Gumbo argue Zimbabweans to stand up to Mugabe - he is outside Zanu PF tent pissing in

"It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in." replied Former US President Lyndon B Johnson when he was asked why he had not sack a particularly annoying member from his administration.

Wise advise that Mugabe must now wish he had been given as regards Rugare Gumbo because ever since the tyrant kicked him out of the party, Gumbo has really stepped up the anti-Mugabe rhetoric and arguing Zimbabweans must stand up to the tyrant.

"We have a serious leadership crisis and the whole world is aware of that. We have a leadership that is disjointed and has no focus on how to resolve major issues. We have a leadership that is power-hungry and will do anything to subvert the will of the people," Gumbo told a local publication recently.

"They want to remain leaders forever at the expense of the suffering majority. It is an unfocused leadership that is concerned with its own interests, not addressing the concerns of the people."

On Tuesday, the first day of the Zanu PF Congress and the first item on the agenda was to announce that the punishment the party had mitted out to Rugare Gumbo two weeks before, i.e. a five year suspension from the party, was not severe enough; the former party spokesman was to be kicked out of Zanu PF.

Gumbo has been kicked out of the Zanu PF tent and now he is pissing in!

It is pleasing to note that since Rugare Gumbo's fall out with Mugabe he has started to talk sense. There is a Shona saying that captures what is happening here, "Kuyeuka bako waniwa!" (To remember the cave after a thorough soaking from a passing storm!)

"We fought to liberate Zimbabwe and have done our part. I think Zimbabweans must take it upon themselves to confront bad leadership in both Zanu-PF and the nation. They should not just sit back as a crisis unfolds," Gumbo told The Zimbabwean.

Just when I was beginning to think that Rugare Gumbo got his sense back after he was kicked out of Zanu PF he puts his foot in his mouth!

If, by your own admission, Zanu PF unleashed on the nation "power hungry" thugs concerned their own selfish interest and not those of the people then who can the same thugs still claim to have "liberated Zimbabwe"! You did not liberate the nation but rather remove the white colonial oppressors only to replace it with Black Nationalist oppressors.

Transferring a slave from one slave master to another does not change the slave's status. The people of Zimbabwe have never known freedom, liberty and enjoyed their human rights under Ian Smith's rule no more than they did under Mugabe's rule. He never granted the people their freedom of expression, a free media, their right to a free and meaningful vote, etc. because doing so meant not getting the absolute power he and his Zanu PF friends, including Rugare Gumbo himself, hungered for.

Yes Mr Gumbo "Zimbabweans must take it upon themselves to confront bad leadership," but is this not what is wrong with your thinking? You fight to end oppression but only as a way to become the next oppressor yourself. So we end up with this vicious circle where today's liberator is tomorrow's oppressor; each generation is fighting the generation before it for its freedoms and basic human rights only to deny the next generation the same freedoms and rights. 

It is not enough that Zimbabweans should confront bad leaders but rather do so in such a way to break the today liberators becoming tomorrow's oppressor cycle. One sure way of breaking that cycle is not to be taken in again by those who have already flip-flop from liberator to oppressor in the past but, because they have since lost power, are now once again masquerading as the genuine liberators and not the flip-flop liberators.

Rugare Gumbo can piss into Mugabe's Zanu PF tent all he like but what the people of Zimbabwe must never forget is that Gumbo is as power hungry as Mugabe, they have both flip-flop from liberator to oppressor, he will flip-flop again if he was ever to get back into power. In our fight to end Mugabe and Zanu PF tyrannical rule we must be careful not to have career liberator - oppressor flip-floppers in our midst.

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