As a nation we should have considered the consequences of giving the enormous power of life and death the gun gives to whoever has the gun before deciding to launch the war of independence. As it happened, the gun did hasten the end of white rule and oppression but it did not the freedom, liberty and justice we were after.
I think you have to admit that on both the political and economic fronts Zimbabweans are worse off today than they were before independence. We did not have the right to vote in Ian Smith's Rhodesia; we now have that right in theory only and many thousands have been murdered in cold blood because they dare exercise that right. On the economic front mismanagement, corruption and looting have turned a once prosperous nation into one of the poorest.
You can teach a monkey how to use a gun; the only reason there are no monkeys out there swaggering around with shot guns like cowboys is that no one can teach them when to shoot.
Give the gun to a tyrant like Mugabe, with an IQ not much higher than that of a monkey but enough to appreciate the power it gives and thrill generated by exercising that power and you know you are in serious trouble!
Yes Mugabe defeated the white oppressors but before the smoke of the last gunshot in that war had cleared he already had his gun trained on the defenceless black civilians. He has gone on to kill over 30 000 innocent black Zimbabweans since independence - he has murdered more blacks than all the whites he killed in the liberation war - in his ruthless determination to retain political power at all cost!
The basic and fundamental human rights to freedom, liberty, right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life itself have all been trumped by the tyrant and his cronies’ overarching “right” as liberation war heroes and heroines rule the country as they please. "What was won by the bullet cannot be over turned by the ballot!" they boost!
There many people who believed the armed struggle was necessary to end white colonial oppression, many of them died in that war, others lived but have since died fighting to end the Mugabe dictatorship and yet others are alive and fighting the dictatorship in their own various ways themselves; they will all agree, with hindsight, it was not a wise to have allowed a monkey like Mugabe to wield a gun! Whilst it might have taken ten years or so longer to end white rule using none violent means it has taken over 33 years, economic ruins and over 30 000 died and we still have not disarmed the ruthless tyrannical monkey!
12 comments:
@ Galloway
This has absolutely nothing to do with whites! This is about black Zimbabweans; why do you insist in seeing everything only in terms of blacks against white. There are other very important issues to be addressed other than the race issue. Your inferiority complex is stopping you seeing the bigger picture!
@ Musekiwa
You would say that wouldn't. You have the IQ not much greater than that of a monkey and the nation must the grave mistake of thinking that having given you a deadly weapon you could be trusted to fight the white colonial army and not use it on defenceless civilians and thus become a worse tyrant than the white oppressors! But as I have already said you have the gun but no intellect that is why you have turned a once prosperous country into one of the poorest.
The corruption and looting has destroyed everything; the national economy has but collapse and no among of repression is going to stop the dictatorship from collapsing. Zanu PF thugs are fighting amongst themselves like vultures fighting over scraps.
Mugabe is going to lose the referendum over the rubbish Copac draft constitution and that will mark the beginning of the end! But, of course, whenever regimes like Zanu PF fall there are always idiots like you who will the last ones left carrying the bag. Leaders like Mugabe can already see the writing on the wall and are busy covering their tracks whilst encouraging the idiots to play a bigger role.
“We need to stop your mvmt with a passion that is bigger than the Liberation Struggle itself!” Mugabe loves to hear you say that now but when the chips are down, he will deny he ever knew you! You will be alone in the dock explaining the innocent blood on your hands!
People like you Masekiwa deserve the hangman’s rope. You will have your day in court – something you denied your victims - and then have your appointment with the hangman!
@Kaffirboy
Zimbabweans are stupid to have allowed a bunch of a bunch of mentally retarded monkeys wielding guns rule them for 33 years. Tsvangirai was very stupid to let Mugabe off the hook after the sham 2008 elections by signing the stupid GPA; trust me that will never happen again! The Mugabe has dragged the GNU's life time to the maximum five years He MUST now face the referendum and then the elections - I am looking forward to both events!
There will be regime change in Zimbawe. Mugabe is finished! Watch this space buddy!
@Musekiwa
In a country with 90% unemployment rate, where education and health services have but collapse, where water and electricity supplies even in the big cities are irregular only an idiot would consider that winning! Unless you come from some tribe so obscure I have never heard of it and is thriving, an osais in the middle of the desert of despair which is the Zimbabwe I know, then you are an idiot Musekiwa!
Every nation has good men and bad ones, pretty girls and ugly ones, smart people and stupid one, etc.; but I have to say that in Zimbabwe we definitely have more than our fair share of morons. The whole nation is drowning in shit and someone still believes "my tribe won!" What a moron!
@Sarungano
No the armed struggle was not the ONLY option.
Both Zanu PF and Zapu made no secrete that they wanted to establish a one-party state in Zimbabwe and from the word go the leadership of both party showed they were prepared to intimidate and even kill to achieve their goal. It is therefore naive to even suggest Zimbabweans didnot know these political leaders had no democratic values.
