A grotesque mockery of the world
The news on the BBC ticker now is that Morgan Tsvangirai has been invited to witness Robert Mugabe’s inauguration following a poll where Mugabe competed against himself. “They think it’s hilarious”, my friend said to me when I told him. “They think they are so clever and that they have outwitted the world. It’s just one big massive joke to them”.
When I was told this was crawling accross the BBC’s website my first reaction was “You are joking!”
It’s the second time today that I’ve been almost knocked over by disbelief: the first was when I read that Robert Mugabe had stood up at his wife’s grandmother’s funeral yesterday and said,
You would not imagine that in Harare, where we had been beaten in all but one constituency in the March elections, this time around not even one went to the MDC.
No Bob, we would not imagine that; nor do we imagine that any one of the people who listened to you saying that believed one word that came out of your mouth. You are standing before them, thinking you are wearing suits of gold, but they can all see you nakedly for what you really are.
It’s as if Mugabe inhabits a hall of mirrors, where he sees himself as grand and big but the rest of us see him as distorted and twisted.
When Queen Elizabeth II stripped him of his knighthood I suspected it was the one thing that would sting Mugabe more than anything else. I have watched inauguration ceremonies on TV in the past and the sight of Mugabe in his European tailored suits flanked by the trappings of British pomp and ceremony always strikes me as a visible display of his heart’s most innermost yearnings. He was probably a bright boy once, clever and inquisitive, but always aware he wasn’t accepted into the world he wished he could inhabit. The insensitive cruel painful scars that bullying-colonialism can leave on a small bright boy.
My feeling is that he hates that ‘British’ world as much as he desires it and longs to be accepted by it.
When I was a small child my father taught me manners by way of the queen: “My child”, he would say at meals “Do you think the Queen of England slurps her tea like that?” It was such a bizarre ideal we all had growing up in a colonial country with the presence of British standards and values and manners. (Trying to traverse the London tube system with heavy luggage on my first visit to England during the early 1980s brought me bang up to date with reality, I can tell you!)
But Mugabe, I think, loves that ideal: hates the fact he has never been fully a part of it, quite rightly hates the fact that he was unfairly treated by that system, and yet, cannot separate himself from it and still, in spite of himself, longs for it and acceptance.
When he was stripped of his knighthood Mugabe apparently said: “We continue to respect the queen [...] It’s the demons at Downing Street that need to be exorcized.”
Well Robert, the Queen has no respect for you. If that little remark was an attempt to show ‘grace’Â and ‘dignity’ to the Queen, trust me, I’m sure the lady probably thought “Oh, just shove off you little creep” .
Bob, the truly tragic part of all this is that you had every chance in your life to be welcomed as graciously and with as much warmth in her home as Nelson Mandela was this week; you had the chance and you blew it by allowing yourself to be consumed and devoured by your hate and by turning it one your people. Admire you? Respect you?
“Very fit, very optimistic, upbeat - and hungry” - that’s what you said when you stepped out after casting your vote in an election you had set out to steal by bludgeoning people into voting for you.
“ROBERT!” (I can almost hear my father roar) “Do you think the Queen of England would ever have been so ungracious to say that in a country where the majority of people cannot eat!”
So today we will probably witness a rushed inauguration ceremony possibly accompanied with more of the same pomp and British-style trappings. Robert standing there deluding himself he is a man of dignity and class, while the Queen (if she is anything at all like the useful tool my father crafted and used to develop my manners) will be sitting in her Palace witnessing it all and wincing at a grotesque sordid display of ‘Britishness’ presided over by a truly horrible little man.
June 29th, 2008 14:43
He’s not a Man. A Man wouldn’t expose children to starvation, cruelty, murder, disease, neglect and all the other unspeakable acts he has instructed his stooges to commit in his name.
from now on, his name will be uttered in the same whispered horror as Hitler, Idi Amin, and similar monsters.
June 29th, 2008 14:48
I have endless admiration for the courage of people in Zimbabwe who are standing up to Mugabe and his henchmen.You’re in our thoughts.
How do you think Mugabe would react if he were to be excommunicated? I understand he pretends to be a Catholic and a Christian, so I’d like to think that if the Pope spoke out and took action it might have an effect. Since Mugabe is insane I suppose that seems unlikely. All the same, isn’t it worth trying to persuade the Pope to speak out more forcefully than we have yet heard? Maybe we should bombard him with emails asking for excommunication? I’ve written to him at benedictxvi@vatican.va. His reply is awaited with interest.
June 29th, 2008 15:01
Just had a letter from a friend in Germany. Apparently there have been public protests & govt outcry about Geisecke & Devrient. And protests outside the firm in Munich.
Here’s a link
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/ausland/artikel/577/183009/
Keep up the pressure - it’s working.
June 29th, 2008 15:02
I wonder/speculate whether ROBERT is going to do a runner on his first mission post this abused elections.
I wonder if he is packing those bags and is made President then runs off and leaves the negotiations to his boys.
SLAP!!! your dreaming!
Mugabe craves acceptance, he craves recognition and now he has none. What can he do.
Does one think that he is going to get all the recognition he craves from the AU. No, he wants bigger things bigger countries to think he is an influential man who hold some credence.
ROBERT has become a poor old man with a lot of money. Money does not pay for respect and neither for the illusion. He is going to have vasts amounts of money knowing once he was a ’saviour’ and now is the devil.
Mugabe is working hard making sure he does not face judgement on earth but judgement in the heavens awaits.
What does God say….”Never fear the one who destroys your body but fear the one who will destroy your spirit”.
Robert which one do you want?
June 29th, 2008 15:15
I must say I am disappointed with Tsvangirai.
