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Perspective Stephen Mpofu
THE Herald — long live Zimbabwe’s premier daily along with its stable mates, Chronicle, The Sunday Mail and Sunday News for publishing information that is in the public interest and in that way fulfilling their roles of societal transformation, whether the likes of Cde Rugare Gumbo like it or not, damns, nay martyrs the publication.
The Zanu-PF national spokesperson has come under fire from some party provinces for attacking The Herald for publishing a story based on documented reports about the alleged involvement of Vice-President Joice Mujuru in some business deals.
Cde Gumbo’s critics claim his unwarranted outbursts against the public media were an oblique support for a faction they allege he supports and the political leadership in his home province of the Midlands and in Matabeleland North, they have declared that Gumbo compromised his position as the revolutionary party’s spokesperson and should therefore cease representing Zanu-PF in that position.
By implication, Cde Gumbo also attacked The Herald’s sister publication the Chronicle, that also carried the story, while remaining suspiciously quiet on so-called private media stories often fleshed out on facts that bear no shred of truth whatsoever and are intended to put either President Mugabe or the First Lady in bad light in the public eye.
To be sure, a process of political decantation appears truly under way ahead of the ruling party’s elective congress in December with the cream being exposed as the right people to hold party and government positions after Congress, while the whey is destined to their proper political disposal pits.
Also under scrutiny is just how Zanu-PF as the revolutionary governing party views the role of the press — that is, whether it should be allowed to expose the riff-raff in the revolutionary party for it to be discarded rather than be allowed to enjoy succor in dark corners of the party, or have the press intimidated, even muzzled to portray only the façade — patriotism of those people who have fattened themselves through opportunities given to them by the President while surreptiously kicking him back in the teeth by supporting anti-revolutionary efforts that want to topple him for all the sacrifice he has made in support of the country in both difficult times and when the political climate was good.
Reports of a sinister plot to remove President Mugabe from power can only be believed to have the support of Zimbabwe’s enemies hell-bent for so long to exact regime change in order to reverse land reform, but with their efforts coming to naught thanks to President Mugabe’s steadfastness and dedication in maintaining our hard won independence that, this pen humbly believes, is the true revolution in human dignity.
With the rumblings going on in the ruling party, it is no exaggeration to suggest that an unrevolutionary enemy has gripped the minds of some of our leaders who, constipated by lives of comfort and money, courtesy of positions they hold in the party and in government and are now busy unwittingly subverting the unity of purpose that must be a sine qua non for Zimbabwe’s security and unimpeded social and economic development.
It is so obvious now that the woods are standing out from the trees so that the masses who hold the trump card either through their representatives at Congress or en masse during general elections should put political and patriotic cripples in their proper care places so that Zimbabwe may march resolutely forward with the right leaders in the right places.
What this also suggests is that the commission of inquiry into factionalism should provide a no- holds-barred report of its findings so that the weeds masquerading as genuine crops in our political system can taste their political death knell.
The political system in Zimbabwe, as in other African countries is still far from maturation. But luckily for Zimbabwe, the exposures of fifth columnists in the party as well as other potential running dogs of imperialism that appear keen to have the hands on the clock of freedom and independence turned back are likely, in the final analysis, to cleanse our political system of these masquerades and contradictions as a way of purifying our politics and with that the system of governance.
Stability, peace and tranquility as agents of development will remain a far cry as long as there are Trojan horses in the country ready to smuggle in the enemy for purposes of subjugating our people as was the case during oppressive white colonial rule.
That elderly war veterans, the very people who went through thick and thin to liberate this country, are rallying their support behind the President by distancing themselves from outbursts by some so-called guerillas can only confirm that the revolution is truly on course to achieve its goals of making Zimbabwe a truly free, independent and sovereign state.
Needless to say, this process can only be strengthened by media that truly belong in Zimbabwe and have the best interests of the people of this country at heart by exposing the truth without fear or favour as a way of cleansing our society of any corruption or any such ills as will detract from the objectives of the revolution that cost precious lives in order for those who live on to enjoy life as God ordained it — more fully than was the case in colonial Rhodesia.
An underlying message in the above discourse is that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
derick.khumalo