Chronicle Editor
Michael Mhlanga
FIFTY years ago, on 18 March, the erudite Herbert Chitepo fell. The man is well-known for calling out hypocrisy and his gallantry in debating policy, philosophy and politics. I have always asked myself, with that wit, what would have Chitepo done to right the wrongs the masses are believing? What would have been in his position in responding to the polarisation rampant in our country, fuelled by misfired propaganda?
Learning from correct history, Chitepo is a beacon to young people who aspire to craft challenging narratives which relentlessly subject them as enemies of their own progress. He represents that which re-organises a wrong dominant order in societies which comfort themselves with self-aggrandised caricatures to self-suit. Among the lawyers I know, I am yet to find one to compare to his intellectual dexterity which should not be mistaken for our mass-present regurgitating law interpreters.
1979: Memories back then; questions with no answers today
As I pen this article, seated in a tiny room in Mutare, I am reading the former President Robert Mugabe’s 1979 memorial speech on the Chitepo Day. I continue to have a monologue, questioning: What would Chitepo say about miscalculated politics, factionalism, disenchanted nationalists and misrepresented semantics? All these simple sounding but hard to answer questions clogged my mind until I thought of how articulate he was if he were to debate and explain policies that are pro-poor and remind everyone of the real reason of liberation.
If Chitepo were alive, he would tell us to call out hypocrites and political misogynists. Society and idea consumers have been dogmatised that propaganda is referral to government communication only yet the largest production of it is in the public space currently dispatched easily through new technology. To those who have no history of media, language and politics let me notify you that propaganda is information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda. It’’s often driven by presenting facts selectively — sometimes lying by omission to encourage a particular synthesis or perception. They calculatingly use loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented. It’s not surprising that just before reading this passage you have had a dosage of propaganda.
The moment we don’t sieve information and fabricated challenging discourses, we cease to be thinkers in and out of ourselves. When anyone creates even the worst of reasons why and how we have nationally failed using fabricated information either inflated or otherwise, that is propaganda. When government introduces a policy, promotes its ideas, gathers support from scribes, its selectively called propaganda, when anyone but the government does the same, it’s called awareness and political education. Such hypocrisy has descended on the public who now subscribe to the same noun references but different classifications for reasons not even known to them. How better are you from the others you bedevil? Ask yourself, what would thinkers like Herbert Chitepo say?
If politics is the ticket into Heaven, many shall remember the parable of Lazarus and the rich man; you shall not taste the kingdom of Heaven because of your resistant hypocrisy. Our keenness to make informed choices should drive us to avoid selective criticism. Some of us have forgotten to remember that in 2017 Joyce Mujuru suddenly became one who is poor like us and lied to our face that she owns nothing, what kind of clumsy would we be to let that slide and assume it’s not propaganda?
As I said, propaganda is a perfect lying tool, it’s important to filter messages and analyse the encoder, bitter ones often slur in their wailings, remember all of them who have made many suffer and are suddenly pretentious of caring and sharing the masses’ struggles.
Again, it’s March, Women’s Month, I ask myself how thinkers like Chitepo would have treated issues of selective amnesia when addressing gender inequality and abuse of women by either halves of politics. I don’t know how you feel about political leaders who continue raping women, have records of all types of gender-based violence and some have been or are always on escapades of exploiting women using their positions of influence. Don’t you think it’s abject disrespect of women and such chauvinistic behaviour deserves a call out any day.
Well, some of our friends, vocal in calling out the other choose to deliberately keep quiet when they lie and parade as champions of gender empowerment. They selectively omit that their 2005 split was tribal because they hated the late Gibson Sibanda and Welshman Ncube to the point of hiring thugs to beat up even the janitor at Harvest House. You are not told that because in propaganda, you have to be politically correct. To those who know, why have you not called them out? Are you immune to conviction that your objectivity is sublimed when it’s critical matters?
There is a lot of propaganda crafted and dispensed, too much for me to write here, but this piece is meant to trigger your thoughts to look at things objectively. Do not allow your mind to be a monochrome lest you be subjected to worse abuse than you are made to believe you are in today. When you are continuously fed with a confusing analysis of how electoral fraud unfolds, have you ever asked if dispossessing Zec of its constitutional mandate makes any sense? Are those crying foul really genuine? A myriad of questions arise on the level of political hypocrisy and lack of identifying worse propaganda in other cahoots.
I am reminded of what the former President RG Mugabe said on 18 March 1979: “Our main task today as we remind ourselves that the sad death of Comrade Chitepo and Comrade Shamiso is no other than to strengthen ourselves in our affirmed stand to move in their footsteps and refuse to be enticed into betraying the revolution.” #rememberingChitepo
Online Reporter