"Zimbabwe is stable and prosperous!" is ED's interminable gabble - reality is emerging out of the web of lies N Garikai

“A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth,” said Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda.

Goebbels has had many disciples who have subscribed to ethos that repeating a lie a thousand time will turn it into a historic fact and truth; in Zanu PF it not just a few individuals but the whole regime. For the first two decades after independence Robert Mugabe and his minister talked of “Gutsva ruzhinji!” (Mass prosperity!) and would not allow the reality of growing poverty get in the way.

In the last two decades, with unemployment at 80% plus, basic services such as education and health all but collapsed, millions of ordinary Zimbabweans living in abject poverty, etc. the regime changed tac. It could not sustain its mass prosperity mantra in the face of growing mass poverty.

Zanu PF did not acknowledge gross mismanagement and rampant corruption as the root causes of the economic meltdown which are themselves a consequences of incompetent and corrupt Zanu PF leadership. The regime weaved a new lie; it blamed “the British imperialists and their western allies and their illegal sanctions” for all Zimbabwe’s ill!

As the country’s economic situation got worse and worse the people have become more and more restless, desperate for democratic change and economic recovery. Zanu PF has responded by adopting more and more tyrannical measures including blatant cheating and the use of wanton violence to retain power at all cost.

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown born out of the mass prosperity mirage has not spare the Zanu PF ruling elite. Many Zanu PF grandees like the last Nathan Shamuyarira, Mugabe’s minister of propaganda for donkey years, died a pauper. Mugabe, in typical George Orwell Animal farm cynicism, painted Shamunyarira’s house the day he died – to hide the decades on rot and decay, a reflection of sorry state of those living there. As for the lesser mortals like the war veterans most of them number amongst the ¾ living on US$1.00 or less a day.

Zanu PF has been torn apart by the dog-eat-dog in fighting that has ranged on none-stop for the last five years. Zanu PF members are not just fighting for political power, they are fighting for economic survival because only those wielding power have access to the ever-shrinking national cake. Zanu PF’s dog-eat-dog fight is fuelled by the fear of poverty!

Without doubt Joseph Goebbels’ biggest lie was; “Germany is winning the war!” Zanu PF’s greatest lie has to be: “Zanu PF will deliver mass prosperity!”

When President Mnangagwa strolled onto the political stage with his broad smile and colourful scarf eight months ago he was cocky and cocksure he was going to finally deliver the mass prosperity the nation has been waiting for. His “Zimbabwe is open for business!” has failed to attract the flood of foreign investors he was cocksure would follow. This was just another Zanu PF lie, Zimbabwe is still an unstable pariah state ruled by thugs; investors do not do business with thugs.

“Is this country stable when you have an attempt of the life of the President?” asked BBC's Fergal Keane. He was referring to last Saturday’s bomb blast; he should have also included the military coup of last November, in which President Mnangagwa, by his own admission, played a key role.

By condoning, with their deafening silence, last November’s military coup the international community have not done Zimbabwe any favours. The world condoned the coup because they were relieved to finally see the vote rigging tyrant removed. By failing to fulfil his promise to hold free and fair elections President Mnangagwa has, per se, confirmed himself to be just another vote rigging tyrant. If the world accepted the removal of Mugabe with a coup they will also accept the removal of Mnangagwa with a bomb or some such violent means.

How can a country whose next change of president or government can only be through a coup, a bomb or some such undemocratic way be stable!

“Let me assure you that in the region Zimbabwe is the most stable nation!” replied President Mnangagwa. The web of Zanu PF lies knows no limit!

Even with the Germans being routed at all the fronts and German’s archenemy Joseph Stalin’s Red Army inside Berlin’s the city gates and the noose pulling tight, Goebbels continued his interminable gabble, “Germany is winning the war!”

Mnangagwa’s interminable gabble will be “Zimbabwe is stable and prosperous!” even as the nation sinks deeper and deeper into the abyss!

It does not matter how complex the web of lies may become or how many times the lie is repeated; sooner or later the truth, the reality, will always emerge. “Rene manyanga, hariputirwi!” as one would say in Shona.

When reality, denied for so long, finally emerge; it can be unbearable.

Adolf Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945. In accordance with Hitler's will, Goebbels succeeded him as Chancellor of Germany; he served one day in this post. The following day, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide, after poisoning their six children with cyanide.

Robert Gabriel Mugabe was booted out of office by his own henchmen after 37 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule. The tyrant’s chief enforcer, Emerson Mnangagwa, with the support of a gaggle of other thugs took over. Mnangagwa was nearly killed in bomb blast after less than 37 weeks in power! He can witter all he wants about Zimbabwe being stable, we all know that it is not. There will be another coup or bomb of that we can be certain, it is just a matter of when.