Recent remarks by Jonathan Moyo in his Bitis kiya-kiya performance treacherous left me in a complete delirium of topsy-turvy. The remarks do not only expose his political hypocrisy but also his remarkable ideological and political underdevelopment. (Pictured: Jonathan Moyo)There is nothing as saddening as watching what we thought before the year 2000 as our best and brightest among the populace failing to correctly read the national and international political climate. Jonathan has turned out to be more revolutionary than the revolutionary situation itself.
Jonathan refers to Minister Bitis speech as so manifestly treacherous, inflammatory and smacked of a sinister agenda. Moyo also accuses Biti of abusing the national budget by pushing a partisan agenda under what he called the false and irrelevant cover of the so-called Global Political Agreement.
Moyo makes reference to the more dominant and inflammatory sub-text running political thread of his presentation in his position and role as the Secretary General of the MDC-T undisguised ambitions for higher office. And yet Biti says: There is no going back. Morgan Richard Tsvangirai will win a free and fair election and we all know that Zimbabwes template is such that you become Prime Minister first before you become President.
Blaming the wrong people
Its quite strange to learn that Jonathan has all of a sudden become interested in the plight of the rural poor and the urban unemployed who make up the overwhelming majority in our country. Are you telling us that we only started experiencing this poverty six months ago when the Government of National Unity came into being? Isnt it a decade long crisis? I honestly think you are blaming the wrong people.
He also makes reference to a misguided pursuit of patronage in the apparent hope of currying favour with Minister Nelson Chamisa within the now raging MDC-T power struggles. In response to this political nonsense, I would want to remind the learned Professor that in-fights within the movement are a given.
They are a fact of political life, a part of the dynamic of human organization. In his Struggles-within-the-struggle, the late Professor Masipula Sithole wrote: Where human beings are involved with one another and interact directly or indirectly, conflict, tension, and struggles are bound to exist and describe the relationships. Contradictions are a given in social and political life. These are not unusual.
And the most ludicrous of all accusations: Biti opened up floodgates for hostile foreign information into Zimbabwe by eliminating all customs duty on newspapers to specifically advantage the foreign printing and publication of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirais American-sponsored glossy and controversial newsletter and the local distribution of a partisan newspaper based in Britain called The Zimbabwean, again for patronage purposes with everything to do with MDC-T internal power struggles. Information and its effective distribution is one of the pillars of democracy.
Conspired with Mugabe
And yet you ask: What the hell is the global village? The fact that you quote enlightened and democratic countries like India means you cant ignore what happens outside Zimbabwe and that is the global village. I dont need to have a PhD in Public Administration from the University of Southern California to decipher this simple thing. In fact, my undergraduate qualification is adequate! The elimination of duty isnt a deliberate and irresponsible attack on our national security and a naked sabotage of our economic interests.
Instead, shouldnt we be worried about the death threat that Minister Biti has received? Dont tell me that you havent heard of a 9mm live bullet and a note accompanying the bullet. You had the opportunity to serve humanity in Zimbabwe but you squandered it and history will judge you harshly. You conspired with the octogenarian tyrant, Robert Mugabe, to destroy our beloved country.
Tendai Biti, Wilf Mbanga and Morgan Tsvangirai whom you have attacked are people who have gone beyond a willingness to accommodate, to change; they want to create change and to control the situation surrounding them because they have identified worthwhile things to do and they want to do these things. As for those who sent a bullet to Minister Biti please be warned that: Human beings were made like God, so whoever murders one of them will be killed by someone else (Genesis 9:6). I rest my case and I put it to you.
Editors note: Mutsa Murenje writes from Nairobi, Kenya.