Insanity as a Model of Excellence: (The Herald)

From Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia

20 May 2010

The MDC-T information department signs off its statements by declaring that theirs is a party of excellence, and sometimes one wonders whether this is an ideological label or just sweet rhetoric designed to portray a colourful picture of an otherwise chaotic organisation.

One underlying factor that defies excellence will always be the unholy marriage and alliance between the MDC-T and unrepentant elements of colonial Rhodesia, as well as the party’s treasonous political alliance with Western financial backers. The Rhodesians pledged openly at Banket in 2000 that they were going to “invest” in the MDC in order to keep their colonial privileges, particularly the land that they occupied before the Government and the masses moved in to reclaim this stolen heritage.

Europeans through the EU imposed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2002, and the United States imposed ruinous illegal economic sanctions on the country through ZDERA, the US sanctions law in 2001. Other Western outposts like Australia, New Zealand and Canada followed suit and also imposed various measures of sanctions on Zimbabwe, that include travel bans on Government officials and a lot of other victimised people who are seen as standing in the way of the MDC’s resolve to “remove you (Mugabe) violently”.Other forms of sanctions include sporting bans, tourist bans, dissuading investors and cutting all bilateral dealings with Zimbabwe.

For the US, the sanctions included blocking Zimbabwe’s voting rights at the IMF, until recently, and they still include voting against extension of any credit to Zimbabwe, and lobbying all US allies to follow suit.
Founder members of the MDC have openly confessed that ZDERA was initially drafted by the MDC in Zimbabwe and that the party has always been instrumental in compiling lists of persons and companies to be included on the various sanctions lists that exist between European countries, the United States and other Western outposts.
Right now the United States is revising ZDERA so that they can exclusively fund the activities of the MDC-T within Zimbabwe’s inclusive Government and the Prime Minister is on record endorsing such insanity in the name of “rewarding reformists”. It is hard to imagine any country that would welcome such brazen divisiveness, let alone applaud it as some form of positive rewarding.

If one is persuaded to think that the MDC-T foreign policy is insane then they are bound to be convinced that insanity can be a model of excellence if they take a look at the party’s domestic policies, or is it lack of such. Looking at the party’s internal challenges and thinking that the people running the information department of the same party still maintain that they have something close to excellence is just ironic.

It is like one of those moments when the wife of a morally errant social dignitary feels like grabbing the microphone to correct those who insist at public functions on such salutations as “Your Honour”, “Honourable” or “Your Excellency”; and she feels like declaring “Your Foolishness!”, “Dishonourable!” or any such demeaning title.

It makes one irate to see an insane person used as a model of sanity. It renders the world meaningless when the sanity of an errant adulterer is not questioned. Equally politics becomes a joke when a political party whose Headquarters are known more for internal violent attacks on its senior officials than for sound administration hails itself publicly as a party of excellence.

The MDC-T National Council met on the 16th of May to discuss the thuggish violence that took place at Harvest House, or is it Havoc House, where some youths did exactly what has gone on unreported for ages; what happened in 2004 and 2005 before the MDC split into two splinters – they violently attacked senior party officials including the party’s Managing Director, Toendepi Shonhe.

The party of excellence, as the MDC-T calls itself, resolved to sanitise this insanity by declaring “a zero tolerance” policy towards violence, as if anything less is expected from anyone else. They also resolved to expel five youths who were singled out as the guilty ones on this matter and party members were barred to deal with these in any party related capacity.

Of course this was to avoid a repetition of what Morgan Tsvangirai did in 2005 when he reinstated expelled youths, who like these five, had terrorised and brutalised senior MDC officials claiming that their wrath was on behalf of Tsvangirai.

The MDC must be commended for at least taking disciplinary action on political thugs, but a resolution that expels criminals from an organisation without handing them over to the police for prosecution falls not only short of excellence, but common sense.

That the MDC-T is at the forefront of accusing the Zimbabwe police of not doing enough in bringing to book political thugs they claim are roaming the streets “scot free”, and then they themselves do not see the need for the thugs within their own hands to be handed over to the same police is just brazen hypocrisy.

Why should thugs from elsewhere end up in courts of law when it is good enough for those from the MDC-T to get away with internal party action only?

The other resolution that was passed was that “conflict management teams” would be dispatched to grass root structures train people in “non-confrontational” settling of disputes and to deal with “trauma for victims of violence”. Such a move would make a lot of sense for a party that is seeking to achieve excellence but it makes a total joke of an established “party of excellence”.

Of interest was the resolution “to establish a sustainable cadreship program” and we are told this is in order to ensure that “core values of democracy, human rights, and women rights and solidarity” are instilled.

That resolution sounds like borrowed from the National Youth Service Training programme, albeit with a new slant of core values limited to the MDC-T Western-prescribed agenda, and silent on core values of the national interest, like patriotism, discipline or self reliance.

