Opinion / Columnist
We played your game for too long
08 Jun 2018 at 12:34hrs | Views
As present day events unfold in front of me, I enviously look back at my past, and characters that were around me when I grew up. The picture of my late grandmother, (Mbuya Chikaka) flashes vividly in my mind.
Her sunken cheeks were like punctuation between her overrated youthful good looks and her elderly bona fide beauty. She was ever-smiling revealing her missing teeth, but could be stern when need be.
I remember more than thirty years ago how we used to sit around the fire in her thatched hut. Our white teeth were the only things that could be seen on our smiling faces through the dark outline of our diminutive figures, as we violently push and shove each other to get closer to her.
There was an abrupt order the moment she threatens not tells us one of her scintillating folklores if we do not sit up properly. No one would want to miss a story that would take one's imagination to a lifetime wonderland.
She used to deliver a stunning, lively narration, which accurately reflects not only what we thought has happened, but the emotion involved. Her stories about the lives of melodramatic characters were often filled with strong emotions, highly dramatic situations and suspense.
Gazing up the grass roof as if trying to recollect an event that happened in her presence, she would capture the mood and emotions; terrorize our imagination and make us run away with it. The characters- whether animals or human beings, as well as places had names that seemed so real to us.
She was a brilliant storyteller, seducing the minds eye and always pushing us into agonizing suspense with her regular pauses. The events in the traditional stories were well interwoven, and her voice modulation would draw breath out of every listeners chest that I bet it took time for most of us to differentiate between a legend and a real story.
I cannot compare the mediocrity in all Zanu PF stories involving, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Robert Mugabe, Saviour Kasukuwere, Patrick Zhuwawo, Jonathan Moyo and others with those of my illiterate grandmother.
Zanu PF stories are so pathetic, often jagged and have loops that one is left to wonder if they are real stories or some folklores meant for toddlers. The Mnangagwa story I read recently, entitled Grace Mugabe's vendetta against her snake, Emmerson Mnangagwa,' not only had missing links but had a lot of unanswered questions.
According to the story, after they took temporary shelter in an unfinished house and getting a doctor to write a letter authorising his evacuation. The letter had to be smuggled out of the lavatory window of a Chinese restaurant, as Mugabe's agents were everywhere. Wait a minute! Am I missing something here? Unfinished house and Chinese restaurant- where is the link?
The only escape route left was by road. Around midnight, with a cousin who came along to help, the Crocodile and his sons began the three-hour journey southeast to Mutare, near the frontier with Mozambique where they hid in an abandoned lodge and later a mountain cave which were both known by the Crocodile from his days in the liberation war.
This is totally hogwash. More than four decades or forty years later, to be precise, the places can still provide hiding spaces which security agents are not aware of? Whatever the story is- I personally dont buy it. Its one of those stories intended to hoodwink easy to fool readers in order to make them empathize with the supposed 'victim.'
Luckily, it instead it invokes memories of a cunning, extremely wicked and barbaric leader who perpetuated crimes against humanity ranging from mass murder, torture, rape, abduction, forced detention, harassment, intimidation, and displacement that left many with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Rather than appealing to the readers it made them feel like they are waking up from a dream they wish the story was true and they would say good riddance with a sigh of relief. People wont be sidetracked by Zanu PF's rambling, incoherent and side-splitting kindergarten bed time stories of factional fights being played out to the gallery.
As if that was not enough, Kasukuwere had the temerity to spatter his verbal diarrhoea in the faces of Zimbabweans and those living in the Diaspora, from a luxurious hotel in Johannesburg, saying he now knows how it feels like once one has left his or her nation. His fictitious stories were not only an insult to the general populace, but exposed Zanu PF's complicated relationship with the truth.
"For the first time, I have a better understanding and deeper knowledge of how citizens feel. It is not a pleasant thing at all, its something that none of us should ever wish on anybody. We must learn to resolve our issues and find each other." -REALLY?
In Zimbabwe, wonders shall never cease for sure! Jealousy Mawarire a man from Zaka who dragged Uncle Bob to court and forced an election in 2013 without electoral reforms is now the former President's spokesperson?
Zhuwawo and Jonathan Moyo's pocket dialling story, Uncle Bob's ludicrous Mama utterance and the entire sequence of fabricated events are not only nauseating, but shows that Zanu PF has a very resolute relationship with lies. The recitations are surrounded by doubtful and conjured up bare bones.
No one in his right mind will ever entertain the beer talk stories from these clowns, because they are meant to distract people from real issues affecting their day to day lives.
If any of the readers thinks Zanu PF is now disintegrating into an ordinary party because of perceived factional fights, he has to think twice. Zanu PF is more united than ever, this is just diversionary tactic to give the false impression of a party in disorder when it could not be further from the truth.
What I want Mnangagwa and his cronies should remember is that-we played your game, every time we played you were the winners-now we plan to play it differently.
