Hurray, hurray, hurray!

Stephen Mpofu

When leaders in any nation wilfully turn themselves into tails instead of demonstrating examples as heads by the way in which they blitzkrieg economic and political challenges to take their country over the precipitous and onto lush, green plain, with appreciative chants of “hurray, hurray, hurray!” by the masses, there can be little chance of the nation in question reaching, let alone smelling, a brave new future.

In our native Zimbabwe members of parliament (MPs) were on the brink of providing a reversed-bromide type of leadership had Zanu-PF legislators, who are a majority in the National Assembly, not decided and announced that they would now forgo their demand for top of the range vehicles — specifically the Toyota Land Cruiser V8 — to allow Government to direct resources towards more pressing needs facing the country.

Would it indeed not have been an absurdity of absurdities or even a blatant shame were the honourable members to be seen cruising their constituencies along perfumed roads in urban centres while nodding their heads rhythmically to sweet music oozing from concealed holes in the upmarket four-wheeled technologies, while in rural areas bearing virtually impassable roads, the MPs parked their status symbols in their homes to show them off to villagers who tramp along the proverbial roads on battered footwear or on bare, blistered feet as they go about their daily business.

Since they are elevated by povo to the top positions in which they remain ensconced, the legislators must be seen to be always with the people they represent — suffering with them and rejoicing with them, as the case might be.

Which is unfortunately not completely the case in our battered economy as the masses, the electorate in both the rural and urban set-ups are bearing the brunt of our country’s economic woes, what with commodity prices escalating by the day.

In the circumstances, kudos to parliamentarians from the ruling party for calling on various other people and institutions to put on hold demands not in keeping with the difficult economic situation the country is experiencing until such a time that the motherland has recovered sufficiently enough to meet fiscal demands from various quarters.

As things stand now with the ordinary people tightening up their belts to a point of choking intestines and other organs to secure their clothing, it amounts to an unmitigated shame for members of parliament to want to loosen their belts to the last notch to accommodate more fat, for instance, by demanding three luxury meals a day plus dessert while attending parliamentary sittings.

In fact, the one course meal they are served now with an apple and a banana as dessert is sufficient especially if one considers that the workers whose taxes are used to provide MP’s with their needs have difficulties providing food for their own families due to limited financial resources caused by an economy in poor shape.

Now is the time for every Zimbabwean to tighten up their belts and work together as a team, irrespective of political differences, in order to help the economy recover.

Any Zimbabweans who support our external enemies because of their appetite for amafufu/mafufu or crumbs falling from the imperialist enemies table, must be warned that should contemporary imperialism rear its ugly head in our country, the sell-outs will suffer the same oppression and exploitation as everyone else.

In post modernity as in the colonial era, imperialists do not love Zimbabwe or other Third World people with any passion at all, but instead crave the mineral wealth on which the poor nations sit.

As such those “people without knees” — as Africans described whites when the foreigners first arrived on the continent wearing long trousers — will do everything in their power to remove a government by any political party seen as obstructing the foreigners’ material desires — and our people should beware this at all times.

Therefore, the bottom line on the issue in point in this discourse is that voters in our country should keep tabs on those they send to parliament at all times so that those MPs who run with povo while at the same time hunting with the hounds, or imperialists, are denied another chance in a parliament whose every member should strive to shape, and not disrupt or even destroy, the destiny of the Zimbabwean nation.

Thus MP’s are, and must see themselves, as servants and not masters of the electorate.

Any other perception of those men and women sent to the August House as choices to represent the interests of the masses is nothing but a nullity.

Once more hurrays upon hurrays to the ruling party’s parliamentarians for transcending their self ego by sympathising with the plight of the masses under an economy in rebellion.