via Zanu PF can’t tell us what to think and do – The Zimbabwe Independent August 14, 2015
Zimbabwe must retain ownership of all information channels to control and promote progressive messages that foster development, deputy Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa said at a ministerial workshop recently.
MuckRaker
You can’t control the information if you don’t retain ownership of information channels she said.
This was why China’s model was state-owned, Mutsvangwa said. They have disproved the myth that public ownership is tantamount to bad management and loss making investments.
Deputy minister Mutsvangwa said Zimbabwe should train journalists to be progressive in their reporting and concentrate on promoting social justice.
Where did Itai Dzamara fit into Mutsvangwa’s concept of social justice we wonder? Was this her idea of progressive journalism? Or was it a reflection of an overbearing state?
We thought the country had broken free of the sort of slavish journalism Mutsvangwa represents.
While the state has a right to operate its own institutions, however barren they may be, it should not under any circumstances instruct the free press on what they can or can’t publish.
China by the way is moving away from totalitarian messages of the sort Zimpapers still adheres to. And we still haven’t been told why her husband Chris Mutsvangwa left his post as ambassador to China, but continues to worship at that particular altar.
Whatever the case, we don’t want Zanu PF apparatchiks telling us what to think and do.
Snubbed
We were treated to a wonderful story recently when President Mugabe launched into a bitter attack on the Ivorian government for not letting him into the Ivory Coast to address a meeting of the African Development bank. We liked the story of how President Ouattara had suddenly taken to his bed and so was unable to host Mugabe.
Although President Ouattara had initially cleared President Mugabe’s visit, Mugabe recounted, what was strange was the fact that the Ivorian authorities refused to clear his aircraft for landing.
“It is the only country in Africa that has refused us entry,” Mugabe lamented. “Why? Because Ouattara was imposed on Ivory Coast by France and France removed the president who was there to be tried under the ICC.”
That is what you get, Mugabe related in his account, of a country that cannot make independent decisions.
Ivory Coast under President Outtara’s leadership was the only African country that had denied him entry in his capacity as the AU chair because the French denied him entry, Mugabe said.
He said that in another case the government invited the president of a certain African country to come and open the trade fair. Although the president of that country initially agreed he later refused to come two weeks before the trade fair saying he had an urgent meeting with his neighbours.
Mugabe said he was later told by Equatorial president Teodoro Obiang that the invited president was under pressure from France not to come.
This was all a fascinating insight into the politics of the AU. We had thought all was hunky dory but apparently things are less rosy. And Mugabe it seems had less clout than we were led to believe.
Unrealistic
Addressing the crowd at Heroes Acre on Monday President Robert Mugabe said he used to enjoy killing lizards when he was nine years old, but he was told to quit the habit since they were all God’s creatures.
Mugabe claimed he immediately took his elders’ advice. Muckraker wonders what happened to that spirit considering there have been massacres in Matabeleland and Midlands in the 1980s and during elections held since 2000.
This happened at the hands of his regime. And recently Dzamara disappeared with his whereabouts still unknown. Isn’t it just another talk to please overzealous spectators who thundered “Gushungo, Gushungo”, upon his arrival at the national shrine.
Isn’t it also ironic that Mugabe respects the life of animals but has not always protected humans? He added that Zimbabweans failed to protect Cecil the Lion which was killed last month at Hwange National Park. Why not focus on upholding human rights than pretend to be a democrat when it’s clear he is not?
Irritating
At the same event were irritating banners written; “Vending Yes, Disorder No”, “Zimbabwe Will Never Be a Colony Again”, “Job Cuts: Amendments Underway”, among others.
These fallacies beg the question; Who created disorder which resulted in vendors invading city centres?
Will amendments help anything when more than 20 000 workers have already lost jobs and isn’t Zimbabwe already a colony of poverty and despair?
The frail-looking Mugabe could not tell the nation what government was doing to ensure they put food on the table.
He also basked in the glory of figures that economic performance indicated modest growth.
Sadly these are the same arguments the so-called pan-Africanists posit when they say Africa’s growth cannot be measured by Gross Domestic Product or any other figures released by the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF and World Bank); rather it should be based on service delivery and the transformation of livelihoods of ordinary people.
So what’s happening to this ideology? Has Mugabe and his cronies forgotten to abide by what they preach.
Zimbabweans at the moment need jobs, clinics and hospitals, schools, good road networks, a robust agricultural sector, among a host of issues that can make Zimbabwe a better place to live.
No tears
N ewsday on Tuesday reported that the “Mugabe is cremora” proponent Webster Shamu was chucked out of the VIP tent together with wife during Heroes Day celebrations.
Tasting his own medicine, isn’t he? He now knows what Zanu PF can do, it has no friends no matter how much you praise-sing to please its masters. Is he still in a state of shock that he was booted off the gravy train which he had enjoyed for so long?
We cannot pass the chance to laugh our lungs out when such embarassment befalls those once perceived as cornerstones of a dictatorial government.
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