The Sunday News
Micheal Mhlanga
There is a group of self-appointed trustees of morality and political truth. This crop of thinkers calls itself the democrats and economic recovery enthusiasts.
It is known for its dismissive tendencies which masquerade as concerns for public interests yet it is just another tool used to cushion opposition from criticism.
The biggest mistake it makes is blackmailing the unsuspecting citizens into thinking that refusing opposition is tantamount to refusing democracy and development, this logic is untrue, it is just a product of opposition’s arrogance and its ill-conceived hegemony over democracy and development.
The guardians of this inanity often equate supporting the ruling party as being tantamount to condoning the existence of problems in society as if it is not normal for a society to have problems; their deceitful agenda is exposed by their silence on the achievements of the establishment. It then becomes clear that these self-appointed trustees of public interest are not as genuine as how they present themselves.
Dear reader, today’s pedagogue is derived from Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s novel dubbed The Devil on the cross. This title can be explained as a discourse that deliberates reality from calculated fluctuations seeking to swindle the unsuspecting desperate human. Ngugi is among the key revolutionaries who use literature as a tool to repatriate society from sinking.
Interestingly, Ngugi is not just a mere revolutionary, he has a strong ideological origin in Pan African thinking and decoloniality. The two ideologies primarily seek to deconstruct liabilities challenging the political consciousness of the human and to specifically rectify the intellectual rubric of the citizen when he/she is conducting oneself in mainstream politics.
Respect prophetic literature
When the Kenyan veteran writer was coining this title he did not have in mind the situation that characterises Zimbabwean politics today. Nevertheless literature in its immortal being will always permeate into time and establish its relevance in whatever circumstances.
In the novel Devil on the cross, Ngugi narrates the dreadful anecdote of a youth who migrates from a rustic Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, merely to be oppressed by her superior and afterward by a fraudulent businessman. As she struggles to endure, Wariinga the young lady begins to understand that her tribulations are only indications of a larger societal malaise and that much of the disaster stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country.
Interestingly Ngugi’s revolutionary writing will be used to rescue the contemporary Zimbabwean voter who like Wariinga is made to believe that the grass is greener on the other side only if he/ she votes for specific self appointed development experts who disregard historical factors in explaining the present day state of the Republic.
Ngugi’s submission is dedicated to that voter who like Wariinga sold her soul to the “devil” thinking that he/ she is seeking salvation, specifically that voter who is about to succumb to a calculated web of deception called the Alliance of sponsored thinking.
Ngugi’s submission protests the new unbecoming political habit mainly worn by Zimbabwe’s opposition, of not only kicking the voter through the use of bad political memories brought forth by colonialism and MDC advocated sanctions, but the tendency of attempting to assume a hero status out of teaching the same voter how to react to the same kicks.
Who is the Devil on the cross?
Before we discuss the general fraudulent modus operandi of the Alliance, let me invite a Political aficionado — Tedious Ncube’s shared thoughts on the subject. Our highly charged discussion unpacked my previous argument that the Alliance is falling, stretching to revising what really this Alliance is, especially after a Bulawayo Central MP Candidates Public debate co-hosted by Leaders for Africa Network.
It is after that clash of the Bulawayo Central candidates that we relaxed for a cup of a drink doing a “post-mortem” of the MDCs. Revisiting last week’s instalment of “Devious Democracies and deceptive alternatives”, there is every need to announce that I am not yet done with the “Alliance” of Harvest House.
Ncube says to identify the “Devil on the cross”, we should begin by exposing the initial fraud encapsulated by the name itself.
The term Alliance does not in any way represent the joining together of various opposition political parties for the greater good of the general public, but it is just a reunion of a group of men who have failed to establish themselves individually in Zimbabwean politics.
He added that, often there is hype created when the word “Alliance” is mentioned as if a reunion of the original MDC amounts to political relevance. Agreeably, let us not forget that this is just a reunion of the MDC which was battered in 2000, 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2013, why should Zimbabwe panic today?
As if that is not enough, the undecided voter is made to believe that the so called Alliance is a genuine reunion of the originally weak MDC yet it is just but a cabal of three “men” comprising of the delusional Advocate-man-of-the-Cloth, Tendai Biti and the elite Welshman Ncube who cannot even win a seat in his home town. In the Alliance it is worth noting that language and words are frequently misused to falsely market a hopeless reality.
There is a simplistic arithmetic used by the three musketeers, one that assumes that their reunion automatically amounts to an electoral virtue: It is wrong to presume that union in malfunction amounts to victory: union in failure as a rule amounts to bigger failure.
Why the “devil” will fall from the “cross”?
The reason why opposition is going to be defeated in the upcoming election was and is never about its division or strength; opposition was and is destined to lose the upcoming election based on the strengths of the ruling party.
The greatest mistake opposition makes in Zimbabwe, is that in its arrogance, it parochially concentrates on its self-given might against the alleged deficits of the ruling party.
Opposition dismally fails to be rational enough to acknowledge that every system is constituted by both negative and positive, as such even if the establishment has shortfalls it does not in any way mean that the establishment is defined along those weaknesses.
The unfortunate part for opposition is that this failure to comprehend the strengths and capabilities of the ruling party is only prevalent in their elite circles; this misconception is not universal to all Zimbabweans. This inconsistency is replicated in the ballot box where the opposition elites are deserted by the masses in favour of the ruling party.
How the “devil” will fall from the “cross”
The majority of Zimbabwean voters are not abstract as how the Alliance expects them to be. To a certain degree Zimbabweans are sober enough to be broad in understanding politics. The voter has always remembered the virtues (strengths) of the ruling party when voting; an intrinsic worth that is utterly ignored by Alliance candidates who have been frequently outwitted by the ruling party candidates because of such dynamics which ultimately shape the outcome of the election results.
Ultimately the Alliance in its ignorance even fails to explain how it loses elections. In its narrow perspectives it selectively focuses on limited factors of politics. As such, when opposition is battered in the ballot it fails to even explain how it was battered, resorting to superstitious scandals like rehearsed rigging allegations which they cannot even prove.
In the 2013 harmonised elections, opposition in its arrogance could not realise that while they were busy scandalising Government which to them is a campaign strategy, the ruling party was occupied with an actual campaign which translated to its landscape victory.
The same scenario is replicated in the build up towards the 2018 elections, while opposition exhausts its efforts scandalising Government, the ruling party is consistently campaigning and capturing the interest of the voter.
The misconception by the Alliance is its skewed political logic to understand politics for what it is not, instead of what it is.
This justifies why the Alliance is seemingly pessimistic in nature which by the way links opposition’s continued failure and its deliberate ignorance.
As we approach the 30 July election, we shall watch as time destroys the paper built castle of the Alliance, the outcome of the election will prove that these little pranks were but frantic attempts of frightened little people to convince each other that they can control the behaviour of innocent voters who don’t deserve to be used as objects in the rejoining of three friends.
Yikho khona lokhu!
