Zimbabwe caught in a Catch-22 situation by Tanonoka Joseph Whande

via Zimbabwe caught in a Catch-22 situation by Tanonoka Joseph Whande | SW Radio Africa  Monday, April 28, 2014

At one time or other in our lives, we have witnessed anti-climaxes.

Some positive. Some heartbreakingly negative.

I have witnessed the heartbreaking episode when a mother who struggled for decades to get pregnant finally managed and joyfully carried her child for a full term only for both of them to die in an ambulance accident as they were being rushed to the hospital.

I have seen people waking up in the middle of the night to catch the bus 30 kilometers away only to miss it because they stopped to pee along the way.

And, yes, I have seen people spend several hundred dollars to buy something they have been looking for in years only to find piles and piles of it thrown away elsewhere as they made their way home.

I even remember a death after someone was hit by an ambulance and all the ambulance personnel couldn’t save him.

I have seen chain reactions from simple situations that triggered other unexpected happenings, like when a well-meaning neighbour lit a candle to smoke-out bees in a neighbour’s house only to set the whole house on fire.

And, yes, I remember the incident in Mwenezi when my parents had left for Zvishavane early in the evening and a leopard chased our dog straight into my parents’ bedroom, killed and ate part of it on their bed.

In 1961, author Joseph Heller coined the term “Catch-22” and described “absurd bureaucratic constraints on soldiers in World War II” by explaining “why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity—hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions—demonstrated his own sanity in making the request and thus could not be declared insane”.

I remember when my aunt, who had a long history of kidney problems, was finally told that her healthiest kidney was the one that was completely dead inside her but that the functioning kidney that was giving her problems was the one that was keeping her alive but needed to be replaced.

We learned in horror that for many years, she was being kept alive by a half dead kidney while the healthy one had died centuries ago.

“Yes,” the doctor said, “we will not touch the healthy, dead kidney but we need to replace the one that’s keeping you alive.”

Nothing on the horizons exemplifies this contradictory situation more than the nation of Zimbabwe.

The walking dead are moving the country towards oblivion while the living are killing each other instead of rescuing the country from the walking dead.

We have seen the damage caused by ZANU-PF for over 34 years. I do not believe that even the staunchest ZANU-PF propaganda chiefs themselves can write their party’s curriculum vitae with pride and in glowing terms.

Zimbabwe has been under duress for decades.

Our nation has suffered at the hands of its own sons and daughters. We have never tried to repay our nation for what it continues to be to us, for it being the best country in Africa in spite of its politicians.

We have abused the nation.

We have raped it.

We have exploited it.

We have taken from it all we could carry and never gave anything back.

We have used our nation yet abused its citizens.

We have exploited Zimbabwe without sharing the loot with our under privileged.

We have used its name to commit crimes.

We have all enjoyed its protection without protecting it.

Look at what Zimbabwe has produced in terms of human capital.

Look what lies beneath its surfaces!

Can you see the richness of the land and the unselfish abundance of its resources?

We are so happy to use it as a battlefield to fight wars that defeat all of us and the country itself.

We are so unthankful to our country that we want to tear it apart without mending the wounds we caused it.

Our politicians used Zimbabwe to kill its citizens and to steal from fellow citizens; to starve its citizens; to steal its wealth.

What does Zimbabwe have to do after producing so many sons and daughters who are successful in their chosen fields? We have an abundance of doctors, engineers, scientists, educators, technicians, professors…we have them all but Zimbabwe today cries like an abandoned child because its own children cannot take care of it.

Look at the number of politicians we have and yet none of them puts Zimbabwe first.

ZANU-PF used Zimbabwe to deceive the country’s sons and daughters. We saw how this party ruthlessly and selfishly used the country for their own ends.

The country watches as its children fight over it while it is still alive. No one is trying to resuscitate the nation; everyone wants to finish it off.

The cannibal wars raging within the MDC are a symptom of the malcontents produced…idiots who yell in anticipation and salivate as they chase their own tails.

I do not know what I expected but to hear confirmation of further polarization of the MDC brought a sobering truth to my mind…that we are now all orphans because the surrogate father we hoped to save us from an abusive parent has himself become so possessed with self that he is tearing off parts of his limbs in anger at himself and us.

Do we stand a chance? Not a snowball’s chance in hell!

It is not an exaggeration that the MDC carried so many hopes for so many people. Even if it were not a ruling party, its solid presence was a menacing watchdog over ZANU-PF’s shoulders and that helped very much.

The strength reflected in its presence made people believe that there was someone who could help to keep ZANU-PF in check.

They succeeded in a lot of things but failed in the most important ones. So in the end, the MDC only existed to tease us, to raise our hopes without fulfilling them and, by its own disintegration, empower the abusive parent it was trying to replace.

The heart of the matter is that the seeming disintegration of the MDC is an insult to the nation; to the people and to those who gave their lives in the hope of creating an organization that would steer the country in the right direction.

I am not interested in discussing ZANU-PF’s shortcomings; that exists for all to see. We gave them 34 years and they killed our hopes.

The MDC, in existence for only 14 years, had managed to rekindle our hopes and remind us that there are some among us who willingly sacrifice themselves to ensure that we reclaim and remain masters of our own destiny.

But now, after flirting with the MDC, the people are left wondering once again. Why should we always be called upon to fight over politicians who do not put the nation first?

Everywhere we look there are personal battles being fought in the political arena and the people are used as rubber stamps to authenticate the leaderships that are fighting for themselves not for the right to fight for the nation.

If Mugabe cared, why is Zimbabwe in such a state?
If Tsvangirai cared, why is he fighting Biti and not Mugabe?

If Biti cared, why is he at war with his own brethren and not with those who have killed our citizens?
I wish we could get rid of all political parties and just leave people alone. I wish ZANU-PF and the MDC would just go away and leave the people to care for themselves and their families.

I see no hardships in the absence of politicians yet I continue to witness disaster, deaths, hunger, murder, rape, corruption, graft and misery because politicians exist.

God have mercy!

Politicians have to stop fighting each other; they must start fighting for the people and for the nation.

We have seen this so many times before and we are sick and tired of being used as pawns who end up hating each other for the sake of idiotic politicians who use us a nothing but doormats.

Enough is enough! To hell with the politicians!
I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans is the unfortunate way it is today, Monday, April 28^th, 2014.