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NewsDay

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Bootlickers should give us a break!

Opinion & Analysis
In yesterday’s issue we carried a story headlined: Tsvangirai chosen by God — Chamisa

In yesterday’s issue we carried a story headlined: Tsvangirai chosen by God — Chamisa in which the young MDC-T national organising secretary dangerously claimed that his party’s leader Morgan Tsvangirai was anointed by God to lead the struggle for democracy (and by implication MDC-T). Chamisa, by saying this, typifies what sycophants do — creating cult-like leaders out of people they fawn at to curry favour.

NewsDay Editorial

The Webster New World Dictionary defines a sycophant as a person who seeks favour by flattering people of wealth or influence. The stakes for sycophants are high: fat wallets and undue promotions among other things.

We have seen how this dangerous culture of sycophancy has been nurtured in Zanu PF to the detriment of the country. For decades, sycophants have praised President Robert Mugabe’s “perfect” leadership, with titles such as “Cremora” and and recently, “Conqueror of the Bristish Empire”, and even referring to him as “Son of God”.

It is this sycophantic culture that has led us to failure as a nation because sycophants never criticise or correct their superiors; they want to be nice to them all the time.

But what we need in this country are people with good ideas, people who don’t defer to their leaders, but are ready to criticise them so that they see the world in realistic terms and then lead us from the current problems bedeviling the nation.

Bootlickers like Chamisa and those who fawn at Mugabe day in day out have one goal: to be safely ensconced in the corridors of power for access to material resources and influence at the expense of the majority. We have seen how, for years, those who fawn at Mugabe have become the greatest looters of resources through corruption.

They have become rich overnight. In a culture of sycophancy that the Chamisas of the world seek to promote, those who criticise face either derision or punishment. In such a culture, intolerance of other people’s views is the order of the day. We have seen how intolerance has brewed violence in both Zanu PF and the MDC-T. This has often spilled into inter-party violence encouraged by the leaders of the two parties.

Ironically, sycophants would want us to see no evil in these leaders whom they would want us to absolve from any wrongdoing despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Chamisa and his ilk do not see that having leaders clinging to power like leeches (claiming to be God-ordained) is one of the most undemocratic phenomena dogging Africa today.

We have seen that the more Mugabe stuck to the throne, the more the situation deteriorated in this country.

There is nothing democratic about wanting to die in office and sycophants should give us a break.

We need leaders who tolerate criticism and critics who assist in pointing out the right way, not bootlickers who contribute nothing for the development of the country.