As long as perverse culture of selling fellow blacks for piece of calico cloth remains, so will our troubles W Mukori

As a people black Africans are dogged by self-hate. By God, we hate ourselves with a consuming passion!

During the slave trade, one of the dark periods in black Africa, it was not the white man who hunted down the blacks and sold them as slaves. It was blacks who hunted their own kith and kin and sold them to the slave traders for pieces of calico cloth and fist-full of beads!

Slave trade from West and Southern Africa to the New World, the Americas and Caribbeans, lasted for over 300 years and netted over 12 million slaves. There is no doubt that many of the blacks who had hunted and sold follow blacks became the hunted and were sold as slaves. No doubted they howled and cursed but never admitted they were their own worst enemy.

No sooner was slavery abolished that Africa entered yet another dark period, the scramble for Africa. Of all the colonised territories Africa was the easiest to subdue, the worst exploited and oppressed and, needless to say, colonial rule lasted the longest. In Zimbabwe at the peak of the war to end colonial rule, 76% of the white colonial army were blacks! The scum were risking their own lives to fight those who were fighting to end white colonial exploitation and oppression of all blacks including the scumbags!

After independence tyrants like Robert Mugabe and now Emmerson Mnangagwa have had no problem recruiting blacks to help them create and retain the de facto one-party dictatorship that ruled the country for the last 39 years. Indeed, Mugabe’s most loyal and ruthless thugs are none other than the liberation war heroes and heroines. Mugabe dangled the promise of absolute power and looted wealth and they all forgot they had gone to war to seek freedom, liberty and justice for all to become even worse oppressors of their own kith and kin than the white colonialists!

The spirit of selling out one’s own fellow blacks for a piece of calico cloth and a fistful of beads is as strong as it is widespread in Zimbabwe. For the last 20 years the ordinary Zimbabweans have risked life and limb, over 500 lost their lives and millions were beaten and/or raped in the 2008 elections alone, to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding the party would implement the democratic changes to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. Mugabe bribed Morgan Tsvangirai and his friends, they completely forgot about the reforms.

“Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyerere!” (MDC people have learned to enjoy the gravy train lifestyle, they will never rock the boat!) Was the boastful explanation from Zanu PF as to why MDC failed to get even one reform implemented during the 2008 to 2013 GNU.

If there had been any doubt that Zanu PF had MDC in their back pocket before 2008 GNU there was no such doubt since. MDC has participated in elections even when it was clear Zanu PF was rigging the elections for the sake of winning the few gravy train seats Zanu PF was giving away as bait.

In his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe, former MDC – Ncube Senator and Minister of Education in the GNU, David Coltart, gave details of how Zanu PF flouted the electoral rules, proof the party was rigging the upcoming 2013 elections. And yet MDC still participated in the elections regardless.

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” explained Senator Coltart.

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

Coltart was lying about participating because the MDC factions had failed to form a coalition because four of the main factions did form a coalition before the 2018 elections and they still participated in those elections regardless of all the evidence Zanu PF was rigging those elections too!

The MDC together with all the other 130 opposition political parties participated in the 2018 elections out of greed. The few gravy train seats on offer were more important than to MDC leaders than securing free, fair and credible elections for every Zimbabwean.

Even today, Zanu PF would be on the ropes as an illegitimate regime was it not for the opposition’s participation in the flawed and illegal elections that gave the process some legitimacy. Right now Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends are offering to “legitimise” Zanu PF regime if Mnangagwa gives him and two or so other MDC leaders gravy train ministerial seats.

If Zanu PF is still in office, own its own or in some power sharing arrangement, in 2023 we can be 100% certain that no meaningful democratic reforms will be implemented and the party will rig that year’s election. 100% certain!

The only sure way to stop Zanu PF rigging the next elections is by forcing Zanu PF to step down and appoint an independent body to implement the reforms. Everyone, including MDC, agrees Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections and therefore the regime is illegitimate. Whilst everyone would agree that Zanu PF must step down, MDC is the one offering Mnangagwa a bolthole of a power sharing arrangement.

So once again, MDC is selling out on the only realistic chance to end the Zanu PF dictatorship for a piece of calico cloth and a fistful of beads!

We, in black Africa, have blundered from slavery, to colonial oppression and are now stuck with black on black brutal oppression. Until we do something to end this perverse practice of selling our own fellow blacks for a piece of calico cloth and a fistful of beads, the blundering from one crisis into the next will continue!