Grace Kwinjeh – The Ngarivhume Moment: Will Chamisa lead Zimbabwe to Uhuru?

By Grace Kwinjeh

Apparently by the time the fool has learnt the game, the players would have dispersed.

Grace Kwinjeh, Jacob Ngarivhume and Nelson Chamisa

The Ngarivhume moment towards 31 July was doing fine, building momentum, until the MDC -Alliance cabal came in and sabotaged it.

Zimbabweans are tired of the status quo, those in Zanu PF and even those with no political party affiliation, were listening to Ngarivhume until the regime change selfie loving agents came in.

Rosa Parks was an African-American known as the first lady of civil rights, best remembered for refusing an order to give up her seat to a white passenger. Parks would start a movement that resonated with many in their differences, one of the building blocks to the America we see today.

Similarly the calls by Ngarivhume resonated across the political divide. He was the much needed uniting factor with listening ears, a refreshment to our toxic personalised politics.

There are many well meaning Zimbabweans out there with something to say about their suffering and do not need words to be put into their mouths or taken political advantage of.

There are many more examples in history of ordinary citizens who have carried out democratic resistance, with no vested political interests, producing the much needed reforms and reprieve for the masses. An article for another day.

Chamisa having support and wanting to take over power is good. My problem is when every space for activism is politicised increasing the risk of attacks and demobilisation – this is counter-revolutionary.

The same way Zanu-PF has taken over and occupies some crucial spaces especially within the state, the MDC has done the same in the democratic movement, our voices are muted, our concerns not heard, why because we do not belong to a political party? The fear in the movement real, posing a dangerous precursor to the type of government being birthed.

It should therefore be understood that a hungry Zanu PF person is not going to shoot self by endorsing a political agenda.

Zimbabwe is a very complex country.

It can’t be mass action if the masses are not mobilised to an emotive message that unites them, whose goal and outcome is also clear. When the masses hit the street on July 31, what is the goal? To achieve what? Is it a one day event or they remain there until the government responds? These are questions under review in my next article.

Since 2018 Zimbabweans gave the Alliance opportunity to produce working strategies that would deliver change. It has been a never ending tale of political bungling and chaos.

During this period they would give President Emmerson Mnangagwa two weeks to step down or they would remove him by force. It is several months later and here we are.

The cabal I argue in this article loves attention, loves to play to the international gallery, posturing with a sense of entitlement as the only voice of the opposition in Zimbabwe. A narrative played over and over again and the bleeding ground for opposition politics as it suffers self inflicted wounds.

They love to make noise, the right noises for their western sponsors, but, wrong noises for Zimbabwe in total discord to the urgency that we are confronted in as we wrestle a double onslaught of poverty and Covid-19.

You can’t keep repeating the same strategies and expect different results.

Putting in a regime agenda message to the good cause Ngarivhume had started only messed up the otherwise calm waters, a raw sewage now flows and its stench can be smelt even out here in Europe.

Firstly, it is foolhardy to assume that you give a regime notice to remove it from power, secondly, it is a no brainer that the militarised state will respond with brute force to such.

Zimbabwe is not Mali, or other countries that experienced the Arab spring, Muslim countries that are able to mobilise in mosques and most importantly are united under radicalised ideologies.

Consequently, by the time you judge, malign and exclude me because of my difference in opinion, I am automatically demobilised, a victim of the cabals systematic demobilising agenda which works in Zanu PF’s favour. Consciousness on building mass resistance movements is missing because of the narcissistic character of the cabal, which has been exposed.

Mugabe was removed by a militarised Zanu PF not a popular uprising.

Why can’t the cabal learn to be quite and watch, why always the appetite to be in everything? Eish and those selfies?

Hopewell Chin’ono is a journalist, he does not need the cabal speaking for him, exposing him to incredible political threats.

There are professional journalist bodies that defend journalists, fighting for press freedom, such as MISA, IJI etc. The cabal must learn to step back and allow these to do their job professionally and fight Hopewell’s cause.

Evidently, with the military under Zanu PF political structures, it technically serves as the military wing of the revolutionary party seemingly fighting counter revolutionaries.

It is a complex military-party-state arrangement characterized by a strong historical and institutional bond between the military and Zanu PF political elite.

Historical contradictions and friction in the above arrangement now start to express themselves in the internal fighting, manifesting as one against corruption.

The cabal pawns are at it again, taking sides. A man who lacks identity follows anything.

A repeat of different moments in history that the cabal has morphed into a puppet or functionary of Zanu PF internal wars as one Zanu PF faction fights against another.

On the eve of the 2017 coup MDC leaders were firmly in the hands and under the tutelage of the Lacoste faction, working closely with the likes of Chris Mutsvangwa and Victor Matemadanda.

After the coup realising the folly of their actions they immediately fell into Grace Mugabe’s arms and the G40 faction which is battling for a come back on the political scene.

And now watch this space.

A bunch of spineless leaders whose loyalty gravitates from one Zanu PF interest to another, at the mercy of building a peoples party that will deliver the desire for change as espoused in the 2009 founding values.

While we are on the vexing issue of corruption a conversation is soon to start of corruption in our midst, the cabal must pay special attention to this because as cadres who have fought and lost to this struggle this conversation will give us closure. There are widows whose funds were stolen, people who bought mansions on the wounds and lives of ordinary Zimbabweans.

So those who are operating under the misguided notion that this fight is exclusive to Zanu PF alone, no forensics will be made and thank God for technology, destroyed evidence in and outside Zimbabwe exposed.

To date fresh revelations are still being made on how anti-apartheid funds in South Africa were looted, not to mention the ones found guilty and prosecuted.

The Ngarivhume moment brings with it a time for sober reflection, with the 31st of July being the moment of reckoning, it is not an event but a process.

–Nehanda Radio

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