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Hypocrisy. Yes, that is the word. Hypocrites are disgusting people, but they also make interesting subjects of study. Best of all, they teach us what we ought not to be: that is, if the hypocritical pot calls the kettle black, we know that it is such a bad thing to be throwing stones if you live in a glass house. But a brief history and etymology on the words, hypocrisy and hypocrite, according to one source: “The word hypocrisy comes from the Greek hypokrisis, which means “jealous”, “play-acting”, “acting out”, “coward” or “dissembling”.
“The word hypocrite is from the Greek word hypokritis, the agentive noun associated with hypokrinomai “judgment”, kritiki (critics), presumably because the performance of a dramatic text by an actor was to involve a degree of interpretation, or assessment.”
The word was also used in relation to public performances, which in Ancient Greece was unsuited to respectable offices.
In Athens around 4th century BC, there lived a man called Demosthenes, who was a great orator.
Demosthenes ridiculed Aeschines, who is said to have been a successful actor before taking up politics, “as a hypocrite whose skill at impersonating characters on stage made him an untrustworthy politician”.
Explains the source: “This negative view of the hypokrites, perhaps combined with the Roman disdain for actors, later shaded into the originally neutral hypokrisis. It is this later sense of hypokrisis as “play-acting”, i.e., the assumption of a counterfeit persona, that gives the modern word hypocrisy its negative connotation.”
“D” stands for Didymus
Or is it “Disease” or worse still, Daily News?
We have been following events unfolding in the country, and in particular a private club called Zanu-PF, which happens to make the governing elite in Zimbabwe.
One man, called Didymus Mutasa, is aggrieved to be no longer a big shot of that same club following internal processes that rendered him redundant.
He was never expelled but has since fallen mightily to become just an ordinary card-carrying member of the party by virtue of having lost elections for a key body called a central committee, which loss made him ineligible for bigger roles in the party, which he previously enjoyed, at the last count, as secretary for administration.
He is a bitter man.
This has caused him to seek to reverse his ill fortunes, which also afflicted other heavies such as one Teurai Ropa Mujuru, who happened to be the Vice President of this country.
Now we hear that he is burning the midnight oil and engaging in nocturnal meetings so that he can be back at the top and, in his wisdom or lack of it, stronger.
This is where one observes that Didymus Mutasa is fancying himself a kingmaker, or better still in his mind, the king of rebellious legions that fell from heaven.
Someone this week cynically observed that his delusions border on some affliction – a disease.
Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa is convinced that is a correct diagnosis.
Did you hear what he said in Gweru on Thursday?
Suffice to say, Cde Mutasa, whether or not suffering from a rare Didymus Disease, gave us a lot to talk about this week. He no doubt will feature on The Radar prominently, at least for now, before he politically goes wherever MH370 went.
We shall not dwell much on his statement, which by now, many are familiar with.
After all, was it not Shakespeare that told us that madman’s letters are no epistles?
Daily Didymus devotion
We had posed that “D” may stand for disease or, worse, Daily News.
Daily News is a local rag, that has is synonymous with the opposition MDC, with whom it has shared the feeding trough of dirty foreign sponsorship.
They, of course, deny it. We expect them to.
Nowadays Daily News is synonymous with Didymus Mutasa.
Mutasa is now a de facto member of the opposition, and their marriage makes perfect sense.
That is why the daily has had daily devotion to the newest number in the regime change agenda.
The others in that rank include former member and spokesperson of zanu-pf, Rugare Gumbo, who has been pouring bilious heart out at the paper.
Didymus’ romance with the Daily News looks to have ignited some months ago when he sent his mukuwasha to defend him and his questionable liberation credentials that the irrepressible Chris Mutsvangwa had exposed.
Now every issue of the paper is dedicated, nay, devoted to Didymus and his gang.
Other shadowy characters that have been found undesir- able in zanu-pf have found a voice in the Daily News, although they choose, for now, to remain nefariously and treacherously and cowardly shrouded in anonymity.
Time will tell, though.
The Bible teaches about how things done in the night shall be proclaimed by day, doesn’t?
Sons of Aeschines
We are not done with our friends at the Daily News.
These friends of ours have discovered how wonderful it is to prefix what they like to refer to as State media with the word “lickspittle” meaning “fawning” or “grovelling” (character).
The accusation stems from the so-called State media’s partiality towards zanu-pf and the status quo.
The Daily News perhaps thinks it is independent.
Heavens know it is not – which is perhaps true for all in the profession.
Ask John Swinton.
One day in 1880 he told us something seminal about journalists and journalism.
It is hard to swallow.
Let us hear it anyway, for the record:
He said: “There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent Press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
“I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.
“If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent Press?”
He also added: “We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
We do not have to like John Swinton, or say we are exactly the lickspittles he thought we could ever be.
But we are somehow, all.
It is only hypocrites that deny.
Or it has something to do with an age-old proclivity of the log-laden eye?
—Devil’s dues—
But let gives us to our friends, some of the adjectives and epithets make good, humorous reading.
Let’s have a select few: “blatant lies by senior Zanu-PF”, “heavily armed police descended on Manzou Farm”, “Dinha…denied vehemently…arguing falsely and rather self-servingly that Grace was a ‘philanthropist’”, “callous removals”, “wanton destruction”…
And that is only one story so rich in language!
This week’s award goes to whoever taught English to these ‘wonderful’ writers.
Online Reporter