It seems that Morgan is feeling the pressure. He nows says he will negotiate and allow Mugabe to be a ceremonial President. Morgan which is it?
You are slowly letting the people of Zimbabwe down. It seems you are desperate to be the one in office and the one to rule the people. You should not be the one iunder pressure that is for Mugabe but you are falling into his trap and playing his game.
Instead of crying out and making sure the world is awar of Mugabe shinanigans and letting the AU know of the facts. Where is Morgans threat of going to the AU. Shove it in their faces!! Put the heat on the AU and ROBERT.
Robert should be the one scared of treason charges.
Relieve yourself of the stress and make that decision in your spirit…it is of GOD’s TIMING and not mine. You do what you are in control of.
June 29th, 2008 15:29
Tsvangirai rejects Mugabe offer:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23943284-23109,00.html
June 29th, 2008 15:41
Given the current delay in announcing the “Result” it seems the man can no longer even rig an election against himself. How embarrassing is that?
Perhaps I should forward him those emails I keep getting about election problems.
As you say it could have been so different.
June 29th, 2008 15:50
It is widely accepted by the world in general, and by African politicians in particular, that the one person who could kickstart the process of bringing the Mugabe regime down is the President of South Africa.
As President Thabo Mbeki still refuses to utter a single word that is critical of Mugabe, or express any meaningful solution to the enormous crisis deepening from month to month, it would seem that any hopes in that direction must lie with Jacob Zuma who is likely to become President next April. He is well known to be sympathetic to Morgan Tsvangirai, and is a fellow trade unionist.
But for the people of Zimbabwe, whose suffering continues unabated, to wait for such a breakthrough to begin to take shape for the best part of another year is a terrible long wait. It is a wait too far, and with not even a guarantee of any imminent success. Increased sanctions in the meantime only hit the majority, while a small minority are given carte blanche to continue their greedy accumulation of enormous riches at the expense of a country getting poorer by the day. As the Archbishop of York has said after the recent sham of an election, if wholesale sanctions by South Africa againast Ian Smith’s regime could be successful in bringing it down, why could they not be successful against Mugabe’s?
June 29th, 2008 16:04
I’m sure there are ways to outsmart this so-called ‘clever’ regime.
It the AU fails to condemn Mugabe, then Sth Africa is the key. A massive lobby to FIFA to threaten to take away the World Cup on the grounds of assisting Zimbabwe, a country with horrific human rights abuse.
This would cause a major rift in the Sth African ranks. If Mbeki is gone, Mugabe is totally isolated. His Malawi and DRC buddies would be useless.
In addition, Zimbabwe should be banned from the Olympic Games, at the same causing futher embarrassing moments with Zim’s buddy, China.
June 29th, 2008 16:09
In Bulawayo 3 polling stations in Makokoba did not receive a single voter at all.
In Mudzi two polling stations reported 15 000 votes for Mugabe when they are only 3 000 people in those wards.
No wonder they are still ‘counting’!!
See: http://zimbabwemetro.com/2008/06/29/zec-results-fail-to-add-up/
June 29th, 2008 16:12
The big quest?ion is which Ambassadors attended. Which bishops Which heads of NGO’s?
Any footage?
June 29th, 2008 16:16
You are very brave, Sokwanele.
The world is united against Mugabe. He cannot prevail.
June 29th, 2008 18:00
The world went against Hitler, what stops the world now, they have seen the atrocities, do they support them ? That is all I have left to say.
June 29th, 2008 22:27
Did anyone see Carte Blanch on MNET, this evening? Would you believe that Derek Watts was interviewing none other than Thabo Mbeki’s own brother, Moeletsi Mbeki, who is a political analyst (that is is you don’t confuse Bishop Tutu as the other interviewee!).
Imagine what dinner time is like with all the Mbeki’s around the dining table!
Anyway, I say let us swap Thabo’s job with that of Moeletsi without further ado. There is a million times more sense and courage in that man than Thabo, who is a limp wimp.
June 29th, 2008 23:51
Hope, and all Sokwanele contributors/activists, I am so truly in awe of your courage in the face of such adversity. My thoughts and prayers are always with the people of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe shall not win!!
June 30th, 2008 10:48
Are there any confirmatory article or intelligence from you guys as to the reliability of this:- http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13820:zim-government-in-a-state-of-panic&catid=31:top%20zimbabwe%20stories&Itemid=66
The statement gives details of military preparations by the regime to prevent intervention by nearby states. It also describes the methods to be used to suppress and target MDC activists.
I’ll keep looking but it seems to be the only article like it on the web
July 1st, 2008 15:26
I think we should start a company that produces toilet paper with robert mugabe’s face on it!
Call it bobroll or robroll.[edited]
July 1st, 2008 15:55
[edit] All that hard work, all that effort ……… now broken. Replaced by misery.
But zeitgeist prevails. Sometimes I wonder who’s more stupider. Us or them?
Yet I still have this inherent urge to want to help. Why?
July 1st, 2008 18:27
I agree with “Pissed Off” I would place a very large order and going to the loo would give me great pleasure.
July 1st, 2008 19:17
A response to pissed off. With the inflation in Zim. We will use the bearers cheques. We’d Just request the Germans to print a user friendly note (viz Mugabe’s wide face) on which to spread our targets on the paper. EARTH QUAKES AND FOOTBALL DEFEATS. God works in amazing ways.
July 2nd, 2008 15:45
the only reason this pitiful excuse for a human being is still alive is there is no oil in his country. its a sad reflexion on humanity when an animal like ths is allowed the freedom to commit the racist crimes against his own people that he does. fortunately the animal is getting on in age and will not live much longer. he has acheived much. winning an election against himself must be a highlight. although killing and beating all his white poeple must have made him feel big also.