Dear
Dunderheads & Malcontents,
While it is in
the nature of dunderheads and malcontents to compare oranges with apples, the
comparison is always exhausting not least because it is, by definition,
senseless and invariably leads to meaningless outcomes based on fantasies.
In light of the
mindless taunts and mockery of some targeted government and ZanuPF officials,
especially @nickmangwana, that they should “learn” from the “zete moment” I shared in these streets on 13
November 2017, there are four things that dunderheads and malcontents
fantasizing about tomorrow 31 March 2025 clearly don't understand.
Firstly, in
2017, there was no one who had foreseen and who had privately as well as
publicly foretold in bold detail the military situation that unfolded from 13
November 2017 to 28 November 2017 as or better than this writer, including on
this Handle in these streets, and particularly through a widely distributed
documentary whose contents have withstood the test of time, which was first
presented to the ZanuPF politburo in July 2017, well ahead of the historic
events of November 2017.
In the
circumstances, those who know better would be aware that the “zete moment’
tweet, which was posted in these streets from the office at work and not from
the bedroom, was propaganda tweeted to give desperate cover for various exit
plans that were being considered to jump the border, as soon as possible. This
was because by that time on 13 November 2017 it was clear even to fools that
some military action - whose extent was not known - was in fact underway, and
that some targeted individuals who definitely included this writer were by then
under some surveillance of one sort or another. Playing the "zete
kuvata" fool was an attempted decoy, even if feeble, and not an expression
of blissful ignorance of what was actually going on.
Many
dunderheads and malcontents have a lot to learn about politics. In politics,
many things that are said are not what they seem to mean or to be.
Secondly, many
dunderheads and malcontents keep mocking public officials like @nickmangwana
with nonsensical taunts that they should be very careful and should “learn”
from the "zete moment’ referred to above, and my experience since then.
To begin with,
only dunderheads and malcontents find it useful to repeatedly use a solitary
tweet as a basis of some serious warning to anyone about anything.
One swallow
does not make a summer. A credible warning would have to be based on several or
many examples; not on only one bad example which, to make it worse, happens to
be irrelevant.
It is common
cause, for example, that @nickmangwana, the permanent secretary in the Ministry
of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting, is a senior civil servant. I was
not a civil servant in government during the time in question; I was a
politician, a member of the governing ZanuPF's politburo. For the record, the
only time I was a civil servant in Zimbabwe was for a short stint way back from
September 1981 to February 1982 when I worked in the Ministry of Justice as a
trademark officer; after which I returned to the University of Southern
California for my graduate and doctoral studies that I completed in 1988.
Between 2000
and 2017, I variously worked as a government minister and a member of the
ZanuPF politburo, as a politician and not as a civil servant, like
@nickmangwana
is.
To compare a
civil servant like @nickmangwana and a politician like me is not insightful at
all, it is like comparing oranges with apples. It is therefore utterly foolish,
meaningless and futile to ask or challenge a civil servant like @nickmangwana to
take a leaf from a politician like me. The two roles of a politician and a
civil servant are substantively and functionally different.
As a senior
civil servant who is heading the government's information portfolio and who is
charged with managing it, @nickmangwana has a professional and ethical
obligation to loyally serve and speak for the government of the day. His remit
or job is not to speak for opposition politics; or to speak for malcontents who
seek to overthrow the government of the day and who shamelessly and
amateurishly advertise their intention.
In this
connection, it is folly to reduce the leadership or composition of the
government of the day to a political faction. The leadership or composition of
the government of the day has constitutional and statutory authority,
responsibilities, and obligations that political factions do not and cannot
have. Full stop.
Anything else
is mumbo jumbo.
As for my
experience since the "zete moment" tweet, it has nothing to do with
@nickmangwana or anyone else. The experience is entirely mine and mine alone.
It so happens that - even though it happened as a result of circumstances of
political history and not personal plans - my experience since November 2017
has been the best and most productive time of my life in personal terms. But
that is a story for another day.
Thirdly, the
notion that history repeats itself or that what happened in 2017 can or will
happen today in 2025 - for the same reasons and in the same way it happened
2017 - is a dunderhead idea which can only be purchased by desperate
malcontents or people who are downright stupid.
It is a truism
which is some 25 centuries or a little over 2,500 years old, apropos the
Heraclitean dictum, that "no man ever steps in the same river twice, for
it's not the same river and he is not the same man." This old-age wisdom
has many equivalences in African proverbs.
As such, the
notion that history repeats itself or that history should repeat itself is
neither a progressive nor a revolutionary idea.
In a widely
referenced critical commentary on the cyclical nature of history and human
folly - in his 1852 book titled, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,
which critiqued the French coup of 1851 in which Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte
(Napoleon III) seized power - Karl Marx trenchantly wrote that "history
repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."
The clear
takeaway from this is that Marx was reflecting on how historical events like
the French coup of 1851 and figures such as Napoleon I (the tragedy), are
reproduced in a diminished in comical forms by later iterations or imitations,
such as Napoleon III (the farce). Similarly, any iteration or imitation of
November 2017 in 2025 would be a tragedy.
Progressive or
revolutionary socioeconomic transformation or change is of course good and
necessary, but an iteration or imitation of history as a tragedy or a farce
cannot be progressive or revolutionary; it's a disaster.
Fourthly, and
precautionary speaking, it is better for any authority or any state anywhere in
the world to err on the side of total and adequate preparation for any
advertised “insurrection” or “uprising”; so as to be able to deal decisively
with any eventuality, than to be lackadaisical about it and be found wanting in
the event of an unpalatable consequence.
In situations
of advertised insurrections or uprisings, the idea must always be to prepare
for the worst and hope for the best! He was writing on X
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