Mukundu’s jibes lack reason

permanent parallel reasoning.
But his article on President Mugabe titled “Mugabe’s birthday: Fate of the people” in the Daily News of February 24, 2012 was shockingly abrasive, very simplistic to a point of being predictable and on the side of amnesia. Published just on the heels of President Mugabe’s 88th birthday, Mukundu premised his article on an interview the Head of State had with ZBC’s Tazzen Mandizvidza and sought to besmirch not just the interviewee but all those he imagined having organised the interview.
Poignantly, he paints a picture of a President who has driven us to nowhere, detoured, and dropped us in a no man’s land to suffer eternally at the mercy of life vagaries. Devoid of real factual analysis Mukundu resorted to popular rhetorical caricature of the President spewing nothing but simple puerile synonymous with the white discourse that discredits President Mugabe for having lived long and defended the territorial integrity of his country.
It even gets more disgusting when he dismisses Mandizvidza’s interview as contrived and devoid of any illumination when he says; “It was therefore not so different this week as we awaited the President’s interview with the ZBC, elaborately choreographed detail by Ministry of Information, meaning George Charamba. I am sure the questions are checked and rechecked and the interviewer possibly sat with his wife at home for one rehearsal after another . . .”
I have had three interviews with the President in my journalism career. I can testify that there was at no time that I was under duress or when my questions where rechecked by any official from the Ministry of Information and for anyone to cast such aspersions is nothing but sheer childish smearing.
It is also preposterous for anyone to suggest that there was nothing newsworthy about the whole interview unless Mukundu is either deaf or blind or both.
Certainly, the interview was to me both news worthy and beneficial for it illuminated on the thinking process behind the man and his world view on various issues including the continued bullying of West on weaker nations.
It was my first time to hear the President openly expressing his exasperation with some leaders in Western Africa who seem to have abrogated the founding principles of the African Unity by pandering to whims of Europe and United Sates.
It was also my first time to hear the President complain about the lack of seriousness exhibited by his son Robert Mugabe (Jr) in his studies as evidenced by his failure to pass his Advanced Level. The President talked about virtually about everything under the sun from the inclusive Government, the economy and impending elections. I don’t what on earth what Mandizvidza was supposed to ask or may Mukundu should at least have given us a pointer in his article.
This kind of vindictive rhetoric resonates well within the corridors of white Rhodesian driven MDC and other such corridors for it seeks nothing but to compartmentalise Mugabe as a monster and whose life should not be celebrated in as much as they would not see any problem with Rhodes’ grave at Matopos.
Is it not a fact Mukundu that when tracing the life of President Mugabe since independence there are certain fundamental milestones in his reign that one can not help but highlight as historical records. After independence, President Mugabe extended a hand of reconciliation to our erstwhile oppressors much to the surprise of many in the Western corridors who had painted a picture of him as an avowed terrorist of Marxist grounding.
Where in the world had such a policy embraced? It was that policy that facilitated a smooth transition during a volatile period in our country’s history.
And when the Matabeleland disturbances got to such a debilitating level, President Mugabe and the late Father Zimbabwe Dr Joshua Nkomo struck the 1987 Unity Accord with least outside interference.
Is it also not important to also acknowledge achievements that President Mugabe marshalled in the education sector? Zimbabwe today boasts of arguably a high literacy rate of over 86 percent owing to the policy of education for all that the President enunciated at the dawn of our independence.
Tendai Biti, Job Sikhaka, the late Learnmore Jongwe, Charlton Hwende, Munyaradzi Gwisai, Prof Welshman Ncube, Prof Arthur Mutambara and other several individuals were beneficiaries of Mugabe’s education reforms that Mukundu conveniently decides to ignore.
Is it not a statement of fact that at independence Zimbabwe had one university, which today have risen to 13? And it not important to highlight the fact that technical colleges grew from 2 to 10 in 2011?
These are facts that one cannot ignore as we recount the life of President Mugabe. It is sad that the smear tactics that Mukundu employs camouflage any valid points he could have. And in the words of Richard Dawkins, “not only does such lazy rhetoric dodge the issue, but people who resort to (such attacks) all too often go on to demonstrate their inability to support a reasoned debate on matters of fact.”