identity.
However, if Zimbabwe fails I also will be judged by the same standard as the weakest Zimbabwean in the chain and, therefore, I have an obligation to be engaged in what ultimately determines how I am perceived and will be remembered.
Zimbabwe deserves better than Manheru’s childish games. Manheru should use his intellect for the good and not to keep the country frozen in a state of decay and the past.
The revolution of today has to deal with the challenges of today and the weapons needed to address the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality are different from the weapons of yesterday.
The country desperately needs new faces and ideas. Ultimately, the betrayers of the revolution have turned out to be the very people that purport to be its custodians.
Mutumwa Mawere is a businessman based in South Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.
