Zimbabwe still safe in its suffering, isolation – MuckRaker

via Zimbabwe still safe in its suffering, isolation – The Zimbabwe Independent April 25, 2014 by MuckRaker

Curious isn’t it that the Herald can’t carry an op/ed piece from a white MP without abusing him.

Eddie Cross publishes a rather tame article about “the price of bad governance” which most people would agree is self-evident and he is set upon by Zanu PF’s editorial lackeys who think all they need do is mention Rhodesia and they win the argument about Zimbabwe.

The trouble is it won’t go away!

“We are again in crisis,” Cross says, “and it is difficult to see how we can get ourselves out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. Radical measures are needed …”

Inferiority complex

This would be obvious to most people, but the Herald is clearly suffering from an inferiority complex — or is it a simplex in their case — and feels the need to go on telling the country that they won the July 2013 election. This is perhaps because nobody thinks they did!

Cross makes the same point.

“The reality is that we have nothing to celebrate,” he claims in remarks that most of the country share. After all, what happened to Zim Asset or re-engagement with the EU? And President Mugabe is still talking about the need to “crush” people who protest against his regime despite the new constitution.

Then there is the peculiar person in dark glasses, the Herald’s Tichaona Zindoga, Senior Political Writer, who sounds as if he would like to punish people who disagree with him.

“Zimbabwe may be facing economic challenges,” he says in the lexicon of the regime, “but they are not on the scale of ‘big trouble’ that the alarmist Cross continuously touts.”

So that’s OK then. We are in safe hands!

Childish nonsense

Zanu PF is keen that we should not mention the removal of indigenisation and empowerment policies. That’s a pity because there’s a lot to say.

Let’s also recall the MDC and civil society won the 2000 referendum and other polls in 2002, 2005 and 2008.

In fact, the MDC has on aggregate been a winning party since 2000. Zanu PF should remember that before it declares what we are allowed to say and not say by spooks in dark glasses.

Zindoga’s interview with SK Moyo was in places risible.

Claiming to have defeated a number of challenges, SK said “the West created an animal called the MDC to dislodge us from power”.
At which point Zindoga should have said, “Really? Where did you get such childish nonsense?”

But like so many state reporters, he allowed his subject to ramble on and say what he liked.

“…the biggest challenge remains the former coloniser,” SK claimed, “trying to come back through the door of the opposition MDC,“ SK said. The MDC will be delighted to hear that!

“When we went on to the harmonised elections of July 31, it was evident that our people realised they had made a mistake in 2008 which needed not to be repeated and this is why Zanu PF won so massively.” Or was it because they were bludgeoned into submission?

SK then went on to question the independence of the independent press, claiming it was not in fact, independent but represented “yesteryear colonisers who peddle the lie that the elections were rigged”.

Skewed diplomacy
Last week we referred to President Mugabe’s maladroit remarks about Nigerians and how corrupt they are. We had forgotten that Mugabe’s diplomatic “skills” needed polishing in relation to other states as well as Nigeria.

There is for instance, Jamaica whose musicians participated in our Independence celebrations. Yes, they do smoke copious amounts of ganja, but so do Zimbabweans! Poor old prime minister Norman Manley had to endure Mugabe’s casual abuse prior to his retirement.

Then there was more recently Lindiwe Zulu who was called all sorts of things by our leader, including a “street woman” just prior to the 2013 election.

In all these cases, the recipients did the right thing by remaining silent.

Meanwhile, Mugabe looks as if he needs a course from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Fruitless attempt

Still on the subject of diplomacy, Muckraker wonders what has come of Mugabe’s visit to Serbia earlier in the year.

“We love Serbia,” Mugabe said, “and we will give it the advantage that they gave us in the past,” he said in Belgrade. He said he had invited foreign minister Ivan Mrkic to visit Zimbabwe. “Serbia is the only country in the world that we can consider a perfect friend,” he declared.

The problem is Serbia is keen to join the EU. That involves adopting a position taken by all 28 countries of the EU.

Finally good news for employers. Following Philip Chiyangwa’s example, they can now pay their employees in bananas. Such things only happen in Banana Republics where workers are treated like monkeys.