Opinion / Columnist
I had to skip one key summit at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Cdes
16 Jul 2015 at 17:21hrs | Views
Dear Cabinet and Politburo members
COMRADES, I thought there was no harm if I blessed myself with a break this week, coming as I am doing from a back-breaking schedule that has seen me going to almost every continent on earth in the last few months as I diligently performed my duties for this country, the Southern African Development Community as well as for the African Union (AU).
You might have noticed that this week I had to skip one key summit at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I am human too and I need to take a break here and there.
The best news of the week reached me at the weekend from Namibia where I am told the people have started taking back their land. This just goes to prove that we were never wrong when we embarked on our land reform programme.
Very soon the whole continent will catch the fire.
Just wait and see.
Kindest Regards
Yours Sincerely
ME
… AND CZ'S NOTEBOOK
Lucky them!
That Dr CZ is a super-patriot is no longer subject for any debate. An ISO certification last year put that barren debate to rest. But there are some rare moments when Dr CZ wishes he had another spare nationality in addition to his Zimbabwean one. In other words, there are moments when Dr CZ really feels ashamed of being a Zimbabwean.
At the weekend, Tanzania's ever-ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), announced that it had chosen current Works Minister John Magufuli (55) as its candidate for presidential elections due to be held in October. What this effectively means is that Magufuli will be taking over from Jakaya Kikwete. That is as certain as sunrise.
This was after Magufuli emerged with 87 percent of the votes in the final round of the ruling party's internal elections that started off with a crowded field of 38 dreamers.
What this means is that there were 38 members of CCM who thought it was within their right to serve their party and country at the highest level and were more than free to express that thought without feeling anything remotely treasonous about it.
This is exactly the reason why as way back as 1982, Dr CZ saw it coming and decided to dismiss himself from his former party. Things that are supposed to be banal are made to look like juggling with six pin-less grenades.
If CCM were ZANU-PF, all those 38 members who openly expressed their presidential ambitions would not just have automatically dismissed themselves from the party, but would be facing several life and death criminal charges.
Well, it has been long since circumstances on the ground forced Dr CZ to end his relationship with ZANU-PF and he therefore no longer has a fund of hostility strong enough to wish the party ill or that the rumour that the same party is terminally fractured should turn out to be true. If only the party could do things in a slightly different way.
Beggar spirit
Dr CZ read somewhere a story in which MDC-T supporters in Shurugwi cried tears of blood after they were excluded from handouts of rice that were donated to the country by the Chinese government. As much as we expect the opposition supporters to know better when it comes to all matters oriental, it is still unfair to blame them.
They are typical Zimbabweans who join politics with the hope of getting something out of it as if politics was a job of some sort. We can only blame this on what Milton Kamwendo describes as "the beggar spirit".
"The beggar spirit plays out at all levels: Personal, family, organisational and country levels. The roots of this spirit are self-pity and laziness. Many people go through life expecting someone to feel pity for them and carry their burden through life's gates while they stroll along to the march of the donor bandwagon. Thinking like a victim disables creativity and innovation and blinds true vision…"
How many times do we see politicians that you and I know to have amassed vulgar wealth appearing on our television screens mourning that donors are not forthcoming with money for community projects? That is the beggar spirit we are talking about.
It is the same bizarre spirit that sends author and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga into paroxysms of anger when the Culture Fund - from which she has already benefited suddenly does not make available cash for her next project.
Dangarembga is naturally entitled to every cotton-picking cent that gets into that fund! The same way we have all the freedom in contributing to our maternal grandmothers' granaries.
Those who think such funds should be for budding artists - not a handy pension fund for grannies - can go hang because it is not just in Animal Farm where some animals are more equal than others!
We now understand why sages enjoin us never to let a goblin taste blood… instead of satisfying it, all it does is whet its appetite for more and more blood and the family is forever in trouble.
When mbira musician Chiwoniso Maraire died in 2013, Dangarembga was swift to blame the government and "some embassies of some wealthy nations" of not making available free anti-retroviral drugs to the musician. She was later forced to issue another Facebook post retracting her misguided comments.
Dangarembga has this bizarre belief that the world owes her a life and a half.
It is very unfortunate because it seems like begging has become an addictive enterprise. For many, it is easier to beg than to work or think. We sadly find this sort of thinking among our war veterans and their politician masters.
Very sad!
Dr CZ is mourning the passing on of author and poet, Chenjerai Hove, who died in Norway at the weekend when another writer, Freedom Nyamubaya, was being buried.
