Opinion / Columnist
Pastor Mawarire, Trojan Horse for regime change
21 Jul 2016 at 06:46hrs | Views
AGENTS of regime change in Zimbabwe have always earned their meal ticket by pandering to the whims and caprices of their Western masters and in the process have had a few trinkets thrown their way. At the height of the anti-Zimbabwe campaign between 2000 and 2008, many groups emerged with some of their proponents carving out careers out of activism.
Their role was to act as a conduit for funding the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and to keep Zimbabwe firmly in the spotlight. At that time, it was difficult to differentiate between a non-governmental organisation and the opposition and the transition of certain individuals from the ranks of the NGO community to the political arena was seamless. After all they fed from the same trough and were pursuing the same agenda.
As a creation of Western capital, the MDC viewed these pseudo-political pressure groups as a vital link to its handlers and thus maintained a special relationship with them. It was easy for these organisations to make money during that time as they simply played the victim card. They deserve kudos for fooling their Western funders for close to a decade during which some of them amassed considerable riches.
President Mugabe famously ribbed Professor Lovemore Madhuku who led the National Constitutional Assembly describing him as a man who survived on donor trinkets handed to him by gullible Westerners who fell for his theatrics and antics. In an interview with ZBCtv in 2010, the President said the likes of Madhuku were cunning in their tactics to extract money from donors. "There are some fraudulent human rights campaigners like Lovemore Madhuku and his NCA who, when broke, intentionally provoke the police in order to get arrested and raise money from the donors. As such, they easily attract the attention international media line CNN, BBC over nothing. That's the Madhuku survival strategy for you," Mugabe said then.
As fate would have it, Prof Madhuku's NCA collapsed along with a host of other NGOs formed specifically to oppose the Government when donor fatigue set in. The formation of the inclusive Government in 2009 also spelt doom for the anti-Mugabe brigade and as funds dried up, so did the careers of many in the NGO world.
However, following the crushing Zanu-PF victory in the 2013 elections, there have been attempts to revive the regime change agenda although the tactics have changed. The MDC-T appears to have been discarded as an avenue for the removal of the Zimbabwean Government in a favour of an uprising fronted by "citizens". The so-called Arab Springs uprisings are being fomented in Zimbabwe using the likes of Pastor Evan Mawarire of the #This Flag movement and Tajamuka fronted by Promise Mkhwananzi.
Following the first stay away which succeeded because of the civil servants strike, Pastor Mawarire overestimated his influence and called for another two-day so called shutdown which fell flat on its face. However, authorities appear to have given him a lifeline by arresting him on the eve of the event, giving his misguided cause the oxygen it did not deserve.
Like activists before him, the arrest gave him the street cred which enhanced his standing in the eyes of the international community. To them anyone who opposes the so-called Mugabe regime and prances around international TV stations overdramatising the situation in Zimbabwe is deserving of their funding.
Thus Pastor Mawarire, who has been domiciled in South Africa since last week and possibly enroute to Western capitals, is working the donor community and appears to be doing a good job. His Oscar-winning performance on British television station Sky News on Tuesday night during which he wept on live TV is the stuff the likes of Prof Madhuku would be proud of.
He is clearly on a mission to make a living out of the sanctions-induced challenges Zimbabweans are going through and his lot does not deserve the sympathy of the world. Which is why we agree with President Mugabe that the likes of Mawarire who advocate for change using violent means are not part of us or our thinking.
As Mugabe said at the National Heroes Acre on Tuesday, "If they don't like to live with us, let them go to those who are sponsoring them". We say NO to violence as a way of solving grievances. As a man of God, we expect Pastor Mawarire to know better. #ThisFlag
Source - chronicle
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