All colour and no substance

All colour and no substance

Nevanji Munyaradzi Chiondegwa

 

There is a saying among the village autochthons, which says what the elders see when seated down, the youth, would not see even if they went up a mountain.

This truism finds itself glaringly thrust in our faces with the demise of the MDC.

When passing a place with a dead animal, we all have a tendency to look aside and spit.

If it’s our usual way and we pass it more than twice during the day, the possibility is, for a duration of two weeks in the least, we will be spitting a couple of times daily.

The spitting, however, apart from disgusting the others following behind or coming from the other side of you, will not get rid of the smell.

This is why you would spit more than twice while passing the same place. This is the reason why you need to bury dead objects not just toss them aside.

There is also this much said by people, if you have a bad odour, say body or bad breathe, you are the last to smell it.

The worst though is, you do not realise the smell is from you and you will continue spitting but no matter how much spitting you do, the bad breathe stays with you.

 

Spitting does not cure bad breathe.

Someone should have told Nelson Chamisa.

The wisdom, which the late seer Oliver Mtukudzi shared in Dzinga Hwema, could have escaped the boy from Kuwadzana.

I say it with conviction because, if he knew this, he would know that facing North or East, a snake is a snake no matter its colour or direction it is travelling.

The only thing one must do for it is what the Christian Holy book commands; crush its head!

A chameleon does not add substance to self by changing its colours.

A small reddish chameleon can change to orange, green, yellow or mixed hues but the fact is, it remains the same smell chameleon.

Even if it inflates itself a bit, it will eventually return back to its small size n original hue and sidle away without causing so much as a dent.

It may only succeed in frightening the most yellow of cowards but nothing more.

I say this in the wake of the latest episode to come out from the house Morgan built.

Well, it is crediting the late Humanikwa villager with much credit to even say he built it but then again, we are no longer looking at the original item but the one he had surnamed after himself.

 

MDC began in 1999 but its presents was only really felt on 2000.

It was as is typical of all Western sponsored movements fighting against the indigines’ intend to create a home-grown Constitution to respond to the hopes, wishes and aspirations of the people.

It was also fighting against land resettlement program. It succeeded in persuading the emotionally and politically illiterate urban dwellers who have little institutional memory on the land issue to vote against the Constitutional Commission driven 2000 Constitution.

So strong was their aversion to the land issue that they fought against the Constitution.

They mobilised their soldiers for hire; the Labour force to vote NO.

The Constitution, which would have seen the one man they so abhorred, the late President Mugabe, leave power in five years was shelved.

To show that their fight was against land reform and nothing else, the winning Highfield legislator for 2000, one Enock Chikweche, now named Munyaradzi Gwisai, who had won on their ticket was recalled from Parliament.

Gwisai, a socialist-marxist who is a member of the International Labour Organisation’s biggest crime was supporting land reform.

He wanted land given to the indigenes. This did not augur well for the Tsvangirai-led party and their sponsors of course.

They had to part ways with Gwisai for he stood his ground and spoke in support of the land issue.

This was the first split of the party and the first indication to all that the party had no glue holding it together – there was zero ideology.

There was absolutely no cohesion. The fact that some of its leaders then including their Secretary General, Welshman Ncube applied for and got land, shows how there was no consensus on the issue within the party rank and file even as they fought it.

As is typical of all foreign sponsored movements, in 2005, the MDC split again, this time into two. Their reason for splitting?

Failure to uphold democratic tenets by Morgan Tsvangirai. It does sound funny for an organisation calling itself the Movement for Democratic Change but that is the reason they split.

Welshman Ncube, the man who had got land, this time went away with the party financial resources and the name.

He left Morgan with nothing except a building and a battered and even more tattered reputation.

 

The launch of the ideologically bankrupt opposition party which has gone under a metamorphosis from its early days as a Labour-led movement with a coterie of other institutions including students movements, civic society and academia was always going to be a disaster.

The mixture of students, who abhor lecturers, and workers who abhor executives, and lawyers who look down on everyone was never going to work.

So the 2005 split occurred and MDC became two organisations.

However, it soon became three with Job Sikhala, the bulky and childish St Mary’s dweller who never overcame his student activism days forming MDC-99.

He accused the two other MDCs of abandoning their original ideology (whatever that was).

The Ncube-led MDC settled for a former student leader Arthur Mutambara to become their president.

Needless to say, this was another show of lack of consistency and ideology. Mutambara was a robotics professor in the USA at the material time and had no links with anyone the political movements.

Thankfully, it cost the MDCs 2008 and eventually 2013. The Ncube let outfit split further to MDC-M and MDC-N.