No matter how much we love each other, one thing we cannot do anything about is death. As the late Steve Jobs put it: "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."
Well, it is sad that Hove - who was born in a family of natural fighters which include his sister Sekai Holland (nee Hove) and late prominent lawyer-politician Byron Hove among other luminaries - died while holed up in Oslo, Norway, after fleeing some unknown dangers that he was so convinced lurked behind at home.
Since things started getting rotten at home, many Zimbabweans - writers and journalists included - have left the country in droves and most of them had no option but to cook up all sorts of piquant stories to please their hosts. We hope and sincerely pray this was never the case with the brother.
Reading George Orwell's essay How the Poor Die, one cannot help it but feel sad that death catches up with some people when they have left the comfort of their homes trying to flee from it.
While Dr CZ is not qualified to pass judgment on Hove's life choices, he however, finds it tempting to agree with Orwell's conclusion that "It is a great thing to die in your own bed, though it is better still to die in your own boots."
Coming…
Sages always warn that brothers should never fight each other to death because a stranger would inherit their father's estate. When chickens come home to roost, they come running… we are seeing that in ZANU-PF. As the feral wars rage between those that were recently expelled from the party and those that have survived (for now), Zimbabweans are getting wiser by the day.
Small wonder it has been declared "Gore rekudzidza zvakawanda"… the year of learning a lot.
It is sad that sometimes people do not take jocular Joseph Chinotimba seriously, even though here and there the man is dispensing nuggets of truths.
This week, he was at it again, disingenuously waffling: "If Jabulani (Sibanda) says (President) Mugabe is dirty, he has more dirt than (President) Mugabe, as during the 2013 election campaign (President) Mugabe did not go to many places.
He only held star rallies and this Jabulani is the one who would mobilise people, from all corners of Manicaland, Matabeleland, Masvingo. For people to vote President Robert Mugabe, it is because of Jabulani Sibanda, who went around the clock (sic) campaigning.
He would go around giving headmen books to write down names of voters, threatening people, now he is saying those people whom he made to vote for (President) Mugabe is now saying (sic) abandon ZANU-PF, what has gone wrong? Jabulani, stop it!"
Need we say more?
#gorerekudzidzazvakawanda.
cznotebook@yahoo.co.uk
COMRADES, I thought there was no harm if I blessed myself with a break this week, coming as I am doing from a back-breaking schedule that has seen me going to almost every continent on earth in the last few months as I diligently performed my duties for this country, the Southern African Development Community as well as for the African Union (AU).
You might have noticed that this week I had to skip one key summit at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I am human too and I need to take a break here and there.
The best news of the week reached me at the weekend from Namibia where I am told the people have started taking back their land. This just goes to prove that we were never wrong when we embarked on our land reform programme.
Very soon the whole continent will catch the fire.
Just wait and see.
Kindest Regards
Yours Sincerely
ME
… AND CZ'S NOTEBOOK
Lucky them!
That Dr CZ is a super-patriot is no longer subject for any debate. An ISO certification last year put that barren debate to rest. But there are some rare moments when Dr CZ wishes he had another spare nationality in addition to his Zimbabwean one. In other words, there are moments when Dr CZ really feels ashamed of being a Zimbabwean.
At the weekend, Tanzania's ever-ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), announced that it had chosen current Works Minister John Magufuli (55) as its candidate for presidential elections due to be held in October. What this effectively means is that Magufuli will be taking over from Jakaya Kikwete. That is as certain as sunrise.
This was after Magufuli emerged with 87 percent of the votes in the final round of the ruling party's internal elections that started off with a crowded field of 38 dreamers.
What this means is that there were 38 members of CCM who thought it was within their right to serve their party and country at the highest level and were more than free to express that thought without feeling anything remotely treasonous about it.
This is exactly the reason why as way back as 1982, Dr CZ saw it coming and decided to dismiss himself from his former party. Things that are supposed to be banal are made to look like juggling with six pin-less grenades.
If CCM were ZANU-PF, all those 38 members who openly expressed their presidential ambitions would not just have automatically dismissed themselves from the party, but would be facing several life and death criminal charges.
Well, it has been long since circumstances on the ground forced Dr CZ to end his relationship with ZANU-PF and he therefore no longer has a fund of hostility strong enough to wish the party ill or that the rumour that the same party is terminally fractured should turn out to be true. If only the party could do things in a slightly different way.
