Burning candle from both ends

Mabasa Sasa Deputy Editor
AM not heavy on poetry. I suppose I think in prose, and as a writer that makes me so much the poorer.
Mindful of my deficiency, I have tried to wrap my mind around a few verses whenever I can muster enough courage to make sense and reason of rhyme.

And thankfully, I have discovered that poetry need not be vexatious.

Take for instance my favourite poem (and I don’t like many), which was penned by Uganda’s Okot p’Bitek, “Song of Lawino/Song of Ocol”.
Now that is a true epic!

Consider when Ocol laments, “For all our young men/ Were finished in the forest/ Their manhood was finished/ in the classrooms,/ Their testicles/ were smashed/ with large books!”

Or how about Englishman John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”? Another epic, but one which I only fully appreciated when I got hold of a plain English version of the 17th century poem.

Remember the exchange between Satan and Beelzebub after they wake up in Hell having lost the War in heaven? “So what if we lost some ground? He’ll never be able to take away my free will, my revenge, my hate, or my courage never to give up./And if I still have all that, what did he win?/Am I supposed to kneel and beg for mercy from him who I just gave some serious worry about the safety of his empire?/That would be worse shame than the defeat we just had.”

There is another poem though, one which has been playing in my mind since the momentous outcome of July 31, 2013.

This one is by the American poet Edna St Vincent Millay (who used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work).

She writes in “A Few Figs From Thistles”; “My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends – It gives a lovely light!”

The most obvious interpretation of Millay’s poem is the pleasure a person derives from self-destructive behaviour.

A candle burning from both ends cannot last the night, but “it gives a lovely light”.

So why would I think of this while surveying developments since July 31? Is it not a rather morose thought within the context of a crushing electoral victory?

The answer is quite simple, really. Zanu-PF looks like it is burning its candle from both ends. And what a lovely light it is giving to local and international media that has long been obsessed by the ruling party’s succession politics.

In February this year, The Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru signed off an installment with what I could call an admonishment.

He said, “ . . . the party (Zanu-PF) must be united, focused. Not this nonsense we have witnessed lately in Manicaland. Or the so-called succession-related divisions. After all, is it not a fact that without electoral success there can’t be any succession?”

Well, that poll success has come, and the “so-called succession-related divisions” are playing out large and ugly in the public domain.

In essence, so soon after securing a mandate to lead the nation for five years, the candle is being burnt from both ends.

The nasty nature in which internal allegiances – real and perceived – are being handled can only serve two outcomes: the party’s structures will be severely weakened, and focus will detract from the more important business of implementing the winning party manifesto, particularly as it has been articulated in Zim  Asset.

Of course there is always a third option. Perchance this public bickering will make Zanu-PF stronger, but at present that remains a very remote possibility.

What is intriguing about the explosion of mudslinging is that it started in earnest as soon as President Mugabe’s took off from Harare for the Far East.

This prompted a colleague to post on a social media site, “If such fighting starts when President Mugabe is away for a few days, what will happen when he (mortal man that he is) is no longer around?”

The point being missed by many actors in this political drama is that this is a legacy issue.

Zanu-PF has been granted an opportunity, after the nadir of 2008, to cement a legacy.
It can use its mandate to either burn its candle at both ends, or to implement in full and with diligence its manifesto and Zim Asset.

The latter will see Zanu-PF not only establish itself as a truly great African liberation movement and party, but will also result in greater development for the citizenry of this country. It’s a win-win.

Engaging in crude internecine strife will see Zanu-PF totter towards collapse and will not in any way abet Zimbabwe’s development over the course of the next five years.

It’s a candle burnt at both ends.

Zanu-PF must not forget why it secured a five-year mandate by such a huge margin.

Engaging in the kind of unproductive manoeuvring seen in the context of the provincial elections sends only one message to the electorate: there are too many people in party leadership more concerned with power than with service.

More than 60 percent of the electorate demonstrated faith in Zanu-PF on July 31, and they are eagerly awaiting to see the works that shall accompany that expression of faith.

Anything else, any other thought or action that is not geared towards service, is burning the candle from both ends.