It is my innermost conviction that the MDC remains, in Jerusalemic terms, our only source of potential liberation.
It is a telling fact that Zimbabwe is going through a period of moral and political malaise in which freedom’s future is in grave peril. People have no opportunity to express themselves politically in public, let alone organise politically. Life, as a result, is somehow hemmed in by deference to authority and tradition, a suffocating network of ritual obligations.
In such a situation, people’s interest in political matters naturally dwindles and independent political thought, in so far as it exists at all, is seen by the majority as unrealistic, far-fetched, a kind of self-indulgent game, hopelessly distant from everyday concerns, something admirable, perhaps, but quite pointless.Â
The MDC as a political movement is one with the people, unlike Zanu (PF), which has destroyed the life and liberty of Zimbabweans. Zamu (PF), as a result, has become an end in itself. It has become that which it sought to destroy. It is, as it were, a renegade distortion of the people, an ogre that steadily feeds on the people. Mugabe’s rule, as a result, is an imposed dictatorship based on tyranny and oppression.
We want to feel, as Zimbabweans, that whoever leads the people will be a man/woman who is bound by the constitution, who consults his/her executive and who respects the wishes of his/her followers. While people elect their leaders, they reserve the right to criticise them, and if need be, to change them.
If popular criticism results in denunciation, suspension and witch-hunt by the leaders then such leaders are not worth their salt.
MUTSA MURENJE, Harare
Post published in: News