Mugabe rips the flag, a question of ethics

The ZANU PF establishment is haunted by the resurrection of the national flag running sacred as the public is flying the flag high reminding the government of its failed mandate to honour the principles of what the Zimbabwe national flag stands for. The public is indicting the ruling ZANU PF of breaching its sworn in contract to uphold the ethos, values, laws and obligations to honour the philosophy of the Zimbabwe national flag.

ZANU PF has failed to lead the country to fulfil the mandate that is symbolic and representative of the national flag. 1980 saw the hoisting of the new Zimbabwe national flag, the national emblem born of a protracted liberation struggle for the glorious independence of Zimbabwe. The national flag is the symbol of honour representing the sacrifices made during the liberation struggle; the cultural and racial diversity of the people of Zimbabwe; the national heritage; and the economic wealth extracted from the land, flora, fauna and human effort. The new national flag of Zimbabwe represented a new culture, a new economic, political and social ideology and dimension. It was a pleasure for every Zimbabwean of all walks of life to carry the flag at any time of their choosing in private and public occasions and sang the national anthem with pride and conviction.

The national flag presents a social contract by the people of Zimbabwe with government on the promise that the government will protect them, take action to promote national prosperity and quality of life; protect every member of our society from injustice or oppression to include effective handling of conflicts associated with economic crisis and political contests and to create and maintain functional public institutions, public services and public works. The national flag is a symbol of the trust vested in government by the people of Zimbabwe for the government to be the major custodian to the national constitution and lead within the moral and legal dictates of the constitution.

ZANU PF government and party officials have abandoned their obligations and duties for pleasure seeking merry bound at the expense of the economic misery of the ordinary people. The moral framework of egoism, lack of self-respect, increase in selfishness and lack of compassion by ZANU PF elite has nourished in the face of civic suffering. Honesty, honour and trust which is a social and moral virtue for self-policing has declined to epidemic levels. The pursuit of self-gratification bliss, big man syndrome and a narcissistic preoccupation with self-importance by the president and his hangers on has given way to self-indulgence and decadence.

Zimbabwe's problems lie with the leadership style of Mugabe. His government is so removed from the people because they are consumed in self-interest which is so excessive that the interest and needs of the people are completely ignored and forgotten. The expression by ZANU PF of entitlement and self-importance is to blame for the deviant behaviour by its leaders which is linked to narrow mindedness to seek control of the material and human world craving for superficial authority by the imposition of fear to promote superficial goodness about themselves. The pursuit of economic success and power is now accepted as a need to exploit and intimidate others. The decline of civility has increased attitudes of the disregard of the law, the rights of others and the rise of adversary culture.

The loss of ethics and values lies in the ZANU PF leadership lack of good moral character, the reduction of conscience, loss of self-control and the provision of excuses for unbecoming behaviour traced in the absence of a sense of guilty accompanied with the lack of consequences and deterrence as they have run-down and corrupted all lawful structures to deal with their unlawful corrupt behaviour. The perception and thinking that those who graduate from poverty and come into money would have empathy for those still trapped in the horrors of poverty has been proved wrong by ZANU PF mongers. They have become worse than the colonialist regimes. They dig deep into the flash and suck all the little blood that is left to keep the souls of the poor together.

The role of conditioned behaviour by colonial doctrines, indoctrination and its practice is the covert underlining behaviour by ZANU PF with the acceptance of being genetically black but with the social outlook entrenched in colonial virtues. The president is a product of colonial education and social upbringing that was responsible for shaping his personality and modelled his interpersonal character and behaviour premised in the desire that constantly seeks control over others. The threat of loss of control evokes in his emotions of aggression to regain the perceived loss presenting with impulsive and unpredictable national decision making, a psychological risk that continues to endanger the prosperity of peace in the country.

ZANU PF elite is disengaging and disassociating with the broken, hurting and neglected people of Zimbabwe. ZANU PF elite is living a life disconnected from the people of Zimbabwe. They have long abandoned Zimbabwe as a country of their national heritage but as a workplace to stockpile wealth and spend it elsewhere in Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, India, the united States of America, England and others

ZANU PF no longer wants to be associated with the national flag of Zimbabwe. ZANU PF members of parliament are running scared of the national flag. Parliamentary proceedings halted on several occasions when ZANU PF parliamentarians objected to MDC members of parliament for wearing the national flag in the chambers. ZANU PF members of parliament considered the presence of the flag in parliament intrusive and a provocation of the dignity of parliament and they did not want to be associated with it. The flag had to be thrown out of parliament building.

While Mugabe is attempting to buy a youth 2018 vote by parcelling stands for the youth, unethically as it, Saviour was given the responsibility to allocate the stands but he took the opportunity to raise money for himself selling the stands to channel the money to complete works on his multi-bedrooms mansion. Saviour could not survive the temptations of corruption cancer that has spread so much in his head to a point he has found it proper to steal from his master. Saviour can only save himself by doing the only ethical thing to resign before Robert presses the nuclear button on him. That is the nature of the game in an unethical relationship.

The president is now characterised by flying out of the country running scared of the national flag. He no longer finds Zimbabwe a home to be. The president has lost the love, pride and confidence in the health care system which he has presided for 36 years and with all that time he failed to build a state of the art presidential hospital in his own country that he can be proud of today. The president is paying colossal amounts of tax payers' money without feeling any sense of guilty in hospital and doctors' fees to attend to him in other countries. He, his family and his associates (Simon Khaya Moyo) will never ever dare seek treatment at United Bulawayo hospitals, central Harare hospitals, Mutare general hospital and Masvingo general hospital. He has long lost the principles of the flag. The sad irony of ethics is that Mugabe does not have the trust and confidence in the doctors, physicians and nurses that are a product of his engineering.

The ethical dilemma and the loss of ethics have seen the president's daughter Bona flown out the country to give birth while the multitude of women in Zimbabwe delivers babies on the floors in rural and urban health facilities. Controlling dishonesty requires political morality to inspire society and influence government to peruse integrity and accountability. This is no longer an attribute held by the present president of Zimbabwe

Bribery, corruption, and fraud are the greatest ethical dilemmas facing our country at the moment requiring a cultural change in thinking and behaviour. Corruption is and has always been the product of the elite. ZANU PF knows that for corruption to thrive state enterprises and public entities should be deliberately made weak and market economies have to be poorly developed. This explains why Zimbabwe politicians are engaging in business activities and ventures that benefit them from the laws that they enact so as to protect and prop their business interests. The ban on imports mainly from South Africa targeted on ordinary people was employ to protect the vast business empires owned by the politicians. Individual ministers and officials now own vast tracks of land, large housing estates and properties, business chains, numerous cars and they award themselves lucrative salary packs. They openly boast, brag and show-off their ill-gotten wealth, a sorrowful state of moral decay within the ruling class.

Ministers and ZANU PF officials are turning their back on the national flag sending their children overseas to receive an education there. Saviour Kusakuwere's son is suffering humiliation in England to do a degree that can easily be obtained in his home country. Robert Mugabe Junior is in a school in Dubai with a strange language, culture no connections and away from daddy. It is not surprising that the boy is building a forensic profile involved in the use of illicit substances. In Dubai, Robert Junior gets arrested something which is very much unlikely at home. Professor Jonathan Moyo's daughter had to, unfortunately, lose her life in South Africa in circumstances indicative of a lack of parental guidance in the search for education that her father is a minister of in her home country, Zimbabwe. This is a bizarre conflict of interests and ethics.

ZANU PF has long lost the commitment to inspire the country for a better and prosperous future

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themba mthethwa <thembamthethwa05@yahoo.co.uk