It’s all about power and security

Reason Wafawarova on Thursday
WHEN Babylon displaced Assyria and Egypt as the world’s dominant empire in the sixth century Before Christ, Nebuchadnezzar became so powerful that he easily invaded Judah and captured Jerusalem, exiling to Babylon Israel’s professional class, military and scholars. But the more power Nebuchadnezzar accumulated the more insecure he became. Biblical history tells us that in the second year of his reign his mind was so troubled that he could not sleep, and that he had troublesome dreams. After one of such dreams we read that he summoned the magicians, the enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers so they could tell him what he had dreamed.

It turned out that his dream had been about a towering figure, perhaps a reflection of his daily thoughts over how he wanted the world to view his own stature. Empire builders are obsessed with the idea of becoming impregnable giants, towering over everyone else, and today that insatiable desire cannot be missed in the politics of the United States of America — the self-proclaimed world leader of our day.

What bothered Nebuchadnezzar most was that his dream statue had feet of clay and in his dream the statue came crushing down, the way of every empire and soon to be the fate of the United States, as economists and political analysts predict.

When asked about the contrast of driving luxurious Mercedes Benz vehicles in a sea of poverty, Nelson Chamisa said the gesture was meant to show that his party was “now in power”. This was just after the MDC formations had established a coalition government with ZANU-PF in 2009. His view illustrates very well the thought process of an average African politician — most of the time obsessed with a great drive for power for its won sake.

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr asserts that fear and anxiety are the driving force pushing many to seek political office. It can be argued that fear is not the reason for seeking political power, but it can hardly be contested that fear always comes with having power.

Those in power corridors are more than aware that they are targets of jealousy, and that they stand in the cross-hairs of their competitors. Morgan Tsvangirai is no different, and he views any prospect of losing power within his party as a terrible fall that must be avoided at all costs. That is fair enough.

As Timothy Keller writes in the book “Counterfeit Gods,” “The higher a person climbs the greater the possibility of a terrible fall.”
Like most leaders wielding political power, Morgan Tsvangirai sees so much to lose in the prospect of him stepping down from the leadership of his party.

At the command of his own pride, the MDC-T leader cannot admit his failures, blaming them all on conspirators who are after destroying his illustrious political career. What Tsvangirai cannot stand is the loss of power and reputation that comes with an admission of his glaring shortcomings.

He cannot admit his error in victimising colleagues like Elton Mangoma, Promise Mkwananzi and Tendai Biti, and he keeps telling himself that he will work his way out of it all. Elton Mangoma’s call for leadership renewal within the MDC-T has forced Tsvangirai’s insecurity to the surface, and no doubt the man is running around the country in an exceedingly uncomfortable way —pretending to be addressing popularly attended rallies, when all he is doing is driving around the country with a tired rented crowd.

One telling thing about powerful people is that they do not want to admit how weak they really feel. When cornered politicians in their insecurity will always seek to overcome their weakness by pretending to be invincible and unlimited.

That is precisely why Nelson Chamisa had to invoke divinity in the political career of Morgan Tsvangirai — vainly claiming that only God can remove Tsvangirai from the leadership of the MDC-T, ostensibly because “God ordained and anointed him.” The foolishness could be hilarious if Zimbabwe did not have so many fanatics in its religious community.

Do we not all brag about our awesome capacity to control our own fate? Do we not convincingly declare that we as a nation are so sovereign that we want to determine our own destiny? We all want to believe that we are masters of our own fate, and captains of our own souls. This is nothing more than a cynical exaggeration of the importance of learning to overcome obstacles in our lives.

We have very limited control over our fate and destiny and we do ourselves a lot of good understanding this simple truth.
Morgan Tsvangirai does not realise that he has no control over a number of things that make up the MDC-T. These include donor funding, who the supporters of the party are, the environment under which the MDC-T co-exists with other parties and above all the thought processes in the minds of party members.

It is safe to suggest that Morgan Tsvangirai does not have control over 90 percent of what makes up his party, but he still views himself as the infinite creator of his organisation — the invulnerable messianic leader on whom every hope must be pinned.

After facing calls to step down Tsvangirai told people at a Harare rally the following, “If you remove me that will be the end of it and you all know that.”

Tsvangirai is a finite and limited man in a world of indomitable forces, and feigning invincibility will not remove his powerlessness.
What politicians in power cannot stand is powerlessness, and history is littered with power idols that manifest in various ways, some through politics and governance, while others through social deviance like serial raping or serial killing.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s reported numerous sexual encounters with a variety of women were perhaps related to his manifesting power obsessions.
In my opinion he did not sleep with all these women because he was attracted to them, but because he was seeking the power of knowing he could sleep with them if he wanted to. Once he achieved that power, he lost interest in them. One can read the narrations of the South African woman to establish this trend.

In his defence we can always be reminded that we must avoid encroaching into the man’s private life — even after ditched women make public screams in protest.

The reason he went into Government with ZANU-PF was perhaps not because he wanted to serve Zimbabweans, but because he wanted the power of knowing that he could lead Zimbabwe. In one moment his power obsessions took a sexual form and during the inclusive government era it took the governance form. Now it has taken the form of opposition politics and on and on the cycle goes. The manifestations are different but his problem is the same — he suffers power obsession.

In all fairness Morgan Tsvangirai is not alone in idolising power to the point of disregarding the concerns of all others. We have the chef culture making it taboo for youngsters to challenge “senior leaders” within ZANU-PF. So worrying is the trend that party leader President Mugabe recently had to make interventions, reigning in long serving provincial factional dons that have for many years declared themselves regional kings in the areas from which they hail.

We cannot have a country where power obsessed people are allowed to fool themselves into believing that they are so important to the country’s political cause that they are immune to leadership challenge.

Like Nebuchadnezzar these are towering statues standing on feet of clay, all waiting for a mighty terrible fall when the time comes.
We have petty personalities terrorising and bullying subordinates at low-level bureaucratic levels, bossing around everyone in the belief that they are wielding power over all others. Some of them are Cabinet Ministers who confuse policy administration with bullying those not privileged with power.

We are talking here of people that use the hammer to fix any problem that may arise.
Dictatorships are a direct product of power idolatry and those that believe in unlimited and unbridled power will often resort to brute force in securing their positions of power.

Nelson Chamisa has been purging and excluding all people suspected of not supporting Tsvangirai’s problematic hold on power, and no doubt he is only doing what he can — otherwise he could do worse, if for example he had state power at his disposal.

At individual level we pretend to be really powerful over the affairs of our lives, bragging about capabilities that we hardly have. Timothy Keller writes that we have no control over 95 percent of what sets the course of our lives. We have no control over the time and place we happen to be born, who our parents are, our social environment, our physical stature, our genetics and so on and so forth.

But there is this pride instinct in us that keeps telling us that we are so powerful and we always want to prove it each to the other.
In fact what we believe is power within us is nothing more than our desperate show of insecurity — an attempt to overcome the weakness within us by making pretentious egoistic declarations.

We do not need these abrasive and harsh leaders who always want to dominate us by posturing as more committed to the moral cause of all others, or as indisputable custodians of our collective feelings. Our liberation struggle was never fought in the context of hailing the gun handlers over all others, or on the converse principle of belittling all others in the name of wearing the freedom fighter tag.

Any attempt to suggest that an impressive liberation struggle history is an entitlement to power must be discredited for what it is — an adulteration of a noble cause in pursuit of lame ambition.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.