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NewsDay

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Is Zanu PF saying ‘down with vendors’?

Opinion & Analysis
Zimbabweans in the past week have been grappling with the sudden realisation that the Zanu PF slogan of Pasinevatengesi literally means just that: Down with the vendors

Zimbabweans in the past week have been grappling with the sudden realisation that the Zanu PF slogan of Pasinevatengesi literally means just that: Down with the vendors — those innocent millions who sell their wares for a living!

Luke Tamborinyoka

We did not know all these years through this slogan, Zanu PF was sending an unambiguous missive to hawkers and vendors (vatengesi), but the incontrovertible literal meaning is now making sense in the wake of the latest threat to vendors!

The slogan is now making sense.

The chilling sight on national television of a senior army officer publicly threatening millions of poor vendors was an apt confirmation of what this country has sadly become — a military State.

That in this day and age, a government can parade a four-star general to flaunt the gun on the country’s vendors was a betrayal of the unmitigated barbarism and the genuine fear of the very real prospects of massive street protests in the wake of monumental government failure.

The fact of the matter is that these millions on our streets today are a shameful testament to the sorry state of the country; the collapse, the massive unemployment and the acute lack of activity on the formal side of the economy.

The informal trade on our streets has become the new parallel market of a non-existent formal economy that has capitulated to the dearth of competence on those in the cockpit of government.

The hawkers and informal traders are on the streets through no fault of theirs, but as a testimony to the failure by the government to create jobs and enhance a formal economy that breeds taxpayers who can expand the country’s dwindling revenue base.

In the event that this national tragedy was regarded a criminal menace, the authorities could have used civilian methods to enforce order on the streets, not to threaten the shedding of the blood of these hardworking Zimbabweans struggling to make an honest living. Any threats to gun down vendors either today, or on June 26, could precipitate the very street protests this regime appears to be dreading.

Presidential Guard commander Brigadier General Anselem Nhamo Sanyatwe and his handlers could indeed reap more than they bargained for, whether today or in two weeks’ time. There has been a backtracking of sorts, with some in Zanu PF realising the folly of this reckless approach.

They came in an advised restraint to mitigate the excesses by insisting that the army would not be involved in the purely civilian quest to clean the streets of our cities.

But the damage has already been done and the people are expecting and bracing for the army in the streets.

In any case, the choice of the date is not wise as we still have not forgotten the blood-soaked “election” on June 27 2008, in which President Robert Mugabe contested against himself and claimed he had won.

Students of political communication will view the new deadline as a gunpowder message to the vendors of Zimbabwe to remember what the military did to the people on June 27 2008.

Even on June 26, all patriotic Zimbabweans should be ready to be in the streets, to stand in solidarity with our brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers who have been forced to seek sanctuary on the pavements by the same Zanu PF that today wants them out.

The logic of the team in charge is laughable. They think the only way to eradicate poverty in the country is to gun down the poor. Well, it’s an exciting proposition really, to move for the extermination of the human manifestation of our stubborn national problems.

By the same token, does that mean that we in the streets who want to deal with the problems of a clueless national leadership and the corruption of those who have stolen our diamonds should be removed by guns?

We equally want to extinguish the cruelty of those who want to saddle us with their debts through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Debt Assumption Bill that was railroaded through Parliament early this month.

Should we equally summon Joint Operations Command (JOC) to help identify and flush out the culprits?

If JOC is now the answer to our problems, we equally demand a military solution to deal with all these culprits who are the real reason why millions of our people are destitute on the country’s streets today.

If the only way to eradicate poverty is to use the army to gun down the poor on our streets, it makes perfect sense to equally exterminate the physical human embodiments of vices such as corruption and incompetence.

The hawkers who ought to be gunned down are those who peddled and were vending our diamonds in Angola, India and other markets in very murky circumstances that did not benefit a single soul in this country.

Zanu PF should stand warned that there is an even more vicious JOC of millions of Zimbabweans of diverse backgrounds ready to publicly express national disgust on the way this country is being mismanaged.

Constitutionally permissible mass protests are one area where there is emerging national convergence.

Zimbabweans are in conversation about constitutionally expressing themselves.

Their might is certainly more significant than the puny powers of the intelligence services, the army and the police who are also victims, struggling with the rest of the citizens.

People in their diversity reserve their right to coalesce and defend their country through a public expression of national displeasure on the streets. That is the true JOC of diverse Zimbabweans that we should talk about.

For any government, citizens in their millions on the streets are a sight to fear and behold than a disillusioned band of armed “securocrats” who are not even certain whether the next paycheck will come. Who knows, they could yet join each other.

The people are on the verge of expressing themselves in a far much louder way than any gunpowder can ever silence. This may be a timely promise and not a reckless threat.

Luke Tamborinyoka is spokesperson to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and head of communications in the MDC-T. He writes in his personal capacity.