adminThis one is for the people. Those who have been whipped by the struggles and whims of 2016. To many of you, it’s a year you will never forget for either two reasons: it was extremely good or it is memorably the worst 365 days of your life.
Families were bound, some parted. Despair, heartbreaks, suspense and hope became some people’s descriptions but all summated to a Georgian year. All that matters is that you are alive. There is no life’s challenge that doesn’t pass, it’s all events that mould a process to our destiny. Happy New Year!
As I audited 2016, I noticed that a lot happened in the history of Zimbabwean politics, probably the most comical year ever.
The year sprouted a crowd of political aspirants and hopes of the misled were raised. They fell in love with overnight champions who dumped them at the very chance of catching a flight out of Zimbabwe.
Let us not forget that this is the year when Zimbabweans were inspired by Egyptians to adopt an old fashion social media tagline: hashtags. Everything became hashtag this and that to the extent that in conversations it was normal to use hashtags.
Not only did it become monotonous but it gave some people flight tickets to the land of Lincoln. For some, it was controversial awards for making noise but for many, their lives are still the same after marching in the streets for anything new meant to better their lives. If there is anyone to blame for the demise of their lives its themselves, well of course the Canadian and US embassy financed their bus fares to the streets but didn’t help them think beyond the march.
It presented a deodorised lie that after making noise in the streets miraculously their lives will be better, well, hunger is not manufactured and programmed to an automated feeling, it operates on how its fed through hard work that yields, that’s the reason some are bitterly hungry, not that the situation is tough in Zimbabwe, but because they were made to believe that hashtags are food and jobs. No! my people, a hashtag has always been there since the invention of telephones, unbury the oldest handset you will find that a hashtag is a dial key, it has been a trending key on twitter for celebrity shows and they have never brought jobs, food and stability to any country, glance at Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya they are worse off than they were. America never loved us; they make you believe that old things are new.
You knew the hashtags, I don’t know how you were fooled that online video posts with hashtag keys would change your lives because you shared ambitious facebook friends’ posts to alert each other on what you already knew. It felt new to you but take a closer look, jobs have always been a problem, politics has been a thorn to us since time immemorial and our export strategy has been crippled because Morgan Tsvangirai massively contributed to it by calling in for export restrictions (however, you think it’s a tired rhetoric: it’s still true). It was all old public secrets posted by wedding MCs, angry perverts, former NRZ employees and paid NGO operators. It still wasn’t new, but you were fooled. I hope this year you won’t fall for that lame trap.
Let’s reflect on the past year’s failures as it is important to know what we attempted and still failed. Don’t think repeating it will change the results lest you fall into the institutionalised category: remember repeating the same thing expecting different results is beyond madness; you will be assuming the propensity of the absurd. Don’t be that guy; no one likes that guy.
The perils of walking drunk
Sharks come silently, without warning. There are three ways they strike: The hit and run, the bump and bite and the sneak and attack. The hit and run is the most common. The shark may see the sole of the swimmers foot, think it’s a fish and take a bite before realising this isn’t its usual prey. This is what happened in the boycott of the national pledge. The weirdest thing is that pressure groups became actively involved in opposing a noble idea of inculcating patriotism in our future sovereign vanguards. Ignorants actively participated in conversations of the boycott but with visible ignorance of the importance of the national pledge and the implications of forcing students to recite the Hebrews’ Lord’s prayer. Such philosophical inconsistency was what loophole activists ignored probably deliberately or ignorantly. Well, much of them are that imbecile, just ignite a progressive discussion randomly with any of them, you will confirm that the diction is of searching for donor funding.
Just a few of them have their cause at heart, the rest are top level beggars. As a colleague always says, the difference between civic organisation leaders we have today and hobos is that one is in the street and the other is in an office. Protests were sparked to oppose the imposition of the national pledge in public schools and all sorts of names were coined for the Honourable Minister Dokora, but well, remember, courts operate on assertion, reasoning and evidence; what they only had against the State was an unthought assertion which was mapped with anecdotal fallacy, philosophical and logical inconsistency and they lacked strategy.
There was, and is, legitimacy for the State to impose patriotism ethics to schoolchildren for the best of the nation. It is the role of the State to make decisions for the majority as long as the act resultantly protects the State. There is nothing wrong with America compulsorily making teachers salute and recite the American pledge but it becomes continentally wrong when Zimbabwe applies the same ritual just like it forced everyone to recite the Lord’s prayer? Anyway, we now proudly recite it, it’s actually pleasant to see and hear our teachers and children shouting at the top of their voices when they proudly recite it.
People have forgotten that they were duped to oppose what they now like. The protest failed. It was led by drunken statistics.
