BY RORY SHORT
It seems to me that the ruling elite within ZANU-PF are nothing but a gang of mafiosa who, starting before 2000, managed to carry out the ultimate criminal act which is to hijack the government of a country. This enables the elite to use all the levers of state power to serve only their own narrow interests rather than the interests of the rest of the population.
As a consequence of this understanding of the situation in Zimbabwe I have always been sceptical of the prospects of the so-called Unity government. At core the ZANU-PF elite is without any scruples whatsoever thus any unity with such people, except on their own corrupt terms, is a practical impossibility as the MDC is finding.
In my opinion it would have been far better for the MDC to have called on the people of Zimbabwe to actively refuse, whilst ZANU-PF illegitimately clings onto power, to recognise any aspect of government as legitimate. The consequences of the people’s actions springing from this position would have been certain suffering as ZANU-PF used its illegitimate access to state institutions to clamp down on the peoples’ response. There would however have been a major difference between this suffering and the suffering that the people of Zimbabwe are presently
undergoing anyway. This suffering would have been consciously accepted as a consequence
of the moral stand being taken against the illegitimate government of ZANU-PF and would as a result have had immense power to transform the situation for the better. The current suffering because it is not consciously chosen to serve a higher purpose does not have that transformative power.
Rory Short is a Quaker, Yogi and Buddhist.
Tags: human rights, mdc, zanu pf, zimbabwe
One Comment
hi. tell me something, in any of your ‘expert opinions/assessments’, do you ever factor in the role played by western sanctions and isolation of my country on the suffering of us Zimbabwean citizens?
do you ever once take into considerations that the western coorporatocracy of this world have been doing their level best to bring down Mugabe (which basically translates into trying to ensure that the country is economiclly ungovernable and in fact crumbles)? some have been predicting (and hoping for) this collapse for a decade now!
is it that you are ignorant of these aspects or is it that you actually support them and maybe stand to gain from these actions?
as a bhuddist, this last theory just does not mke sense…… so maybe you are selectively ignorant. as such, i urge you to just leave us Zimbaweans alone. we will struggle through our recovery by ourselves, and it will actually be much easier without your help. good day.
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