Any call for a million-man protest in Zimbabwe that does not take into account why similar revolts/protests in the past have failed to deliver freedom, liberty and human dignity is doomed to fail. Zimbabweans risked everything to end white colonial oppression only for the men and women, the heroes and heroines of the armed strangle, to turn on the people and institute a regime more corrupt and oppressive than that of Ian Smith.
Two years ago the people, admittedly more out of desperation than conviction, again risked life and limp to vote for regime change. But yet again the men and women they voted for betrayed the people and allowed Mugabe and Zanu PF. Tsvangirai and his MDC friends showed that their promise to deliver democratic change and empty rhetoric. When Mugabe offered them the post of Prime Minister and a few Ministerial positions, although it was clear from the outset that was no real power and authority behind these positions, Tsvangirai and his MDC friends grabbed them and promptly forgot their promise to the nation. The exercise of absolute power and all the economic benefit that flowed from it made Mugabe and his cronies forget their pre-independence promise of freedom, etc.
It is not enough for those calling for Zimbabweans to stage an Egyptian style protest against Mugabe and point to the catalogue of misery the people have suffered under the dictator’s oppressive and corrupt regime. The people live these miseries everyday; they are at the coal face. What the people want to know before their once again risk their very lives is this protest will indeed bring democracy, freedom and liberty and not create a new opportunity for new faces at the feeding trough!
Zimbabweans has seen too many freedom heroes turn into ruthless murderers champions of democratic change turn coat to sign undying admiration of the nation’s tyrant calling him “a Victorian Knight!” They have had their fingers badly burnt in the past because they were naïve to believe everyone shouting for freedom and liberty with them believed and cared about freedom and liberty. Even mercenaries are capable of heroic acts of bravery and self denial and therefore it is important not to take everything at face value and scrutinise people’s motives.
If those calling for street protests had shown the people why people should believe that THIS TIME the protest will deliver freedom and liberty then there would have been millions of protesters in every city, town and growth point right across Zimbabwe. There was not a shred of evidence that the outcome will be any different from past revolution and protest and little wonder only forty people, the organisers, turned up!
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