Opinion / Columnist
Professor Mufuka, Mujuru and #ThisFlag offer the dangerous simplistic answers
21 Aug 2016 at 17:50hrs | Views
One of the reasons why we are in this economic and political mess is that we are a confused nation. And very often the confusion comes from none other than the intellectuals, the very people the nation would be looking up to to come up with the gems of wisdom!
"A transitional authority should not include any members of the present political parties. They are too naïve and can be manipulated with gifts of gold and diamonds to return the same outcome," wrote Professor Ken Mufuka in Nehanda Radio.
The Professor was adding his voice to the many who have called for the formation of a transition authority which will be tasked to implement all the democratic reforms necessary to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
MDC should have implemented the reforms during the GNU but failed to get even one reform implemented because Tsvangirai et al are incompetent and corrupt. Of course they sold-out! As for President Mugabe and his Zanu-PF cronies, it is naïve to expect them to implement the reforms; they are the ones who have systematically corrupted the political system and have an invested interest in maintaining the status quo.
So Professor Mufuka's call for the exclusion of all the GNU political leaders in the proposed transition authority made sense, at least until he shot himself in the leg.
"In my opinion, Sister Joice Mujuru is in a very unique place to save our nation," he argued.
He is talking about the same Joice Mujuru who has been at the very heart of the Zanu-PF government for 34 years and has done nothing to stop the corruption and murderous political oppression by Zanu-PF. She has benefited from the de facto one party state, how else would she have retained her political power given she is a simpleton with nothing to offer.
She and her late husband have been very busy looting. According to Minister Kasukuwere the Mujurus are responsible for a "chunk" of the $15 billion of looted diamonds President Mugabe said was stolen between 2010 to 2015.
How anyone can entrust the destiny of a nation in the hands of a corrupt and incompetent simpleton like Joice Mujuru beggars belief!
"ZANU-PF has been accused of not having won any election since 2000 and will therefore have to be dragged into such an arrangement.
#ThisFlag, #Tajamuka/Sesijikile and many other social media based campaign groups that have emerged all had one thing in common a simple message. Typically they called for "Mugabe must fire corrupt ministers!" "Give us our $15 billion back!" "Give us the 2.2 million jobs", etc.
Indeed it was the simplicity of their message that has made #ThisFlag, etc. so popular.
If the truth be told, and it must be told, we are in this political and economic mess because, as a nation we have been very naïve and gullible. Going for a simplistic solution to a complex problem is one sign of being naïve. Corruption in Zimbabwe was grown in leaps and bounds for the last 36 years to the point where even a simpleton like Joice Mujuru is able to loot $15 billion!
Surely it is too simplistic for anyone to be calling for Mugabe to fire corrupt minister; that is call one made in the 1980s. In the 1990s the call was to fire the corrupt ministers and President himself – the whole regime. Sure the call since 2000 was for meaningful democratic reforms to stop Zanu-PF rigging elections!
Many followers of #ThisFlag have supported and voted for Tsvangirai and his MDC party since 2000. They have joined in the call for change but without ever understanding what changes they wanted. When MDC failed to implement any changes during the GNU none of them held Tsvangirai to account; how can they hold MDC to account over something they never understood.
Many of these #ThisFlag followers have latched on to the simplistic message of "Mugabe fire corrupt ministers!" because they still have no clue what the democratic reforms the transition authority is supposed to implement are about.
The very suggestion that #ThisFlag supporters are now so sophisticated they hold "the noose" to those guilty of past serious human rights violations is absurd.
President Mugabe never doubted for one minute that he would deliver mass prosperity with his simplistic "Scientific Socialism" which in everyday language meant reckless spending to prosperity. Sadly life is not that simple, Zimbabwe is subject to the same laws of physics and economics as the rest of the world. The nation was naïve and gullible to allow him to take us down this ruinous path.
People like Professor Mufuka are not helping us get out of the mess by encouraging us to look to simpleton like Mujuru and the dangerously simplistic #ThisFlag for answers! Dangerous over simplification of a problem, especially by our intellectuals, is compounding our problems instead of offering a way forward.
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Nomusa Garikai <zimbabwesocialdemocrats@gmail.com
Source - zsdemocrats.blogspot.co.za
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