Stay-away call was fatally flawed from onset

Stay-away call was fatally flawed from onset

Nevanji Munyaradzi Chiondegwa

I have always said I hate stupid people, and I hereby reiterate that position, I abhor stupid people.

Unfortunately, for all the vaunted literacy and intelligence, some section of Zimbabweans display an intolerable level of stupidity!

It usually manifests itself in politics.

How we have a group of people who because of problems, real or assumed think they should organise a shutdown Zimbabwe, whatever that is, beats me really.

I need someone to balance me on how shutting down Zimbabwe will improve transport, improve drug supply in hospitals or even how that will change anything in anyone’s life except that it will only worsen one’s situation especially those who are self-employed who happen to be the majority in any case.

Besides the fact that the intended partakers of the so-called shutdowns are the urban politically illiterate, it is an exercise in futility for they are the ones who are affected by the shutdowns in any case; they are self-employed!

Well, not all, for some are simply guns for hire who wait for such scenario as these shutdowns to become relevant and then suddenly thrown into obscurity with some of them still wallowing in prison after being jailed for their role in the Jan 2019 violent demonstrations.

Anyways, this is beside the story. The story is how the anger is exported and imported.

Firstly, Hopewell Chin’ono went to Geneva to speak about cancer machines and suddenly, they have become the catchphrase for every idiotic political commentator.

Then followed Peter Mutasa to speak for three minutes in Europe at some such convention.

Well, these people were exported to Europe by the United States Embassy. Mind you, they held a briefing before the departure of each of the characters in the jigsaw puzzle that includes obscure personalities like Obert Masaraure whose entity has less than one hundred people all across the country.

The others are members of a protest movement who long ceased to represent student needs called ZINASU And of course, they all fall under the ambit of Crisis Coalition in Zimbabwe.

The name itself suggests they need a crisis in Zimbabwe and if one is absent, they will invent one.

After being exported, they then imported the anger. They have their cheerleaders in the diaspora and of course some clowns like one Joseph Kalimbwe, a tweeting character from Zambia and a chap named Mmusi Maimane, a failed politician from South Africa who Julius Malema once said there was nothing honorable about him during a showdown in SA Parliament.

Maimane tweeted, ‘The world will be watching when #ShutDownZimbabwe happens. There is no room for suppression of the rights of the people, including the right to protest. There should be no obstruction of the people @edmnangagwa, there should be no arrests and intimidation of activists.”

Shocker! Who is the world and whose rights is he referring to?

Former Information Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo, a Zimbabwe critic responded, “Of concern about the latest #ShutDownZimbabwe is the @MmusiMaimane factor. Is he Zimbabwean? Have Zimbabwean political leaders or parties delegated the #ShutDownZimbabwe campaign to Mmusi? When such things happen, a rethink of the campaign is in order!”

He added, “Maimane is a South African politician and an @NDI puppet; he is not a Zimbabwean, to justify his leading role in a #ShutDownZimbabwe campaign. Compatriots who want to be led by or to associate with @MmusiMaimane’s #ShutDownZimbabwe plot should not expect everyone to join them!”

He further questioned, “What does #ShutDownZimbabwe mean? How come the #ShutDownZimbabwe hashtag has been trending more in South Africa than anywhere else? Who will SUFFER and who will BENEFIT, if Zimbabwe is shutdown as being plotted?”

The questions by Professor Moyo are critical in understanding the imported and exported anger principle here.

One will be forgiven for not failing to understand the situation well and assuming that Zimbabweans would have intentions to shutdown their country.

Who wants to be disturbed from earning an income for their family? When has a demonstration ever yielded anything? Beyond allowances to Uncle Sam puppets.

So as Professor Moyo, whom by the way I loathe to agree with on anything, rightly pointed out, “The #ShutDownZimbabwe framing is anti-Zimbabwean; hard to think or believe it was coined by Zimbabweans. Why would Zimbabweans want their country shutdown? A protest by Zimbabweans would be appropriately framed. Imagine “Yellow Vests” in Paris with a “#ShutdownFrance” hashtag!”

 

The other factor is most social media activists urging others to shutdown the country are in fact diasporans whose source of information about the country are firstly their greed and ungrateful relatives and then hostile online media.

I have relatives and friends in the diaspora and whenever I am short of a buck for my favorite Irish whiskey, I sell a sob story about the situation in Zimbabwe.

While my sole intention is to have a bottle of Jameson, think of those who want to buy a car, a stand or go for a holiday, how much do they hit their cousins and friends for?

As Professor John Chitakure said; “If you are a Zimbabwean in the diaspora, and you hear people back home crying and lambasting leaders and everyone else except themselves about poverty, inflation, and other economic hardship, you would think that on your next visit, you would find your family and friends living on the streets, wearing animal skins, walking barefooted, and suffering from kwashiorkor.

You would be taken aback to see the mansions they are building, the cars they drive, the good clothes they are wearing, and how healthy and well-fed they look. In fact, you, the diasporic Zimbabwean would be the homeless and pedestrian. Then you realize that you were misled by a generation of ungrateful, arrogant, and ever complaining people,” a Professor Chitakure said.

There is a simple reason why the stay-away flopped.

Shutting Zimbabwe does not benefit Zimbabweans, and they know better.

That Mmusi Maimane has become the biggest organiser and yet he is not even Zimbabwean discredited the idea as an imperialist project.

Stop and ask yourself why it is the diaspora that was tweeting more about such a shutdown and why it is in South Africa where it is trending more?

If as Maimane claims it is SA which has suffered more because of the situation in Zimbabwe, so is he trying to export the suffering back to Zimbabwe?

 

Let’s display a bit of the intellect which once made us be among the most educated people in Africa!

Where did the idiocy spring from?