President Robert Mugabe is certainly right that he is an immensely blessed man.
GUEST COLUMNIST Rashweat Mukundu
For it is generally out of the ordinary for a 90-year-old man to witness and hand over in marriage his daughter aged 24 years. The wedding of Mugabe’s daughter was dubbed the wedding of the century by his bootlickers and praise singers.
And this is not to take away or dampen the bliss that must accompany Bona Mugabe and Simba Chikore, for indeed they deserve their moment. It is their life and they deserve to be happy like all of us.
Despite the attempts to make it a private wedding, the wedding, however, turned into some sort of a national event as it was beamed live on national TV, meaning the First Family wanted all of us to see and witness the occasion.
The wedding was also attended by over 4 000 guests including some Heads of State and former statesmen from neighbouring countries and afar. The wedding became by default a national event, not so much because of Bona and Simba, but because of who Bona’s parents are.
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The media whipped our appetites as the wedding news dominated headlines for a week. As many people I have met were asking each other whether they had been to the wedding, not so much that they expected an affirmative response, but because the wedding was all that was in citizen’s minds this past weekend and will be talked of for some time to come.
The State media was given sole access to cover the event, and has taken the responsibility to tell us from the horse’s mouth what transpired. In choosing which media covered this wedding and who is excluded, we also get a sense into the political mental frame of the First Family and in that of its leadership style or lack thereof.
We hear from media reports that the First Lady was the lead organiser and in that we infer she may as well have made the decision to bar other media houses from covering the wedding. The First Lady is supposed to be a motherly figure, one who should engage with issues, be it criticism or praise, maturely. The wedding for Grace Mugabe was, however, a moment to hit back at her critics, the “nhasi-ndezveduwo” (it’s-our-turn) mentality.
She demonstrated a siege mentality of sorts. This I say because, whether by design or by accident, events involving the rich and powerful the world over are always seen to be particularly integrative social ceremonies which capture the imagination of the rest of society, those invited and those watching on TV and those hearing rumours and stories in the streets. In this case, the wedding, more importantly, tells us of the thinking of those involved and in this case the principal actors were not the newlyweds, but Mugabe and his wife Grace. For Mugabe, the wedding is certainly a profound moment in his long life. We hear he spoke for more than two hours at the wedding and that is a speech-and-a-half for a wedding. He touched on as many issues from marriage to corruption and happily the positive role of the media in reporting corruption.
This aside, the question is: What does this event mean for him as a national leader? As we saw, it is difficult to separate the role of father, President and leader of Zanu PF — they were all rolled into one. For this reason, the President went beyond talking to Bona, Simba and the wedding guests to also address all citizens on a number of issues.
Like all fathers, the President said he had been wishing for this day, and by his own words, prayed to see his daughter grow.
Now that Bona has wedded, will the President have a new perspective on life more so with an expanded family and, by God’s grace, a grandchild pretty soon?
What does Bona’s wedding mean for the rest of society that was watching in awe at the huge ceremony? What lessons can the President, if he cares, learn about the aspirations of the young, their chances of making it in life like the rest and indeed live happy lives?
It is my hope that Mugabe will see the wedding of his daughter beyond the narrow confines of a family event, but that he puts on lenses that see the broad horizon of the lived experiences of as many young people.
I also hope that this experience will ring a bell in the President’s mind on what kind of Zimbabwe he wants to leave for his daughter and son-in-law, and in that for as many young people who are daily losing hope and unsure of tomorrow.
The wedding must bring a new perspective to the First Family that the pursuit of happiness is a shared social ideal and that as many in our society also want the good things in life. But as long as the First Family continues to grab productive farms from companies and as long as many of Mugabe’s associates are being corrupt, then the dream that the First Family has for Bona and Simba is not going to be generally shared by the rest of society, but becomes a narrow and selfish wish.
The reaction of the commoners to this event is that of shock and awe at how the rich and powerful live in Zimbabwe, a dream for many in our society. The many comments on the wedding, the expressions of admiration are rooted in the realisation of the huge chasm that separates the rich and the poor in Zimbabwe.
Let the wedding and the new family therefore be a reminder to the First Family of their responsibility towards the rest of society and that the good wishes they have for the newlyweds should expand to include the rest, those who praise and those who criticise them.
When all is said and done, we say congratulations to Bona and Simba and welcome the new family to the holy institution of marriage, established by God himself in the Garden of Eden.
lRashweat Mukundu is a Zimbabwean journalist. He can be reached on rmukundu77@gmail.com