Garikai Mafirakureva is a Zimbabwean Journalist and an independent analyst..
Feedback on garrymafirakureva09@gmail.com You can follow him on twitter @Garry4Peace or Facebook Ras Garikai Mafirakureva Jnr
Her sunken cheeks were like punctuation between her overrated youthful good looks and her elderly bona fide beauty. She was ever-smiling revealing her missing teeth, but could be stern when need be.
I remember more than thirty years ago how we used to sit around the fire in her thatched hut. Our white teeth were the only things that could be seen on our smiling faces through the dark outline of our diminutive figures, as we violently push and shove each other to get closer to her.
There was an abrupt order the moment she threatens not tells us one of her scintillating folklores if we do not sit up properly. No one would want to miss a story that would take one's imagination to a lifetime wonderland.
She used to deliver a stunning, lively narration, which accurately reflects not only what we thought has happened, but the emotion involved. Her stories about the lives of melodramatic characters were often filled with strong emotions, highly dramatic situations and suspense.
Gazing up the grass roof as if trying to recollect an event that happened in her presence, she would capture the mood and emotions; terrorize our imagination and make us run away with it. The characters- whether animals or human beings, as well as places had names that seemed so real to us.
She was a brilliant storyteller, seducing the minds eye and always pushing us into agonizing suspense with her regular pauses. The events in the traditional stories were well interwoven, and her voice modulation would draw breath out of every listeners chest that I bet it took time for most of us to differentiate between a legend and a real story.
I cannot compare the mediocrity in all Zanu PF stories involving, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Robert Mugabe, Saviour Kasukuwere, Patrick Zhuwawo, Jonathan Moyo and others with those of my illiterate grandmother.
Zanu PF stories are so pathetic, often jagged and have loops that one is left to wonder if they are real stories or some folklores meant for toddlers. The Mnangagwa story I read recently, entitled Grace Mugabe's vendetta against her snake, Emmerson Mnangagwa,' not only had missing links but had a lot of unanswered questions.
According to the story, after they took temporary shelter in an unfinished house and getting a doctor to write a letter authorising his evacuation. The letter had to be smuggled out of the lavatory window of a Chinese restaurant, as Mugabe's agents were everywhere. Wait a minute! Am I missing something here? Unfinished house and Chinese restaurant- where is the link?
The only escape route left was by road. Around midnight, with a cousin who came along to help, the Crocodile and his sons began the three-hour journey southeast to Mutare, near the frontier with Mozambique where they hid in an abandoned lodge and later a mountain cave which were both known by the Crocodile from his days in the liberation war.
Luckily, it instead it invokes memories of a cunning, extremely wicked and barbaric leader who perpetuated crimes against humanity ranging from mass murder, torture, rape, abduction, forced detention, harassment, intimidation, and displacement that left many with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Rather than appealing to the readers it made them feel like they are waking up from a dream they wish the story was true and they would say good riddance with a sigh of relief. People wont be sidetracked by Zanu PF's rambling, incoherent and side-splitting kindergarten bed time stories of factional fights being played out to the gallery.
As if that was not enough, Kasukuwere had the temerity to spatter his verbal diarrhoea in the faces of Zimbabweans and those living in the Diaspora, from a luxurious hotel in Johannesburg, saying he now knows how it feels like once one has left his or her nation. His fictitious stories were not only an insult to the general populace, but exposed Zanu PF's complicated relationship with the truth.
"For the first time, I have a better understanding and deeper knowledge of how citizens feel. It is not a pleasant thing at all, its something that none of us should ever wish on anybody. We must learn to resolve our issues and find each other." -REALLY?
In Zimbabwe, wonders shall never cease for sure! Jealousy Mawarire a man from Zaka who dragged Uncle Bob to court and forced an election in 2013 without electoral reforms is now the former President's spokesperson?
Zhuwawo and Jonathan Moyo's pocket dialling story, Uncle Bob's ludicrous Mama utterance and the entire sequence of fabricated events are not only nauseating, but shows that Zanu PF has a very resolute relationship with lies. The recitations are surrounded by doubtful and conjured up bare bones.
No one in his right mind will ever entertain the beer talk stories from these clowns, because they are meant to distract people from real issues affecting their day to day lives.
If any of the readers thinks Zanu PF is now disintegrating into an ordinary party because of perceived factional fights, he has to think twice. Zanu PF is more united than ever, this is just diversionary tactic to give the false impression of a party in disorder when it could not be further from the truth.
What I want Mnangagwa and his cronies should remember is that-we played your game, every time we played you were the winners-now we plan to play it differently.
Garikai Mafirakureva is a Zimbabwean Journalist and an independent analyst..
Feedback on garrymafirakureva09@gmail.com You can follow him on twitter @Garry4Peace or Facebook Ras Garikai Mafirakureva Jnr
Source - Garikai Mafirakureva
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