Mutambara leading the other and Ncube the other. The Tsvangirai led MDC-T split in 2013 to become about three political parties. One led by Biti, the other led by Mangoma and the other by Tsvangirai himself.

What is certain is that the splits were not ideological once nor anything else except personality clashes and greedy.

There was nothing to hold the movements together. Their sponsors had grown tired of propping them up.

The party formed to stop land reform had failed to stop it. The party formed to remove Mugabe, had failed to remove him.

The party formed to remove ZANU PF from power and thus derail the revolutionary movement in Zimbabwe had failed to do so.

Mugabe still stood tall thirteen years later, a towering bulwark against imperialism. Tsvangirai was now just spewing rhetoric of Mugabe Must Go.

Of course, he had enjoyed the trappings of Prime Minister.

He collected for himself, wives, girlfriends and children during the period but learnt nothing from the political grandmaster who then empathically thumped him in 2013.

The only thing we ever learn from History is the fact that we never learn from history.

In 2017, again the MDCs tried to bring the splinters back together into an Alliance but well, this is history which they never learnt from; ideologically opposed individuals with inflated egos cannot become one.

 

One cannot also form something based on personality cults.

Tsvangirai sadly died in 2018 before the plebiscite. This led to the power grab by the man he had nicknamed Cobra, Nelson Chamisa, and trouble for the house Morgan built.

In 2018, history repeated itself as it had done in 2008, there were two MDCs on the ballot paper, and then the bruising battle to control Harvest House or is it Hunger House now renamed Morgan Richard Tsvangirai House.

One has to feel sorry for the dead Tsvangirai in all this of course, there was no thought to his legacy( not such a great one but at least he believed in something).

Chamisa, Khupe, Mwonzora, Biti, Sikhala and Hwende believe in nothing.

Rope in the students and all the other riff-raff now in that particular party and you understand why we have had 22 years of splitting and nothing else from them.

The numerous name changes and nothing delivered in the sense of the main purpose of a political power; wrestle power and control of State levers means a FAILURE.

I do not not entirely fault them. After all, they are trying to take on an ideologically sound, and institutional memory strong ZANU PF.

You will get back to factory settings when you realize that ZANU PF has decisively defeated the regime change program by USA, European Union and their local stooges wearing whatever colour, for two decades in a row. Even Tony Blair had to forget his planned military invasion.

So now we have this new kid launched by Chamisa. And they have adopted yellow as a colour.

The colour yellow as described by the blog Colour Psychology has the following negative connotations;

“Despite its associations with optimism and happiness, yellow carries a number of negative connotations. It stands for cowardice, deceitfulness, impulsiveness, egoism. High levels of exposure to yellow can also lead to aggression and irritability.

Yellow personality types can often be too judgmental, spiteful, and have a lack of empathy.

It is even found that babies cry more in yellow painted rooms, as well as that people tend to get angry when around this color for too long. Yellow personality types have been associated with choleric temperament in a way that they are often described as violent, vengeful, and short-tempered.”

In the run up to 2018 Harmonised Elections, Nelson Chamisa was described by Dr Joyce Mujuru as dishonest, deceitful.

He has been accused of corwardice by even some of his liuetenants including Job Sikhala. Tsvangirai called him a cobra meaning he was sly, vengeful. Chamisa has even named the new party he launched after himself. His Chamisa Chete Chete has been used as the name to reflect egoism.

If you engage his backers you will learn just how violent and vengeful they are. All the evils of the yellow colour are with square in their lap.

Citizens’ Coalition for Change has marked the end of Morgan Tsvangirai’s legacy. Chamisa only wanted to use Morgan Richqrd Tsvangirai’s name to pave way for his political games. I feel sorry for Richard Tsvangirayi Jnr and his brother Vincent. They were betrayed by Nelson Chamisa and in typical yellow behaviour, he has not so much as apologised.

One thing is certain and consistent, ZANU PF is still standing land reform still happened, we now have a home grown Constitution and with the necessary ammendments we are making it fully indigenous. We have much to their chagrin withstood 22 years of debilitating sanctions from the West.

Zimbabwe is still standing and even developing despite all their intentions.

But MDC has broken into 15 parts now and we are still counting. For good measure the two day old Chamisa party has started on a rather familiar note of Confusion Chete Chete, fielding double candidates in three council by elections.

Indeed it is about a colour-nothing else. There is zero substance. All froth and no beer.

During the launch, nothing new was ever said except a manifestation of the personality cultism around Chamisa. In the same vein, we expect nothing from them.

Come on Zimbabwe, let’s continue the march to Vision 2030!