"The people lording it over Zimbabwe today are not the same people are not the same people who fought the war"! You can say what you please but no one will believe you, especially in Zanu PF!
You are in denial, that is a luxury this nation can ill afford we are ever to get out of this mess.
@ Grand Ayatollah
The arrogancy of the white racists did make the military solution seem to be the only way out but by the same token we should have been even more on our guard against creating the same arrogance in those who were to replace the whites.
The Chinese and Russians were only too keen to supply arms to the Africans, see as much of the continent turned into regimes modelled on their own respective totalitarian nmodel and exploit the new satallite colonies. Without doubt autocratic rule appealed to both Mugabe and Nkomo!
@IQ66
No black person would have failed to understand that the white regime was unjust and repressive; they felt that everyday. So no black person in their right mind did anything else but support anything seeking to end white colonial rule, in our case that meant supporting the armed struggle. The point here is was the armed struggle the ONLY way to end white colonial rule? The answer has to be no, it was not.
Next question: was the armed struggle the best solution? The answer has to be NO because there danger of giving someone the gun and they in turn becoming intoxicated and aducted to the power it gives was real and evident. And now with hind sight we know that is exactly what happened. Zimbabwe is in this politiocal and economic hell-on-earth because Mugabe and Zanu PF used the gun to drive the whites out and then turned it on us forcing us to grant the absolute power!
@Wearenotfools
When was the last time you visited Zimbabwe, because if you go there now you will see that millions of the peasants still live in overcrowded rural area. These are the people who should have benefited from the land redistribution programme and not the Zanu PF ruling elite.
Zimbabweans have been denied their meaningful say in the governance of Zimbabwe for the last 33 years; it is rich therefore that the very people who denied them that right should now want to dictate what the nation can and cannot regarding policies they imposed on the people. They looted and now they have the chic to say they must be allowed to keep their loot regardless of the fact that the continued suffering of the millions their robbed from.
As for what Tsvangirai and MDC have said on the land issue or on any other matter; considering they are some of the most incompetent leaders in Zimbabwe's history, their views must therefore be dismissed with the contempt they rightly deserve.
The land issue, like everything else that Mugabe and Zanu PF have done over the years under the influence of fear, greed and corruption, must be reviewed in the light of day and in the interest of public good!
Do not let yourself be alarmed by Mugabe's empty threats of neo-colonialists waiting at the country’s boarders ready to take back the farms, etc.; those are empty threats It is all part and parcel the dictatorship’s fear tactics has employed to justify its brutal oppression and struggle hold on power. Mugabe and Zanu PF must go and the nation will finally taste what it really means to live without fear and enjoy all the basic rights and freedoms denied them all these years.
Mugabe's promises of riches through corruption and looting have produced a few millionaires but at the expense of millions who were thrown into abject poverty and despair. His policies and promises are voodoo economics; they did not work and never will. Zimbabweans are a talented and hardworking people; all they want is the opportunities to put these gifts to productive use and this nation will once again prosper; guaranteed!
@Wearenotfools
Yes I know of the 400 000 small holders tobacco farmers who are growing the golden leaf and earning US$ 6 000.00 each. That sounds like a lot of money considering that most of them would be unemployed and otherwise engaged in kiya kiya. But I would like you to go back to soon after independence and think what these men and women would be earning if the national economy had enjoyed the steady grown other countries in the region enjoyed in the same period.
Zimbabwe's economy shrunk by a staggering 84% in the six year period 2002 to 2008 alone. Those 400 000 farmers will be earning a lot more today than the US$ 6 000.00. And what is more unemployment will not be seating at the nauseating 80% it has been stuck at for years now.
The problem in Zimbabwe is there has never been an meaningful debate on anything. Mugabe and Zanu PF has always set the national agenda and then front loaded each issue with its own propaganda designed to distort the issue and frightened the people.
We need to move people out of the overcrowded rural areas to get them out of grinding poverty and thus give those areas a chance to recover. This need is even more urgent now than back in 1980 because so many people are now totally dependent on the land because of the high unemployment rates. These millions of people are not going to be moved because the ruling elite have claimed most of the farms for themselves. Instead of debating the rights and wrong of this Mugabe has deliberately introduced the falsehood that those asking for a relook on the chaotic land reform are doing so because they want to take back the land given to the landless and give it back to the whites. In the Mugabe’s story - all the seized farms are in the hands of the peasants; period. That is nonsense of course because it is Mugabe and his cronies who were the main beneficiaries of the farm seizures.
