ZIMBABWE – HARARE – I must mention dear Professor Moyo, that you have become part and master of a terrible political culture that treats political divergence as an unpatriotic attempt to disturb the ‘natural order’ of our national politics.

 

 

While more urgent issues such as deaths caused by man-made disasters like cholera, state-sponsored political violence, and drought are in need of attention, we still have members of parliament like you who have the time, vision, and intelligence to abuse public space to insult alternative voices and political opponents, and your expectations are that Zimbabweans should render unquestioning audience and allegiance to their ‘selfless liberators’- ZANU PF.

 

 

 

Concerned Zimbabweans find this political conduct a part of the grand and regrettable selfish political maneuvering and opportunism that continues to contaminate our national politics.

 

 

 

You still, on behalf of ZANU PF, act as the ill-functioning apparatus of threatening, insulting and intimidating alternative voices and opinions that are demanding accountability from their leaders. Are you surely confessing to the suffering and expectant Zimbabweans that your task in joining ZANU PF is to waste your energies in “exposing” MDC rather than improve their terrible plight?

 

Well, they say that a people without a vision for the future will always hang on to the past, and a dirty past it is.

 

Do you not realize how much pain and suffering under violent and brutal punishment Zimbabweans have had to take for simply disagreeing with ZANU PF?

 

Do you not marvel at their audacity to still question, challenge and even disagree with ZANU PF nevertheless? I must tell you that it is not the MDC (after all, Zimbabwe is bigger than MDC or ZANU PF), but the power within the people of Zimbabwe that scares you into this thoughtless and careless frenzy.

 

The people of Zimbabwe may be poor and hungry, but they do have aspirations, aspirations of democratic ideals and human rights consciousness that gives them the dignity they deserve, not the high sounding insults you never run out of.

 

Human rights and democracy by the way, have nothing to do with the West, they are a human aspiration.

 

It is the search for these dreams that drives the people of Zimbabwe into and across the crocodile infested and heavy flowing Limpopo into South Africa, among many distant lands away from their beloved country.

 

Your recent attacks on critics labeling critics MDC in an interview, which was widely publicized by the Sunday Mail in recent weeks, serves to escalate tensions and are thus irresponsible.

 

I found your rhetoric very dodgy, escapist, misleading and scandalous and stand against the very spirit of power sharing and political tolerance.

 

They stand against giving the governed a voice to govern the conduct of all public affairs including the decisions of their public leaders.

 

 

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You have to be reminded that these political bullying tactics that you seek to reintroduce in the current dispensation, the same that you used in 2000, are now outmoded and outdated.

 

You must appreciate that the leadership has to be challenged and questioned and no amount of political bullying will take that right and responsibility away from us, the people, not MDC.

 

Your attack on the only remaining papers that give truth-seeking Zimbabweans alternative platforms for information and discussion, such as the Standard and the Independent, is very much a chilling reminder of your hatred for open governance and transparent leadership.

 

The very hatred that consumed you into crafting AIPPA, POSA and the Broadcasting Services Act, all draconian pieces of legislation that destroyed our celebrated freedom of speech and expression.

 

These actions are a clear example and reminder of what your previous partnership with ZANU PF can do to destroy the very meaning and substance of our independence as a people and nation, and that will not be forgotten.

 

Since you identify MDC with every dissenting voice in Zimbabwe, do you not consider this as failure by your new party to convince the Zimbabweans that it deserves their following?

 

By the way, Honorable Jonathan Moyo, the citizens will no longer be passive followers, not after what ZANU PF has done to this country since day one at independence, and that was a long time before the MDC that you want to blame for everything was formed.

 

The citizens of this country need not to be western sponsored or MDC to question their leadership.

 

In fact it is very arrogant to think that only the MDC can question your intentions in rejoining ZANU PF.

 

You spoke authoritatively about Gukurahundi in your interview and because of that, I think it may help you to know that this very act of silencing political opponents and insulting alternative views you are performing is the perpetuation of Gukurahundi.

 

I do concede that Gukurahundi had heavy trappings of the conscious act of massacre with the intent of wiping out a particular tribe from specific geopolitical regions.

 

However, I believe this was done because of what their political convictions than for the language they spoke.

 

In that context, Gukurahundi was and is any form of violent and verbal, hegemonic and authoritarian suppression of the opposition and its supporters.

 

It is not only an act of genocide but also an act of what I call democide.

 

This defines acts of political violence and the forceful suppression of dissenting voices, with the sole purpose of destroying the democratic values of fair political competition and the consent of the governed.

 

And you are doing exactly that.

 

The Gukurahundi you talk about and care about so much never really did end with the cessation of political violence in Matabeleland and Midlands but has continued in different and hidden forms to this day.

 

It has even expanded its focus to the new political opposition supporters like the MDC. It has also ceased to be simply a military crusade to an essentially political one.

 

The same tactics used against the supporters of ZAPU have been witnessed when ZANU PF deal with the MDC. In this entire crusade Professor, you are an accomplice! Where is your conscience?

 

Dear professor, let me end this letter by telling you that we, the people of Zimbabwe have a dream.

 

Our dream is of a Zimbabwe where politics will neither be about winning arguments nor about total devils and total angels.

 

A country where politics and political debate is promoted on the understanding that it is about influencing decisions that serve the interests of all our citizens.

 

Our dream is of a varied political leadership that does not spend sleepless nights thinking of the next line of attack on Honorable Tendai Biti.

 

We dream of leaders that get into office to serve the nation better by contributing to policies that will get Zimbabwe working again.

 

It is very painful for me to say that your conduct stands in the way of our dream.

 

I say so because you are part of the political leadership, the so-called liberators that have kept the nation trapped in the blame-the-next-person-but-myself-psyche, a victimhood mentality that assumes we are all passive recipients of whatever happens or happened to us.

 

Our country’s roads are littered with illegal roadblocks in much the same way that our path nascent democracy and self determinism has been littered with so many obstacles thrown in by the very individuals that claim to have liberated us and you are one of them.

 

Let this be known to you oh professor that Zimbabweans will never again live within the confines of a controlled political and public space!

 

Sincerely, Thabani Nyoni

 

Thabani Nyoni has been working as a community organizer for social and political transformation in Zimbabwe for the past five years.

 

He is currently studying public policy and public administration at the University of Minnesota through a non-degree Fellowship program.

 

 

 

 

 

JOKE OF THE DAY - "How was your game, dear?" asked Jack's wife Tracy.

 

"Well, I was hitting pretty well, but my eyesight's gotten so bad I couldn't see where the ball went," he answered.

 

"But you're 75 years old, Jack!" admonished his wife, "Why don't you take my brother Scott along?"

 

and doesn't play golf anymore," protested Jack.

 

"But he's got perfect eyesight. He would watch the ball for you," Tracy pointed out.

 

The next day Jack teed off with Scott looking on. Jack swung and the ball disappeared down the middle of the fairway. "Do you see it?" asked Jack.

 

"Yup," Scott answered.

 

"Well, where is it?" yelled Jack, peering off into the distance. "I forgot."

 

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