Makoni team ashamed of their existence

By Reason Wafawarova March 15, 2008

When Dr Simba Makoni held his maiden press conference to announce his intentions to run for the presidency on 5 February, he initially maintained that he was still part of ZANU PF. His sidekick, Kudzai Mbudzi even boldly declared that the Makoni project would maintain a ZANU PF ideology. Now Makoni is somersaulting on his own manifesto and is telling people that he never said he “would give back land to the enemy.” Of course Makoni never exactly said those words but did say that he would ensure that land was distributed in a way that addresses production and not colonial imbalances – adding that he would do this by way of “re-engagement and renewal”. Makoni cannot deny that he has added to his land policy a threat that some people would face some “gnashing of teeth”.

Makoni even scoffed at the farm mechanisation scheme saying,“Let us not make a mockery of our people tichivapa magejo nezvikochikari.” This was quiet revealing in as far as Makoni’s touch with grassroots support is concerned. This showed a typical middle class mentality – a middle class prejudice that looks down upon the views of the poor masses and the peasantry.

This is the mentality we all got from school. The school taught us this whole concept that anyone who works with his hands is below you, that the average Punha Svinurai is a stupid fool and that rural farming is for failures in life and that scotch carts and ploughs are degrading. The middle class justifies the fact that some people have more privileges by saying that it is all because they are more qualified. This is the prejudice that says the white settlers who were farming on 75% of Zimbabwe’s arable land before the year 2000 enjoyed that privilege because they were more qualified and skilled and not because they were beneficiaries of the brutality and ruin of colonialism.

Everything we learn at university is calculated to give us that superiority feeling. This is the learning that has led to some people to have a mind that continues to say: “How stupid the average Zimbabwean peasant is! How can they vote for Mugabe and ZANU PF?” Of course the peasants are no stupider than a middle class delusional citizen who believes that imperialism loves them and is ready to make them a Rockfeller or a Bill Gates just because it allowed them to pass through a university.

The current middle class, a class Makoni is trying hard to stand for – is a product of the capitalist imperialist system that currently runs the economic affairs of this world. No imperialist army will ever carry a banner that reads, “Blood for Oil!” Bill Gates would never come to your library desk and say, “Hie, buddy, how are you going? Are you studying hard for your degree so that you can come to work for me and make me richer?”

George W. Bush would never say, “Imperialism makes a great society.” Neither would we ever hear a capitalist investor say, “I am a proud capitalist”. No, they do not do that these days although, as late as the 1920s it was quiet fashionable for one to declare themselves an imperialist in Western circles. Now the capitalist imperialist system has gone incognito. There is a reason for this as we shall see later.
A gang of people who proclaim that there is no injustice in the international system and who insist that they stand for freedom and democracy are now in charge of the imperialist system. They will never accept that they are the brutal killers of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis. Instead we are likely to see them extending their Arab killing mission into Iran before the end of this year.

They would rather blame the “terrorists” for all the carnage we have seen in the Middle East since the turn of the century. In other words they are ashamed of their existence. They have to hide it. And there are good reasons for it, chief among them being that the imperialist club is so small in terms of its numerical value. They are dead scared of the wretched masses of this world – they are very, very afraid.

This is the system that created and nurtured the opposition MDC through Tony Blair’s efforts and the system would never allow the MDC to say “We are fighting on behalf of imperialist farmers whose land was grabbed by the wretched poor masses of Zimbabwe”. No, the system would not allow the MDC to identify themselves as such although some in the MDC like Fidelis Mhashu are obviously too dump to stick to the guises of the system that created their own existence.

Morgan Tsvangirai openly emulated the folly of Mhashu when he has been captured calling for sanctions on more than one occasion, at one time calling on South Africa to cut off fuel and electricity supplies. Despite these lapses and moments of foolishness the imperialist system would not allow the MDC to admit that there are sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe – blaming the faltering economy on alleged bad policies on the part of the incumbent government. This hypocritical posturing is simply a sign that imperialists and their surrogates are ashamed of their own existence. They cannot even stand with their own principles openly. They are scared.

The corporate ladder of imperialism is a strait jacket. Whether one aspires to go up the ladder politically or in business the demands are the same. On the way up, you sell your individuality; you commit yourself to the values of the system. One learns very fast that in return for worshiping market forces, for personal capitalist discipline, for dressing like a professional, for believing in donor aid and the rest of it – in return you get privileges. Imperialism runs on the basis of privileges and that is what holds the capitalist society together.

