Robert Mugabe’s underlings and running dogs will, once again, raid Mbare Musika, Mupedzanhamo and several peri-urban areas to force poor and hungry people to travel to central Harare and participate in the so-called Million (Hungry) Men March.
The stupid idea is intended to intimidate those in Mugabe’s own Zanu (PF) who may be nursing presidential ambitions to forget it and accept that the 83-year-old gagool is the most popular candidate in the fractious party. The target of the march is by no means the MDC or any of the prospective opposition presidential candidates. The critical targets for the planned march are elements within Zanu (PF).
Not only will the poor masses be forced to participate in the meaningless march, but also those currently enjoying the fruits of Mugabe’s sickening benevolence will break their legs to be seen to participate in the ridiculous march. The majority of them will, obviously, do so tongue-in-cheek since they will be muttering obscenities against the dictator under their breaths.
they however, know that their absence from the march will be recorded and remembered firmly by the dictator’s minders and handlers come primary elections in 2008. Absence from the march will most likely be taken to mean that they are opposed to Mugabe’s candidature in the forthcoming presidential elections, and nothing can be more dangerous for them than that.
We recall that about one million people gathered at Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfields in 1980 to welcome Robert Mugabe home when he returned from exile in Mozambique. How many of those people are still alive today? If any, how many will participate in this Friday’s Million Hungry Men’s March. How many of the original million will be cursing Mugabe for all the troubles they are experiencing today?
We know, for example that some of the genuine war vets will not be marching this Friday because they see very clearly that what is now happening in Zimbabwe is not exactly what they sacrificed fought for during the liberation struggle. They see very clearly that the Zanu (PF) revolution has since lost its way, and that the former liberators have since transformed themselves into bloodthirsty vampires that now leave of the blood of those they initially purported to liberate. So at the end of the day, the difference between the late dictator, Ian Smith, and today’s dictator, Robert Mugabe is only skin-deep.
This is, however, not to say the liberation struggle was in vain. Far from it. Rather, the so-called vanguard of the revolution seems to have abandoned its post and allowed one selfish and arrogant man to steer the nation in the direction of unmitigated disaster. The million people who will march this Friday will be desperate for a square meal. They will most probably be jobless; and some will be of no fixed abode.
Some will probably be sick and in desperate need of missing doctors and nurses, and unavailable medicines. I just wonder whether they will realise that by marching in support of Mugabe’s damaging candidature they will simply be prolonging their personal as well as our national pain and suffering. These are the only two evils that Mugabe knows how best to administer.
But there is a wonderful consoling fact that we should always keep in mind – when the million hungry men march this Friday, there will be another 11 million that will be marching in the opposite direction, against Robert Mugabe’s candidature in next year’s elections. Regime change is inevitable – even though it may be delayed.
Post published in: Opinions