admin
Tichaona Zindoga
IT would be naive to think that last week Roy Bennet suddenly woke up and decided to “dump” MDC-T where he has been treasurer general and link with the white donor axis. Be it said though that Bennett’s statement last week that he was leaving the MDC-T was not only manifest with personal emotion. It was also heavily fraught with latent political meanings.
It could be seen coming — if one were to look at his utterances especially on his social network weblogs in the recent past.
Bennett was a desperate, bitter man. Yet he still believed. Even after the major reversal of July 31 harmonised elections where his party lost dismally and conceded parliamentary majority to Zanu-PF which garnered over two-thirds majority while Bennett’s man Morgan Tsvangirai was walloped by President Mugabe in the Presidential race.
He believed that Zimbabweans could still rise up and do another Kenya or Egypt and he called for civil disobedience and bringing Zimbabwe “to a halt” by refusing to go to work or pay taxes and bills. Little wonder he received support from Eddie Cross who is infamous for hoping Zimbabwe would “crash and burn” if it would not allow Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC in the driving seat.
But after July 31, there could not be any uprising, simply because it would be so absurd for a people that made known their preferences to wake up on the morrow and protest the very same choices they resoundingly made the previous day.
Devoid of the last-kicks-of a-dying-horse opportunity that came with chaos and carnage, Bennett was exposed. And he does not seem to see any hope of a comeback.
Race and land
This is perhaps the greatest message that Bennett communicated in his statement. He represents the politics of race and land — and he has lost it. A brief background will suffice here. One perceptive writer once described Bennett as the “Great White Hope” with respect to the position he held within the MDC and the role he would play in reversing the land reform programme that saw the tiny white minority, numbering up to 6 000, losing the monopoly of controlling 80 percent of arable land in a country of 12 million people.
It was thus that Bennett, himself a farmer, was tipped to become the Agriculture Minister.
Other scions of white settler monopoly capital and property such as Ian Kay and Eddie Cross were also part of the MDC.
Bennett’s position was influential as he not only held the purse in his own account but also coordinated other white interests in South Africa, Australia, Europe and America.
But, as fate would have it, Bennett would not have the political muscle on the body politic and he ended up holed in some self-imposed exile in South Africa. The land war was lost, too.
The Global Political Agreement signed on September 15 2008 which set up the inclusive Government, and the new constitution which was passed recently all crystallised that land reform was now irreversible.
Senior figures in the MDC came out affirming it in the public. What is more, the land reform has begun bearing fruit and helped economic recovery, which even MDC-T secretary general and outgoing Finance Minister Tendai Biti has acknowledged. This could not be nice to the white Rhodesian capital, little wonder Bennett opposed the inclusive Government.
He too has been upset by the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme, which would wipe the vestiges of white monopoly capital and ensure that the majority black people gain control of the economy.
Just like in the agrarian revolution
But here is a sample of how opposed Bennett is to indigenisation, which he had hoped to reverse, had the MDC won:
In May 2011 railed against compliance with the Indigenisation by foreign companies, some of them listed in London and Johannesburg. He fingered Old Mutual for its compliance and continued investment in Zimbabwe.
At that time Old Mutual was reportedly eyeing investments in diamond mining in Marange.
He revealed that his party had “urged Old Mutual—quietly behind closed doors — to quit their blood-stained investment” but “the company has not listened.”
He also railed South African miner Implats for complying with Indigenisation.
He concluded: “These are but a couple of examples of the companies that have, and continue, to walk the halls of shame in Zimbabwe. There is no shortage of them. When the day of judgement comes, I will not lift a finger to save them from the consequences of their actions.” And I am unreservedly confident that I will have a powerful constituency behind me. If these companies choose to reap the whirlwind, then so be it.”
Today it is Bennett that sings the blues.
The emphatic victory of Zanu-PF in the last elections makes the situation worse for Bennett and his ilk.
His scorecard will show that he has not only failed to stop and reverse the land reform but indigenisation has also come and will wipe out racist monopoly capital.
Hopes come crashing down. It is the fall of the Great White Hope. Democratic ideal, dearth of leadership
What is more is that Bennett, for all his being the supposed knight in shining armour and some kind of godfather, has lost traction with the MDC.
He mourns as much in his statement as he complains that some leaders within MDC-T have become corrupt, arrogant and unapproachable and only talk to him when they need money.
Online Reporter