This is the system that has won over the ambitious Simba Makoni, the childish and clownish Arthur Mutambara, the obnoxious Dumiso Dabengwa, the hopeless Wilson Khumbula, the maverick Magaret Dongo and the jingoistic Edgar Tekere. By the way who told Dumiso Dabengwa to stand up when people are looking for political heavyweights? Anyway, these people are all surrendering to imperialistic forces and dying to get ahead of Morgan Tsvangirai in accessing the imperial crumbs that comes with a conversion to the capitalist doctrine. Roy Bennet thinks it is totally unfair that these mafikizolos in treachery seem to be getting preferential treatment from the diplomatic representatives of imperialism in Harare.

Roy Bennet actually boasts that the Zimbabwe crisis did not just fall from the hell of Lucifer but “is all part of the struggle” by the MDC and he threatens the crisis will perpetuate in the event of an MDC loss in March.
So much for the argument that there is only mere travel bans imposed on Zimbabwe and that there are no sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Anyway, like the MDC before them, the renegade former ZANU PF members in Simba Makoni’s nameless project will be subordinate to the dictates of imperialism and will try to hide their true identity.

Already Simba Makoni has blamed the economic problems faced by the country on bad policies and his overrated companion, Dumiso Dabengwa seems to be of the opinion that the problems are a result of the age of the ZANU PF leadership. That is the typical imperialist approach. It tells one to pick on anything but the real reasons for imperialist machinations.

Makoni and his nameless team are coming in the name of democracy just like all imperialists would want to do. After all even Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet and Joseph Mobutu were all propped up shamelessly by imperialist rulers – all in the name of democracy. Makoni told those who were at his first Press conference that he had elected himself for presidential candidate and was offering himself to the people as such. Now Dabengwa says he approached Makoni and he claims that it is him who elected Simba Makoni as one of the candidates for the presidential race. Whichever way, the two men are just standing in disguise and they are not brave enough to identify themselves for who they are. They are ashamed of what they stand for. They are ashamed of their own existence.

Makoni is standing for a democracy that takes people as mere voters where one can just say: “Okay, everybody, there are elections coming, now you can vote for me because I feel I am superior to the rest.” President Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai are standing for a democracy where structures within their respective political parties have offered them to the electorate as their preferred candidates – in other words an all inclusive democracy limited to the members of their respective political organizations. Mr. Langton Towungana is standing for a democracy that is governed by a theocracy as he claims that he was told by God to contest the presidential election and he says the instruction from High Above came in 2003. We all sincerely hope Mr. Towungana will not turn out to be blasphemous and say God got defeated in the election, should he end up on the losing side as it would appear from carnal eyes.

Makoni and his team of independent candidates are of course independent from political accountability that comes with belonging to a political party but they are definitely not independent from the master whose interest is reclaiming Zimbabwe into the family of imperialist subordinate nations – especially through a reversal of the land reform programme.

Is it not a shame that both Makoni and Dabengwa are trying their best to identify with the revolution because the reality of their new political inclinations is too ghastly to contemplate? If these comrades stand for the revolution as they claim, they should have stayed with the revolution and they should have voiced all their concern within the confinements of the revolution. If they have the courage to stand against President Mugabe in a national election then they should have had the guts to stand against him before 10 000 delegates at the ZANU PF congress.

Now Dumiso Dabengwa tells the nation that the name ZANU PF irritates him – that after twenty years of flirtation with the party; a time he spend fighting for respect from ordinary people of Matebeleland. Jabulani Sibanda and Jonathan Moyo must be puzzled by the utterings of Dabengwa after being subjected to so much torture for not according Dabengwa the seniority he bestowed upon himself as one of the ZANU PF gurus of the region. Now the man turns up to say he never meant what he was doing anyway. How amazing!

The move by Makoni and Dabengwa is a pre-meditated one emanating from political affiliations and convictions dating back to the days of the armed struggle. These people caused problems during détente and they created big problems for the struggle by their inclinations towards Ian Smith’s horse-rider internal settlement proposals. They turned around at independence and after independence and pretended to be part of the people’s revolution and now they have gone back to their real ideological home – yet they will insist on an identity that resembles the people’s struggle.

Abel Muzorewa tried it, Jeremiah Chikerema tried it, Ndabaningi Sithole tried it and Edgar Tekere has tried it before and he knows well that such posturing will always face inevitable defeat.

Zimbabweans will never expect Makoni or Tsvangirai to say, “We are pro-imperialism. We are pro-West. We want to submit to imperial authority so as to end the sanctions and live on aid that is depended on our good lap-dog behaviour within the international system”. That will not happen but as they say, action speaks louder than words, and what we have listened to so far has given us enough indication of whom we are dealing with.

March 29 is a time for discernment, a time for reflection, a time for the defence of the revolution and a time for children to identify with their parents. It is a time to identify with one’s history. It is a time to vote for the national interest and a time to stand by Zimbabwe as a heritage for this generation and the generations to come.

Together we will overcome. For Zimbabwe it is homeland or death!