Mugabe set to die chewing the cud

ANIMALS such as cows have a ruminant digestive system, which can be symbolic and representative of the story of Robert Mugabe.

Cows spend the day feeding and largely stocking huge quantities of foodstuffs into their stomach primarily for storage. The stomach has divisions which receive and store foodstuffs that would be literally in a raw state. That is because, during feeding, the cow does not have time even to thoroughly chew the swallowed materials. The perfect plan is of enabling the cow to maximise on the feeding time and stockpile on as much quantity as possible, for nourishment of its huge structure.

Then, after feeding periods, and usually at night, a complimentary process occurs, which helps the cow turn the consumed material through a process of finer grinding and ready for absorbtion by the body. The cow, when humans and other creatures go to sleep at night, starts 'chewing the cud'. That is essentially a physical retrieving of the eaten stockpiled materials from the divisions in the stomach, back to the mouth for chewing, so that they become to the state of proper digestion and absorbtion by the body.

The cow has to chew the cud for two major survival reasons. First, that is how it becomes to get nourished through the eventual and complete digestion of the foodstuffs. Secondly, chewing the cud is fundamental for the cow's progression into the next day or feeding cycle, because, it essentially clears way in the stomach for the following day's stock to be received and stored. That is the basis of the cow's survival, progression and growth with regards feeding and nourishment - with chewing of the cud playing a salient role.

It becomes pretty obvious that the cow plunges into trouble if the process of chewing the cud fails. It will suffer from constipation and not be able to go onto the next feeding cycle, and even risking dying. On the other hand, the cow should chew the cud and finish, in order to move on, to progress, develop or grow. It cannot continue chewing the cud forever into and through the next day, because it has to feed again in order to survive.

Enter Robert Mugabe's political and leadership career and history - which, quite unfortunately for Zimbabweans, has become linked to national livelihood. Like a cow, he spent many years stockpiling things into the 'stomach' of storage. Mugabe's feeding process in a way similar to the cow's ruminant digestion symbolism, included his stockpiling of seeds of corruption, murder, plunder, a system of patronage, disorder and chaos. Since assuming national leadership in 1980, Mugabe, initially under the veil of ecstacy, national hope and anticipation, embarked on a massive stockpiling programme.

Like a cow, he would take in tonnes and tonnes of material into the storage section of his 'stomach' of leadership and national governance. He stockpiled Gukurahundi genocide, Willowgate, War victims compenstation scandal of the early 80s, white corruption in top offices and system of barbaric patronage. He moved into the 90s, to stockpile more of the same, and with a spicing of establishing and entrenching a dictatorship. It continued to be a process of stockpiling all the material.

Mugabe, like a cow, got moments and opportunities to pause and 'chew the cud', but he wasted them. Those moments and opportunities could have been used to correct some key things and make amends. He fooled himself into thinking that his full stomach meant it was well and all done. He lived under the illusion of regarding 'chewing the cud' as necessarily avoidable, because, after all, his stomach was getting filled and he was moving on - yet unbeknown to him, the ruminant digestive system he was operating on would reach a point of crashing.

Into the 2000s, and Mugabe, quite recklessly, was still taking in and stockpiling. Murder and maiming of white farmers in a smash and grab madness passed for a land reform. Dastardly and barbaric bloodshed through crackdown on opposition and other voices of dissent, Mugabe continued to stockpile into his small stomach. Desperate political survival became a necessity for him, and the by then indisputable tyrant and despot became a master of electoral theft and fraud - further pumping into the full stomach.

As the nation tried to stop that, Mugabe, with a small stomach bursting with material piled during two decades, went further into smashing and grabbing more, and pump into his then cracking storage. Murambatsvina, more violence, intransigence, international barbarism and governance practices of skulduggery. Then, a point was reached by Mugabe, when it became clear to him that he had to put some things right. When he realised and grudgingly admitted that he was an undressed emperor and had to start correcting. The nation and the whole world had made it clear to Mugabe that he was like a stinking cow, with a stomach cracking with loaded material of almost three decades.

