editorial comment
ON Tuesday this week intolerance, a debilitating affliction that has infected Zimbabwe’s body politic for years, reared its ugly head at former Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo’s Excellgate book launch in Harare. For any sane human being out there, it is difficult to understand why one would be so vexed by a book to the point of turning violent just to make sure it does not see light of day. But for those who have lived long enough to get to grips with the politics of the troubled country called Zimbabwe, they would hardly be surprised by what happened on Tuesday when a group of rowdy — and most likely heavily intoxicated, thugs chased away people, who included diplomats gathered to witness the launch of Moyo’s book Excellgate, which we have been told exposes how President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF party stole the 2018 general elections.
But some overzealous airheads, obviously drugged by intolerance and drugs, thought it was quite brainy to cause the cancellation of the launch through violence. The buffoons did not even care that some of the guests at the book launch were foreigners representing countries out there we are hoping and praying would accept us as a good and progressive people. What is quite worrying is that the law enforcement agents and the President’s Office were not even bothered about what that incident would do to government’s overall reputation and re-engagement efforts, it says it has been seized with ever since it told the world that Zimbabwe had entered a new dispensation. The Tuesday thuggery, witnessed by the entire world, effectively gave credence to assertions that Mnangagwa’s administration is a worse rogue regime than the predecessor, the late Robert Mugabe’s largely despised government.
That the government is allowing and not acting on lawlessness suggests that something may have indeed happened during the 2018 elections despite the courts having defended Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF’s victory. If the win was genuine, or even if it wasn’t, it would have been in the President’s best interests to allow free speech over the issue to help shore up his sincerity in charting a new direction for the distressed nation. What sort of democracy is Mnangagwa trying to build when his regime is busy promoting intolerance?
There are now too many incidents that Mnangagwa’s administration has allowed to happen that are doing little to endear it with either the local population or the world out there. It is now quite difficult to understand the logic behind all these silly shenanigans. It is unfortunate that it is the ordinary person on the streets and villagers in the countryside who will bear the brunt of such thoughtlessness.
Will blocking Moyo’s book launch help stop the truth from ever seeing the light of day? What, in fact, the Tuesday incident effectively did was to convince many out there that there, indeed, is some truth in allegations that the 2018 elections were rigged. President Mnangagwa can do himself a very big favour by simply letting democratic processes take their course, to help build trust with his fellow country folk, while he concentrates on reviving the economy.
But we expecting too much from a man whose history suggests that violence, not diplomacy, is his forte.
