Mnangagwa’s second chance to unite Zimbabwe

Source: Mnangagwa’s second chance to unite Zimbabwe – NewsDay Zimbabwe

FOR the first time in a very long while the world has experienced no violence of war and gangsterism that had become the order of day on Mother Earth. The rattling automatic weaponry and booming of lethal bombs have fallen silent in Syria, Gaza, Yemen, and all such hotspots. Radicals such as Boko Haram and the other jihadists in parts of Africa and Europe have been cowed into silence. Even the toxic verbal war of words between the United States and its perennial rivals such as North Korea has since ceased to exist in the wake of the marauding novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

NewsDay Comment

So peace is actually possible on mother earth if we all were in agreement that this place is a global village. The onset of COVID-19 has fundamentally driven home the point that earth is a global village, a reality that many anti-globalisation proponents have been trying hard to dismiss and demonise. The virus has effectively proved that all key markets such as financial, capital, money, credit, insurance, product and commodity (eg oil, coffee, tin and gold) in the global economy are integrated.

Closer home this globalisation phenomenon reminds us of the 2009 Global Political Agreement (GPA) that for the first time in the history of Zimbabwe united the long-time ruling Zanu-PF party and the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Back then, Zimbabwe was united by one calamity, the demise of the country’s currency, the Zimbabwe dollar which was completely vanquished by runaway rabid hyperinflation.

And now that another calamity in the form of COVID-19 has visited the country is it not yet another opportunity for a GPA? If, once upon a time, one of humanity’s most obstinate individuals, namely the late Robert Mugabe, could swallow his pride and sit on a table, drink tea and work together with his sworn enemy, the late Morgan Tsvangirai, for the good of Zimbabwe, what is stopping President Emmerson Mnangagwa from swallowing his pride and talk to MDC leader Nelson Chamisa for the good of the country?

Instead of waiting patiently for the COVID-19 virus to subside so that he renews his rivalry with Chamisa, Mnangagwa should take the initiative and call for a meeting with his arch-rival Chamisa. Mnangagwa should not miss this opportune moment that should help the socio-economically distraught nation rise from the doldrums. Those who are not advising Mnangagwa to grab this opportunity to mend bridges, specifically with Chamisa, are his real enemies and it is high time the President increased the social distance between him and them because they do not wish him well.

Before he chooses to listen to our dissenting voice Mnangagwa needs to “self-quarantine” on this crucial matter and have own time to ponder what he stands to gain from working together with Chamisa. All this dissenting voice can tell Mnangagwa is that the choice is his: To go down the country’s history books as a great unifier if he works with Chamisa or to be remembered as a headstrong and conceited someone who chose to socio-economically destroy a once prosperous nation just to protect just to prime his ego.