Beggar spirit
Dr CZ read somewhere a story in which MDC-T supporters in Shurugwi cried tears of blood after they were excluded from handouts of rice that were donated to the country by the Chinese government. As much as we expect the opposition supporters to know better when it comes to all matters oriental, it is still unfair to blame them.
They are typical Zimbabweans who join politics with the hope of getting something out of it as if politics was a job of some sort. We can only blame this on what Milton Kamwendo describes as "the beggar spirit".
"The beggar spirit plays out at all levels: Personal, family, organisational and country levels. The roots of this spirit are self-pity and laziness. Many people go through life expecting someone to feel pity for them and carry their burden through life's gates while they stroll along to the march of the donor bandwagon. Thinking like a victim disables creativity and innovation and blinds true vision…"
How many times do we see politicians that you and I know to have amassed vulgar wealth appearing on our television screens mourning that donors are not forthcoming with money for community projects? That is the beggar spirit we are talking about.
It is the same bizarre spirit that sends author and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga into paroxysms of anger when the Culture Fund - from which she has already benefited suddenly does not make available cash for her next project.
Dangarembga is naturally entitled to every cotton-picking cent that gets into that fund! The same way we have all the freedom in contributing to our maternal grandmothers' granaries.
Those who think such funds should be for budding artists - not a handy pension fund for grannies - can go hang because it is not just in Animal Farm where some animals are more equal than others!
We now understand why sages enjoin us never to let a goblin taste blood… instead of satisfying it, all it does is whet its appetite for more and more blood and the family is forever in trouble.
When mbira musician Chiwoniso Maraire died in 2013, Dangarembga was swift to blame the government and "some embassies of some wealthy nations" of not making available free anti-retroviral drugs to the musician. She was later forced to issue another Facebook post retracting her misguided comments.
Dangarembga has this bizarre belief that the world owes her a life and a half.
It is very unfortunate because it seems like begging has become an addictive enterprise. For many, it is easier to beg than to work or think. We sadly find this sort of thinking among our war veterans and their politician masters.
Very sad!
Dr CZ is mourning the passing on of author and poet, Chenjerai Hove, who died in Norway at the weekend when another writer, Freedom Nyamubaya, was being buried.
No matter how much we love each other, one thing we cannot do anything about is death. As the late Steve Jobs put it: "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new."
Well, it is sad that Hove - who was born in a family of natural fighters which include his sister Sekai Holland (nee Hove) and late prominent lawyer-politician Byron Hove among other luminaries - died while holed up in Oslo, Norway, after fleeing some unknown dangers that he was so convinced lurked behind at home.
Since things started getting rotten at home, many Zimbabweans - writers and journalists included - have left the country in droves and most of them had no option but to cook up all sorts of piquant stories to please their hosts. We hope and sincerely pray this was never the case with the brother.
Reading George Orwell's essay How the Poor Die, one cannot help it but feel sad that death catches up with some people when they have left the comfort of their homes trying to flee from it.
While Dr CZ is not qualified to pass judgment on Hove's life choices, he however, finds it tempting to agree with Orwell's conclusion that "It is a great thing to die in your own bed, though it is better still to die in your own boots."
Coming…
Sages always warn that brothers should never fight each other to death because a stranger would inherit their father's estate. When chickens come home to roost, they come running… we are seeing that in ZANU-PF. As the feral wars rage between those that were recently expelled from the party and those that have survived (for now), Zimbabweans are getting wiser by the day.
Small wonder it has been declared "Gore rekudzidza zvakawanda"… the year of learning a lot.
It is sad that sometimes people do not take jocular Joseph Chinotimba seriously, even though here and there the man is dispensing nuggets of truths.
This week, he was at it again, disingenuously waffling: "If Jabulani (Sibanda) says (President) Mugabe is dirty, he has more dirt than (President) Mugabe, as during the 2013 election campaign (President) Mugabe did not go to many places.
He only held star rallies and this Jabulani is the one who would mobilise people, from all corners of Manicaland, Matabeleland, Masvingo. For people to vote President Robert Mugabe, it is because of Jabulani Sibanda, who went around the clock (sic) campaigning.
He would go around giving headmen books to write down names of voters, threatening people, now he is saying those people whom he made to vote for (President) Mugabe is now saying (sic) abandon ZANU-PF, what has gone wrong? Jabulani, stop it!"
Need we say more?
#gorerekudzidzazvakawanda.
cznotebook@yahoo.co.uk
Source - fingaz
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