Decisions made when hungry or drunk are futile and dangerous. A failed decision is dangerous in itself for it makes you feel like a fool; no one likes that foolish feeling. Don’t be fooled by those who parade themselves as thinkers and tell you that an act is good in itself outside of its consequences; life is not about principles, it’s about reality; what were the intentions of the action, it’s outcomes and if ever its satisfactory? The act of attempting does not count if your desired results are contrary; you best live with it; you failed. Do not join that bandwagon this year, join reality. Do not drown in horse manure.
Scarecrows work on people too
The wave of uprisings mistaken for Arab springs decorated cable news. Western hopes rose, the misled’s hope escalated, a new man in town had emerged, brave, insulant and mediocre. He was the young chiselled man who used to be a champion of youth empowerment cum champion of chicanery. He made a name for himself and his self importance or impotence attracted a lot of attention to the extent that we discovered that he lied to the extent of believing his own lies. I dedicated two weeks to revealing him till he went quiet for some time until he emerged recently with another pervert Christmas wish video of “ . . . kuitana . . . ”, well, old habits are tattoos. William Mutumanje was seen as a champion when he insulted an adult. Such double standards that are common in our opposition champions never cease to amaze me.
Never at any point should you be condoned for insulting adults. No matter what differences you have with your elderly neighbour you do not scold, should you do so, society condemns you, however, wrong the neighbour was. In this instance, Acie, as he calls himself was hailed by subscribers to power wrangles. Such bigotry was subconsciously nubbed by people after they realised what kind of person he is.
He failed to host his talkshow in Bulawayo when he realised that he has no following in the city of respect and order, he resorted to hosting rallies in South Africa’s leafy suburbs of Midrand whose turnouts were disappointing to the extent that his followers at one point in November riled about poor reporting by the movement. Little did they know that some meeting at Kempton Park had less than 20 people, all his entourage of girls wearing black swag. He is one man 2016 should not forget.
Chairman the Liar. He is a very egoistic, extravagant and angry man, at least he owns a line of butcheries in Epworth which he uncouthly acquired, ke wena who follows him and call him “chairman” what do you own besides a Honda Fit if ever you have a bicycle?. Don’t allow yourself to be used by perverted egoistic, angry and lying butchery owners this year. Make it a resolution: SAY NO TO abuse of your intelligence.
Capitalist Niggers
If you have come across the Chika Onyeani authored piece in which he describes the tenets of a capitalist nigger as one with a killer instinct, who takes any opportunity regardless of the people around him, selfishly interested in himself even if it means exploiting the other person then you will agree that Evan Mawarire, Joice Mujuru and Peter Temba Mliswa are niggers for real. I want to dedicate a whole article to the former two because they will headline this year’s political couldrum. I still think they are relevant in our political space and they are both attempting serious come backs so let’s reserve them for next week. Peter, Peter Peter!, yaas!, the man who shocked Norton.
The chap, who lost in Hurungwe, went to another constituency to win. Seriously though, people of Norton, you never dared ask yourselves why the Hurungwe people rejected him and you voted for him, do you honestly think you are much smarter than people who have been with him for a long time. He took the opportunity of facing Zanu-PF in a city that was controversial, he duped all opposition parties into supporting him and immediately after his win he ridiculed Joice Mujuru to Tsvangirayi.
That was a prelude of how the opposition coalition will collapse, need I say more about it lest I pre-empty my premiere on the 2017 collapse of Zimbabwe’s opposition. Temba made sure that he is a demanded political commodity; once a villain he suddenly became a victim and opposition sympathised with him and when his end game was achieved he spit in their face.
Such is the behaviour of a capitalist nigger, he doesn’t care about the process, what maketh him is the end result. He is not guided by deontological hallucinations, he knows politics is realism and even cheating people into securing his interests is justified to him.
As you reflect on the past year and we prepare for the fall of opposition, remember these phenomenal failures that some of you associated with: Bulawayo City Council led by damaged MDC-T councillors’ failure to plan and why it should fall, lies by William Mutumanje, the goodness of the national pledge and how the protest failed, the tajamuka slumber and its shape shifting image, #thisflag as a ticket to America and a tour around the world, hive of hashtags which is an old key on any handset and how it does not change the state of being, Nelson Chamisa’s ordination, we all know the fate of such, factionalism in the revolutionary party and how it’s been conquered and above all don’t forget to pray for Morgan Tsvangirai, the “almighty” opposition champion should be ready for 2018. We don’t want to hear a confetti of excuses when MDC-T is confused on whose face to put on the palm and the initial after MDC-.
Micheal Mhlanga is a research and strategic communication specialist and is currently serving Leaders for Africa Network (LAN) as the Programmes and Public Liaison Officer. He also administrates multiple youth public dialogue forums in Zimbabwe including the annual Reading Pan Africanism Symposium (REPS) and Back to Pan Africanism Conference.
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