I wish Gono would just buzz off!

I’m watching the Gideon Gono fiasco feeling faintly repulsed. In ordinary circumstances, his recent letters would have made me cringe on his behalf – but I think I cringed so much last year (when he declared that the World Bank admired him so much they wanted to give him a job) that my skin has forgotten how to crawl where Gono is concerned! I am however struck by how selfish and self-engrossed he is.

Our country is on its knees – millions are suffering and millions are forced to seek employment elsewhere. He is the architect of the country’s economic ruin but his desire to stay in his job supercedes his desire to see ordinary people throughout the country survive and thrive. He is one man – one lowly man in our nation – how can he or anyone else possibly think he takes priority over everyone else? I know he lacks a sense of dignity – clearly revealed in the whining letters seeking to re-write reality on his terms – but his lack of honour is what’s shining through for me at the moment.

Legacies are so important to people in power – how history remembers them – but Gono seems  oddly incapable of grasping good opportunities (self-adoring biographies and attempts to re-write reality aside). He has a chance right now to transform himself from the self-pitying, selfish, destructive man we have all come to see him as, into someone who can step forward and transcend divisions.

Can you imagine the shockwaves that would be sent through the nation and through the international community if Gono called a press conference and said something along the lines of:

“With evidence of economic collapse all around me and acknowledging that my presence in the Reserve Bank compromises international confidence in investing in Zimbabwe, I feel I have no option but to do what is right for my country at this point in its history, which is to resign”.

Such a position might even give him a chance to re-invent himself, redeem himself … but no … the ego is so staggeringly huge, the greed is so immense, and the selfish attitude so all encompassing that he staggers blindingly, drunkenly through the days not realising with each step that public disdain for him grows.

He’s not alone though. The heads are lined up like snooker balls and his is the one that seems to be about to be pocketed first. The rest of the swollen heads careening the table have the presience to realise that it could be one of them next. I can imagine that that would be a nerve wracking thought if you have a string of human rights abuses to your name!

Yesterday we heard the Joint Operational Command threaten to go to war over Gono. What an amazing thing to say and what a difficult position to justify without looking like a thuggish fool. When you consider the fact that Saddam Hussein murdered people like they were his personal playthings for years but even that wasn’t enough to make people compellingly believe the war in Iraq was reasonable, how on earth can the security chiefs ever think lining up soldiers to shoot civilians just so one self-infatuated buffoon can keep his job is a compelling reason for war? It really is time for them to get over themselves and stop being so absurd.

The justification, according to Air Vice Marshal Henry Muchena, is that removing Gono would be the same as “negating the struggle for independence”. Oh please!!! Nice try Henry but you’re going to have to a lot better and validate that thesis with some considered thought and argument before anyone does anything other than laugh in your face with disbelief in response.

But it’s Joseph Chintemba who gave me my biggest smile: there’s a report today that he stormed into The Herald apparently threatening to drive all whites away if Gono was removed. It amuses me that even though it is Tendai Biti who is Gono’s nemesis, somehow – yet again – it’s all the whites’ fault. Change the record Chinotemba! Apparently the guy thinks Gono is great though:

“Without mincing words, as war veterans, we throw out full weight behind the RBZ Governor and we take pride in the fantastic job he did at a time the country was reeling under the western imposed illegal sanctions.”

Well Joseph, you as a war veteran who sucked-up to one political party and sold out the nation might have benefitted under Gono, but the rest of us didn’t! And that’s what it’s all about isn’t it -personal gain!? I’m sure Chinotemba’s posturing in The Herald’s office, throwing his weight around and shouting racist diatribe, did little to inspire confidence in investors waiting to see if anything has changed. The gravy train comes to a stop – even if Gono is in power – if the world doesn’t step up and invest. Chinotemba seems to think there’s a tree somewhere that grows money (or maybe he thinks Gono’s funny-money was a real currency…?)

Robert Mugabe is claiming Gono saved the country when it was reeling under sanctions. Given that the ’sanctions’ were targetted specifically on the political elite, I think what Mugabe really meant to say was that Gono did a very good job of saving the elite’s financial-asses and ensuring they stayed in the money despite international measures to restrain them.

As for the rest of us – the millions who lost their jobs, saw their business fail, watched their loved ones die while hospitals ran out of drugs, forced to be refugees in strange lands etc etc etc – it’s very hard to see any area at all where Gono’s ‘genius’ helped anyone of us at all. Why?… because he did it to us. Perhaps Mugabe would like to point to one real practical example for an ordinary member of society who benefitted as a result of Gono’s policies. I won’t hold my breath!

I’m very curious to know how the sabre-rattling and bloated bull-frog belching emanating for the securocrat quarters is going to translate into war? How are they going to persuade the lowly foot soldiers to go to war to save the butt of the man who emptied the shops. Hard to see how they’re going to persuade the soldiers that food on the shelves under the GNU is somehow a bad thing, and they were better off with rumbling stomachs and no food anywhere to be seen. And if they do manage to persuade them to fight – how do they intend to pay them?

My ideal, of course, is for Gono to get on his bike and just cycle away. He’s like a green-bummed fly buzzing around our heads, irritatingly getting in the way of progress. But I see today that Nehando Radio is reporting that the MDC parties are possibly adopting another strategy and that is to let him stay, but to strip him of his powers. I know it’s not ideal, but I can’t help get a mischievous sense of pleasure at the thought of Reserve Bank employees having a constant reminder of exactly what happens if your head swells too much and your feet get too big for your boots.

I can imagine them whispering to each other over their desks: “Guys, we better get this right or we might end up like him”, pointing to the isolated oke in the corner – Gono – a loser, but no doubt still deluding himself that he is the king of the world and the saviour to all mankind. We know better, don’t we?

This entry was posted by Hope on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 4:37 pm. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.