What would God say: the champagne bottle, the deep freezer and Zimbabwe?


James Guyo — Opinion


Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:59:00 +0000



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THIS IS a question that millions of people across the world have asked and continue to ask about the conditions and situations that surround them and tend to suffocate them into oblivion.





There are those who have been plagued by ill-health and despite all efforts, still find themselves in affliction. There are those who have been seeking better politics; politics that is informed by the need to improve the human condition of its people. The politics and economics practiced hitherto seem to denude and relegate humanity to a new level of low. Politicians keep cannibalizing and debasing the very essence of their people like a chicken that eats its own eggs.



Since God is omnipresent and never goes to sleep, I thought I would pose some questions to him:



At what point in our history does he say we blasphemed against him to justify our current predicament? Does he think we deserved to be colonized because we had failed to conquer our environment and in the process make the Maxim gun that gave victory to the settlers? Did God inspire Smith and his ilk to unilaterally declare independence from Britain whilst denying the same independence to other people? Was Smith trying to save Britain from itself or was he just a Prodigal son?



Did the minority who formed the majority of the poisonous decisions whilst still adorning and swearing by the Bible every Sunday and thanking God for their “blessings” and “way of life” think they had their salvation? Did Smith and his establishment think the Land Apportionment Act and all the other draconian laws were divine-inspired regardless of their intended consequence of continued economic subjugation of another people? What would he say about the events that drove us into the abyss and are driving the current mess?



The next question naturally becomes: Was God tired of Smith when he inspired and unleashed Mugabe, Tongogara, Nkomo and the populace to rise up in arms to defend our condition? Was he happy for, and with, us when Smith was given the boot and a flag that represented the ambitions and aspirations of Zimbabweans was raised and subsequently the annunciation of reconciliation? Was the pomp and fanfare that surrounded the occasion, a sweet dream that would only result in wetting our pillows? Did he know that the Lancaster House Agreement was a fraudulent document negotiated in bad faith — whose patent and latent defects ensured the propagation and entrenchment of the inequities that caused, if not fueled, the current crisis?



Did he know that the countries that champion the “fight” for human rights, freedom and democracy whatever it means to them, were the same ones who denied them to us through abetting and keeping buoyant a nefarious system? Did God create conditions that would set up Mugabe or whomever the leader for failure, namely inheriting a skewed economic system in the hands of an intransigent minority and an inexperienced leadership? Was the said minority innately and inherently stubborn or they were stubborn because someone was telling them to be?



In the Just Law of God, not man-made laws and interpretation, would they still be entitled to their ill-gotten land or Britain has the obligation morally, financially or otherwise by reason of being complicit in the birth of the situation?



That said, did the land redistribution exercise push the Zimbabwean economy into the ditch or the economy was destined to slip into the ditch by reason of Mugabe assuming the steering wheel at independence? Does God think Zimbabwe was subjected to economic sanctions that would further sink the bus further into the mud or the damage was self-inflicted? Were the Zimbabwean bus’s brake pads already worn-out at independence by reason of defects in the material of construction so that failure was inevitable in the long run? Thus, was the bus engineered to self-destruct or the “hydraulics” was tempered with just before take-off?



Could it be true that the benefits of land redistribution will be fully appreciated by the generation to come and if so what would they say of Mugabe? Would they agree with those who think that the exercise was to shore up his dwindling support or with those who think this was a genuine issue that had to be addressed and this was the best time to do it? Does Mugabe whom some have described as the “Hitler” of Africa truly fit that characterization? If so are his sins forgivable? Is he going to be forgiven because he repented and accepted Christ as his personal Savior or because Pius Ncube and other errant high priests had been forgiven for their trespassing, therefore setting precedent for his redemption?



Could he possibly be forgiven because the recently departed Smith whose sins somewhat mirror Mugabe’s was forgiven or that he would be forgiven because we are all his imperfect children whom he loves dearly? Judging by the trend of events, does he think Rhodesia and Zimbabwe’s leadership has lived in a bubble that occasionally pops up and does he think this feat will continue even under a new dispensation?



Tsvangirai has been in the trenches especially in the past eight years trying to effect change. I gather he possesses qualities and tendencies that mirror the man he wants removed. Is this something that people should worry about especially given our ability to learn and think in an abstract manner?



Is Tsvangirai going to be a replica of Mugabe in the negatives or mutant of Smith and Mugabe or even the lovely Bishop Mzorewa? Is he going to deliver us the ever elusive Zimbabwe dream or by virtue of being a politician he is cut from the same cloth or with the same pair of scissors as was used for the predecessors? How much is the struggle for the true and final emancipation of the people of Zimbabwe going to be affected or compromised by the company with which Tsvangirai has chosen to push the bus out of the ditch?



Aren’t some of the bus pushers going to rush into the bus and take-up seats before the bus has been pushed out leaving a few with an even distant prospect of getting it out like has happened before? Should Zimbabweans worry about opportunists who masquerade as champions of democracy and human rights, but in the process working towards undoing the very things they proclaim from highest of mountains? Are those who cry with us for our freedom really interested in releasing the shackles and chains of economic underdevelopment and subjugation or this is another opportunity for them to put an even stronger and better key to the chain?



In keeping with my attention deficit disorder, I would digress and ask God the origins of HIV virus. I will ask him if he thinks Zimbabweans are the most promiscuous people despite a large comprehensive study by the British Medical Journal, the Lancet, which concluded people in industrialized countries had more multiple partners than those in developing countries.



I hope the theories so far advanced are true and that it was not manufactured by anyone with a criminal mind. Also hoping that the truth is not living therefore subject to mutation with time as it always does. I would also ask God if he will forgive Mugabe for pushing the bottle of champagne to the bottom of the deep freezer when it was time for Tsvangirai to pop it. Will Tsvangirai and the people of Zimbabwe be able to remove those bottles on top to reach the bottom without breaking them and risking “injury?” Will he be able to shake the bottle enough to pop it without spilling all the contents?



Lastly and most importantly to me, I will ask him if I will ever meet with and hug again my recently departed mother who like many others was a victim of the contest of ownership of Zimbabwe? Judging by experience, I would also ask him when he thinks he would be able to give answers to all these questions as you all know, “Mhinduro yake inononoka-he is slow in responding” as James Chimombe would have it. Thus we may never know most of the answers in this life, but I thought this would make an interesting tete-a-tete with the Almighty.



Whatever the answers are he may just tell us it is the law of the jungle at play and it is not in his interest to interfere in human affairs as we have proclaimed ourselves to be a “sovereign people.”



We may, therefore, need to be stronger and better predators and intelligent ones at that. In the meantime, people’s hopes and dreams keep getting perforated and soon may get punctured irreparably. Let not your hopes be extinguished because it is the hope of the millions who came before us that has been the backbone of human existence and triumph.





James Guyo

jamesguyo@gmail.com