Tendai Ruben Mbofana
ZANU PF online activist Cleopas Mukungunugwa recently launched a scathing attack on prominent lawyer Fadzayi Mahere, accusing her of hypocritically “biting the hand that fed her.”
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His grievance rests on the premise that because her father served as Permanent Secretary for Education under Robert Mugabe, her upbringing, education, and professional standing were bankrolled by state resources.
According to Mukungunugwa, this history strips her of any moral authority to critique state corruption or human rights abuses.
This line of reasoning exposes a dangerously flawed logic that conflates state civil service with political patronage and treats public resources as bribes for lifelong political silence.
If we measure civic integrity using Mukungunugwa’s yardstick, then almost every major liberator in African history was guilty of biting the hand that fed them.
Consider the nationalist pioneers who dismantled white minority rule.
Were leaders like Robert Mugabe, Herbert Chitepo, the country’s first black barrister, and Samuel Parirenyatwa—the first black medical doctor—not educated under the very colonial administration they eventually rose up to destroy?
Most of them earned advanced university degrees within Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.
In South Africa itself, key anti-apartheid icons like Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and Govan Mbeki trained and practiced as lawyers under the legal frameworks of the apartheid state.
On a personal level, my own mother trained and worked as a nurse and my father as a teacher under colonial Rhodesia, enabling our family to enjoy a relatively decent living.
Based on Mukungunugwa’s logic, should all these leaders and citizens have folded their arms and embraced unjust, racist regimes simply because they derived a livelihood or qualification from the prevailing system?
Who then is supposed to fight injustice and oppression if benefiting from a society’s infrastructure disqualifies one from demanding its reform?
Are we expected to look away in the face of tyranny simply because our own plates happen to be full?
Perhaps this intellectual blind spot explains the deep crisis gripping Zimbabwe today.
Too many among us deliberately ignore the undeniable reality that an estimated 90 percent of our population lives in grinding poverty.
We turn a blind eye to the more than 85 percent of citizens who lack formal employment and are forced to eke out a desperate living on the streets.
We pretend not to see underfunded, under-resourced hospitals that lack basic medication and lifesaving equipment, leading to thousands of avoidable deaths every year.
All because we might personally be benefiting from the current order.
The so-called Second Republic has mastered this psychological trap, routinely handing out cash and luxury vehicles to influential public figures.
The strategy is clear: bind these figures to the regime’s largesse so they will never dare speak out against systemic injustice, pain, and human suffering.
This rot is not confined to the elite.
We now witness the disturbing spectacle of impoverished Zimbabweans singing the praises of their own oppressors in exchange for a box of chicken and chips.
Others spend their days harassing human rights activists online for a few dollars, hoping to catch the eye of tenderpreneurs who might throw them a car or cash.
Zimbabweans have been systematically reduced to beggars, bribed with crumbs from their tormentors in exchange for their souls.
This is the exact essence of Mukungunugwa’s philosophy: because you benefited, you must see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.
My generation, which entered primary school at independence in 1980, benefited immensely from the racial integration and social investments expanded by the Mugabe administration.
Yet that privilege cannot buy our silence regarding the Gukurahundi massacres of the mid-1980s.
We cannot bury the brutal violence inflicted on opposition supporters over the decades.
We cannot ignore the economic ruin caused by chaotic policies and corruption.
That is precisely why a significant part of my social justice advocacy has been directed against the Mugabe regime, despite having personally benefited from the high-quality education and public services of the 1980s and early 90s.
Zimbabweans must guard against this deadly selfishness.
We must reach a point where we look beyond our personal comfort and stand up for the collective plight of our neighbors.
We will never break the shackles of oppression as long as we remain selfish.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com