Late 2000s, Mugabe started trying to 'chew the cud'. He reluctantly came down from his fantasy world to engage in processes that would have paved way for key reformation processes and correct his mess stockpiled for 27 years. It was a process that required Mugabe to 'chew the cud' of the tonnes of material he had piled into his and national leadership stomach since 1980. There was an opportunity for Mugabe, with help from Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube and the rest of the nation, including the global community. Help was at hand in the form of energy boosters or special additives meant to enable Mugabe's jaws avoid getting tired so that he could continue 'chewing the cud' and be able to clear the bursting stomach. Others were all over, with injenctions, pain killers and cooling mechanisms to help ameliorate effects of high temperatures in the 'kraal' or fatigue and pain caused by the vigorous process of 'chewing the cud'. An emergency ambulance was put on standby. The gathering and programme in the kraal became to be known as a Government of National Unity (GNU). It was, essentially a concerted and urgent mission aimed helping Mugabe to 'chew the cud'. His state of a bursting stomach and serious constipation was symbolic of the national situation under Mugabe's 28 years of misrule and mismanagement.

True to character, Mugabe grabbed the opportunity, because he desperately needed rescue from the terrible situation, but he still would play tricks. He embarked on 'chewing the cud' and created hope for the reformation process to go through and bear fruits. He gradually and lazily 'chewed the cud', Robert Mugabe. The elaborate group around him assumed progress and reduced concentration. Some left to go and attend other cows in the field, others dozed and stopped attending to the national albatross supposedly 'chewing the cud'. Cunningly, Mugabe started playing tricks. He started pretending to be chewing when he wasn't. He started somehow to conceal and hide a lot of material in the storage, which he didn't want to retrieve and chew. The reformation agenda inevitably stalled. Fast forward, Mugabe, the national albatross, rose and went outside wanting to graze again or start a new feeding cycle in the hope that he had managed to cheat through the process of 'chewing the cud' - he dragged the nation into last year's elections and rigged them. Now, Mugabe's attempts at moving forward since then, have been in vain. Mugabe has failed to make Zimbabwe work again.

He has failed to regain international support and cooperation. Even at home, he is largely a subject of loathe and ridicule as just about everything around him burns into ashes. Themba Mliswa blatantly stops all pretence at decency to tell the world that Mugabe is a barbaric failure who has set Zanu PF's people on each other's throat and destroyed it. Public fights and uncouth spats by top government officials epitomise total chaos. The economy has no stewardship nor control and goes haywire.

Even China does not offer an urgently needed financial rescue package - it was watching when Mugabe cheated through the process of 'chewing the cud'. Poor and pathetic, an ailing Mugabe attempts going up and down in circles again, pretending to want to correct things - chew the cud, yet again. But, quite disastrously, it has become way too late for Mugabe. Just too much has become loaded in the stomach storage, and the seeds have germinated, which are now showing fruits through the likes of Mliswa, Grace Mugabe, power shortages, capital flight and resumed crackdown on the poor masses.

Mugabe no longer has the support he needs to help him 'chew the cud' - everyone has washed their hands. In conclusion, he has become too old and frail to the extent that he can barely chew a gramme per day. That leaves only one option for him - rotting at that fixed place while making laborious and faint movement of the jaws in an attempt to 'chew the cud'. The nation has come to a point of now having to take measures and extricate itself from the Mugabe albatross, and, it is just a matter of time before he is forced to stop. Whichever way it ends, Mugabe has failed and totally lost it. He shall certainly struggle his remaining life with the stomach bursting with the stocks of rubbish accumulated during 34 years. He shall come to his end still attempting to 'chew the cud' and sunk in a pool of shame for having destroyed everything he laid his hands on.

Itai Dzamara is an independent journalist, publisher, founder of Trinity Media in Zimbabwe, publishers of The News Leader. He writes in his own capacity. This article was extracted from his weekly column on The News Leader, Saturday Special with Itai Dzamara.