So it is okay for the MDC-T to establish a “cadreship program” but it is “corrosive propaganda” for the Government of Zimbabwe to do the same with patriotic national cadres?

This writer has been challenged on the relativity of the goals of the NYS program on so many occasions where questions have been asked about whose idea of patriotism the program follows, or whose idea of discipline.

Many times this writer has been told that the NYS program is all about brainwashing youths and nothing else.
So whose idea of democracy is this “cadreship program” going to follow? Whose idea of human rights is it going to follow? How is the MDC-T going to implement this program? Will it be farfetched to suggest that the targeted people will be brainwashed blind by Western propaganda on democracy and human rights?

If a self-proclaimed party of excellence believes in indoctrinating its youth into cadreship why would it be too wrong for a whole Government to teach its youth about the national interest and the value of patriotism?

It is rather strange that one of the resolutions was on the so-called outstanding issues, and what the MDC National Council decided to resolve on was reminding the inclusive Government on the Bennett issue, the Gono/Tomana appointment issues, and something on Ministerial mandates.

The Government is already aware of these issues and the Principals are said to be studying the final report on these issues and clearly a repetitive resolution is not only empty but just misplaced.

The chairing of Cabinet cannot be an outstanding issue because Cabinet has got a Chair in President Mugabe and when he is not available whoever will be Acting President will chair cabinet. There is no logic simpler than that.

The issue of National Heroes is probably worth discussing but resolving to take it to SADC does not sound like an excellent idea.

It is interesting that the council resolved to condemn the current indigenisation policy on the basis that it is “elitist, selective and a mere vehicle for further enrichment of the rich few” while on the other hand they also resolved that preference should be “growing of the economy” and that focus must be on the “overwhelming imperator of growing and investment against the fundamental obligation of broad based empowerment”.

So the MDC-T is against elitism and a selective vehicle for the enrichment of a few local people on one hand while their focus is an overwhelming imperator of growing foreign investment against the fundamental obligation of broad based empowerment.

In short the MDC-T is against both the enrichment of the local elite and the broad based empowerment of the masses. Who does this leave as a beneficiary of Zimbabwe’s wealth and resources? It is the “overwhelming imperator” of foreign investment.

One can understand how overwhelming it must be for the MDC-T to secure maximum benefits for foreign investors, who in the public MDC-T lexicon are strictly limited to Western investors.

One would be tempted to say it is a contradiction for the MDC-T to criticise both local elitism and broad based empowerment in the same paragraph, but when one knows who does MDC-T thinking the contradiction disappears.

Western investors want to bring their money, hire cheap labour, export products, make profits and bank the money in their home country. Partnering with local elites or any of the locals is just not part of the capitalist model. Broad based empowerment is seen as a communist fundamental doctrine and must not even be entertained.

To their credit, the MDC-T bemoaned “speculative rentals” by greedy landlords and they also bemoaned unrealistic rates by local authorities.

These greedy land lords were treated as heroes when the MDC-T was celebrating the fall of the economy over the last ten years and each time they hiked rentals on a speculative basis they were seen as allies in the regime change agenda. The same goes for retailers who made super profits at the same time, and when Government moved in to set up a National Pricing Commission the MDC-T cried foul and the speculators were hailed as heroes in the “democratic struggle” perhaps also earmarked for the National Heroes’ Acre if that “outstanding issue” can be resolved in the MDC-T’s favour.

It is not going to be easy to tell the greedy landlords to stop the sabotage just because the MDC-T is now part of Government. They were greedy speculators when ZANU PF was ruling alone and they are still greedy speculators today.

An honourable party of excellence does not see comrades and heroes in criminals just because their actions happen to make life difficult for its political opponents. Such a party is a sham political party and must not count itself among democrats, let alone among people of excellence.

Also to their credit the MDC national council noted that there is unjustified expenditure through Travel and Subsistence allowances for civil servants as well as through the purchasing of vehicles. We have heard of public officials with fleets of cars to their name both in Central Government and in Local Government and that simply must be condemned.

Finally, the council took a swipe at the Zimbabwe Media Commission for wasting the first three months in office and they seemed to suggest that their expectation was for the Commission to end what they called “hate speech and corrosive propaganda in The Herald”.

This writer can carry tonnes of hate speech and corrosive propaganda from SW Africa Radio, VOA, The Zimbabwean and The Changing Times if asked to do so. The ZMC will have a very busy schedule if they are going to practically censor and edit what media units publish, and maybe there must be a Media Court to determine what constitutes hate speech and propaganda.

This writer would be the first one to file a series of cases on hate speech and propaganda against the country and people of Zimbabwe by Western sponsored media outlets.

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