Mutambara Cannot Be Architect of Unity
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10 January 2007
Posted to the web 10 January 2007

Reason Wafawarova
Harare

IT IS the beginning of another year and many people are obsessed with setting resolutions embodying their aspirations over the next 365 days, though many forget the resolutions soon after pronouncing them while a few follow them through and achieve the desired end.

Among these are people who set evil objectives, for instance career criminals, perverts and all manner twisted people.

In 1986, one aspiring American politician by the name George W. Bush resolved to quit drinking as a way of shaping up for a political career. Since that time, this stands as the only known reasonable resolution the man has ever made.

It was a resolution that yielded positive results for the then hopeless drunk who had always courted trouble with law enforcement officers in his native Texas.

Now in 2007, in a southern African country called Zimbabwe, there is a robotics professor who appears to be hopelessly drunk with lust for fame and power. The professor, who goes by the name Arthur Mutambara is a political aspirant whose claim to fame is masterminding riotous behaviour as a university student leader sometime in 1989.

The man cherishes the days he used to set up an agenda for seven-kilometre marches between the University of Zimbabwe and Harare City Centre largely for grandstanding purposes.

Now the man has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the October 12 2005 split of the MDC, and has bestowed upon himself honour of setting up an agenda for every Zimbabwean in 2007.

Many will remember how the professor was invited to lead the faction led by Welshman Ncube and Gibson Sibanda, and how he proudly declared that he was "the untainted one" sent to redeem Zimbabweans.

Now, 14 months down the line, the man is not only very tainted, but also hopelessly incapable of redeeming himself from the humiliation of leading a followerless grouping. He once personally went to launch "an untainted campaign" for a by-election in Harare and for his efforts he garnered an all time low of 504 votes, joining the ranks of people like Egypt Dzinemunhenzva in terms of political support.

This is the man, who then decides to set a "national" agenda for his several hundred supporters and does so with the aplomb of a pretender over intelligence, wisdom and even anger.

First, Mutambara talks about a political agenda where he outlines the need for the opposition to unite against Zanu-PF, he needs to be reminded that some time in 1999, when he was busy serving American interests with his robotics skills, some people of diverse persuasions, interests and even nationalities "united" against Zanu-PF in the hope of forming the next government.

Surely Zanu-PF cannot be the sole point of unity for a group of political aspirants who are supposed to be serious about intending to run a country.

When Zinasu, the NCA, labour, Rhodesians and other civic groups "united" against Zanu-PF in 1999, the ordinary person was not impressed simply because the rallying point was hopeless and futureless. If the opposition, and that's all we have, not this democratic forces rhetoric Mutambara preaches, was to be implored to unite then they must find an ideology around which to rally.

Simply hating or envying Zanu-PF is not an ideology and there is hardly any policy one can formulate from uniting to destroy Zanu-PF.

Mutambara goes on with his so-called political agenda by attacking the person of President Mugabe as a "misruler" and one driven by "an insatiable quest for power". This rhetoric was clearly borrowed from the Western media, and is not supported by facts.

This boy from Mutambara Village must remember that his entry into high school and university was a result of President Mugabe's policies which he dares dub misrule.

This is a man who led about 10 000 beneficiaries of Mugabe's mass education programme at the University of Zimbabwe and he is convinced that was gross misrule as well.

Above all, this is a man who acknowledges that Zimbabwe has so many professionals and highly skilled people stationed across the globe, yet he thinks all these are products of misrule, just like he views himself.

Mutambara fools himself into believing that he is starting something new by embarking on this vilification campaign.

The original MDC now harbours retired vilifiers whose venomous steam earned them awards of bravery and asylum status but all they built was a crippled opposition. Criticism, especially constructive criticism attracts people and builds up an institution while vilification cripples. This is lesson number one for this Mutambara character.
Mutambara is right in saying Zanu-PF will not be allowed to dictate how the opposition should fight it just like it is true that the opposition will not be allowed to dictate how Zanu-PF should be destroyed, especially by someone who dreams about how to destroy liberation movements in Africa.

Where is the honour in aspiring to destroy your own liberation movement?

Mutambara should know the difference between electoral defeat and the destruction of an institution. He says he wants Zimbabwe to destroy the liberation culture in Zanu-PF and to come up with a new brand to attract foreign investment. Basically, we have a wayward professor who has dedicated his time to attempts to renounce our political culture as an independent state for purposes of attracting foreign investment and converting all of us into what he calls "global customers".

Well, Arthur Mutambara must be told that Zimbabweans want to be global producers and his ambitions are better served in Nauru, that unproductive little island surviving on imports, and whose sole import are bird droppings.

That island has got ten thousand people and Mutambara might make it big there, probably as the only professor, since he clearly believes nation states do not matter any more in his perceived global village.

Before looking at Mutambara's so-called economic agenda, he should be reminded that he can never be the architect of unity between the NCA, Crisis Coalition, ZCTU, Zinasu, WOZA, MOZA and so on, the groups can never be united by anything else other than the all-conquering green back.

Every party that seriously hopes to form a government will always claim to be clean, competent and transparent and not many people read much into this until the party proves itself in office.

This is the posturing Mutambara wants his political brand to centre on, never mind that most of his colleagues are no longer that clean, transparent and competent in the public eye, what with the donor funds they revelled in over the past seven years.

It is not worth the trouble commenting on Mutambara's promise for rule of law, property rights and security of tenure. Most Zimbabweans have seen through the abuse of these terms and will not even stop to listen to any discussion claiming lack of such rights and processes in their country.

Mutambara is a globalisation fundamentalist whose obsession with dependency is of the highest order. He talks of regionalism and globalism from a very uninformed point of view. Regionalism does not necessarily strengthen the internal economic structures of member states. If this were so the European Union would have long accommodated Turkey and other struggling states in the EU.

It is member states that build themselves from within and they only use regionalism to consolidate and secure the existing internal growth. The same goes for globalism that Mutambara finds himself so fanatical about.

Arthur Mutambara must visit Venezuela, a country which has overhauled its means of production in seven years and has now gone regional to support the internal growth that the pro-people Chavez government has been achieving in the period they have been in power.

In fact, this writer has just noted that Mutambara's economic agenda is a replica of the document the Venezuelan opposition was trying to sell in the December 2006 elections.

This is a pro-Washington middle class based political party that is equally obsessed with Foreign Direct Investment and free market policies as well as a foreign employer mentality.

We have a similar group of Cubans based in Miami and all they do to justify their continued stay is to tell American companies that once Castro is dead they would allow them to do all they wish with the resources of Cuba, in exchange for jobs.

What Mutambara proposes as an economic agenda is nothing more than a hollow imperialistic proposal that just falls short of saying Zimbabwe will go on all-fours and ask for forgiveness from the West and promise to behave better in future before surrendering everything to investors and assuming the role of global customers.

That mentality should not be found in an African, especially just fifty years after the fall of brutal colonial empires. It certainly should not be found in any politician, let alone one who claims to have the "untainted anointing" to lead this country.

The so-called clarion call for a revolution is not that clear after all, as it smacks of desperation, hopelessness and surrender.

Mutambara does not see himself as a target for an African revolution, which he really is. Rather he fools himself with a monopoly over anger, protests and volatility.

He should have been in Zimbabwe in 1999/2000 if he wants to know what a real Zimbabwean mass movement is like and what a people's revolution looks like.

It does not sound right to have the people coming against the children but it would appear like this is what Arthur Mutambara might be hunting for.

Just how do the so-called democratic forces wish to democratise Zimbabwe by destroying it first, does he think everyone is blind to the failing "democratisation" project