I totally reject Mugabe's twisted logic that because if anyone else other than Zanu PF was allowed to rule Zimbabwe, they will reverse his land reforms and therefore no one else will. Even if MDC or anyone was to mess up on this issue or any other policy; the right to a free and fair election and thus regime change must never ever be denied the people. Mugabe is free to warn the electorate of all the dangers of electing his opponents but the final decision of who will rule must be the people’s theirs and theirs alone.
Mugabe has used the land issue as a red herring to stop the debate on his continued denial of the basic right to free elections and the right to life itself! You must be careful and not get carried away chasing the red herring in a shark infested waters!
@IQ66
You have to agree that:
1) Ever since the formation of booth Zanu and Zapu neither of the two parties had any democratic credentials and therefore it is even pointless to ask if there was ever any meaningful debate of the merits and demerits of waging an armed struggle. A party with zero democratic value will not even be interested in the rights of the ordinary people, whom they treated as ignorant and patronised and certainly not to be trusted with something as important as a free vote.
2) There was no black leader of note to even realised the potential danger of the military option let alone argue the point
3) All the Black Nationalist leaders saw the military option as the only one that would grant them absolute power and there can be no doubt that is was a race for military dominance, a race to the bottom.
4) Even long after independence it is clear that most of those wielding the guns had no quims turning their weapons on the civilian population to advance the political interest particularly if they believed they too will get a share of the loot.
The Smith regime could have been forced out of power without the use of arms and considering the heavy price the nation has paid because we went down this route there can be no doubt we should have not gone down this route. We used a slag hammer to swart a mosquito but it was certainly not worth the shattered limb!
@IQ66
I will agree with you that leaders must be held to account at all times. But if the truth be told, the Zimbabweans have shown to be a very ignorant lot, how can you hold someone to account when you do not have the foggiest idea on any subject other than you want jobs, peace, etc.
After five years of wasted time and money this dysfunctional GNU tasked to prepare the ground for free and fair elections has proved to be totally inadequate to the task. Whilst it is self-evident there will be no free elections the next year, nonetheless both MDC factions are saying otherwise and they are accordingly asking the nation to approve the draft Copac constitution in the upcoming referendum and move the process to elections. The referendum result will show just how many Zimbabweans are so stupid they will shoot themselves in the foot! Indeed they may even end up shoot the nation at large in the foot if the YES camp should win the referendum!
@Wearenot fools
I did answer you. I told you there are millions of Zimbabweans today living off a piece of land so poor that the maize hardly ever grows to the height of a toddler. Before independence these families had one or two members with a steady job to supplement the family income, with unemployment seating at a nauseating 80% plus, no such luck today. These people's need to be resettled is even more urgent than ever. Do not ask me; ask them whether or not they would like to be resettled on better land where the soil is rich and the rains are good?
The trouble with many Zimbabweans out there is that they have allowed Mugabe to dictate the questions to ask and what the answers should be. No wonder they cannot think straight. They need to think outside the confines of this Mugabe box. People are conditioned to ask if the white farmers are allowed back will the small-holder black farmers accept giving up their farms, for example. Ask a loaded question, of course, all normal people would answer; no.
But outside the Mugabe’s box, one is free to ask the questions as dictated by the reality on the ground, the crying need of the impoverished peasants in overcrowded rural areas cannot be denied, as we already seen. The original objective of the land reform was to resettle landless peasants; that objective has clearly not been achieved, so we must focus our attention on resettling these landless peasants.
The peasants can be resettled on land now owned by small-holder farms but since the latter are using the land productively, thank you, it would make sense to look somewhere else. Resettle the peasants on the thousands of farms now occupied by the ruling elite who should not have been given these farms in the first since they are not "landless peasants" and, even more significant, these farms are laying idle!
You are right; Mugabe and Zanu PF agreed to a land audit in 2008 but then immediately kicked the issue into the long grass. They do not want the truth to be known that it was the ruling elite who have benefited the most from chaotic farm seizures of the last ten years whilst the landless peasants still remain landless!
Whilst I accept that there will be a number of large commercial farms in the country; the only criteria to decide who will own such farms is - whoever will produce the most, period!
I would like to once again warn you of the danger of letting Mugabe dictate the agenda for you. Whilst the land issue is very important it becomes an irrelevant distraction compared to the pressing need for free and fair elections. What is the point of discussing a policy issue like the land when at the end of the day Mugabe will go ahead and implement what he wants because he alone is the only one who governs the country!
Mugabe has argued that he would never allow anyone else to rule Zimbabwe and thus deny the people their basic right to a free and fair election including denying many of the right to life itself on the feeble grounds the new government would reverse his land reforms. It is therefore not whether or not his opponents will reverse the land reforms that we should be concerned but that Mugabe has no right to deny the people the most basic rights. The people’s right to have a meaningful say in who governs is sacred, because it is the key pillar on which good government stands and without which there can only be bad government.
To discuss the land issue whist a tyrant deny you the vote is like entering a burning house to set a mouse trap.
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