Always bear in mind that people are not fighting…things in anyone’s’ head…they are fighting to live better in peace, to see heir lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.{Amilcar Cabral in tell no lies, claim no easy victories}
Towards the end of 2010 Ivoirians’ had presidential elections. It was always a desire for every Ivorian to demonstrate their rights, that of universal suffrage. It’s however a sad development to learn that although the outcome of the election declared Quartara the winner, incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo refused to respect the outcome of the election.However; he has since begun negotiating his exit package. The challenges we are or have been facing for the past century as a continent is hinged on the desire to improve welfare of our children and the quest for a better and peaceful life. That is the African cry.
The beginning of 2011 marked a historic epoch in African politics as people revolted against dictatorships .First it was in Egypt then it spread across our beautiful continent. In Egypt Hosni Mubarak gave in and stepped down. One great author of all times, George .W.Cummings defines leadership as the ability to see what no one else sees, to listen when others talk and the ability to be optimistic when others are pessimistic. This definition is irrelevant when it comes to African politics. In Zimbabwe if you don’t subscribe or support a particular policy then you are an “enemy of the state”.
Recent attacks on the SADC facilitator, South African president are more telling. What Zuma did was to call a spade a spade and for that he had to be humiliated in the media. He was branded a traitor and outsider for something that was brokered by another “outsider” his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki.
What is going on in Libya is as a result of not seeing what everyone saw.Gaddafi ignored people’s plea for democracy. At one point he even suggested for the United Nations of Africa. His intention up to now no one knows. Today Libya is in turmoil and innocent civilians are dying everyday while he refuses to step down. During the peak of his reign Gaddafi always said that “execution is the fate of anyone who forms a political party.” Engaging in political conversations with foreigners was a crime punishable by death or 3years in prison. He removed foreign languages from school curricula. In 2011 one protester described the mediocre education system as, “none of us can speak English or French. He kept us ignorant and blindfolded.”
His regime often executed dissidents publicly and executions rebroadcast on state television channels. Libya under Gaddafi was the most censored country in the Middle East and North Africa.Gaddafi trained and supported Charles Taylor, the Liberian dictator. These events are very synonymous with leaders who don’t want to pass the leadership button when time is up. The sad thing however is that the end is always disastrous for most of them.
Digressing from Libya a bit, today Zimbabwe is caught between a rock and a hard place. None of the agreed Global Political Agreement (GPA) reforms have been implemented so far owing to lack of political will on the part of ZANU PF.The continued bickering over petty issues has stalled the progress of reforms. It’s really a sad development when you hear the president talking about Zimbabweans solving their own problems. To say he least we or must I say they have failed to come up with home grown ideas so as to break the “deadlock”. The continued threats of violent company seizures all in the name of “Indigenization and empowerment” have destroyed one of the core values of the inclusive government. The inclusive government came so as to resuscitate an “ailing” and failed economy which was already breathing its last. The much needed heralded investors’ confidence that the Finance Minister diagnosed as the only cure to our economy has fast faded away.
There is also talk of elections this year. That only shows how selfish some leaders are. Calling for elections after a violent 2008 presidential election, defeats the whole idea of reconciliation. As we speak now, people are still nursing the wounds of a violent election where countless were killed for exercising their democratic right of voting for the candidate of their choice. Besides that all the necessary reforms conducive elections are not yet implemented and not even tabled on the table.
The people of Zimbabwe are not unthinking robots not to notice how they have been taken for granted. For those who choose to defy people’s will and welfare so as to remain in political office, I say the time of reckoning is looming. When the time for change comes, it spreads like a wild fire and no one, not even the security personnel can stop it. For us in Zimbabweans its Aluta Continua, that’s the name of our struggle till we get to our desired destination.
Rawlings Magede is a social commentator based in Nkayi,Matebeleland North and can be contacted via e-mail-rawedge699@gmail.com .
By Rawlings Magede My visit to one of the Genocide memorials During the past weeks I was holed up in Rwanda visiting memorial sites and villages in a quest to learn more on how the country has recovered years after the 1994 genocide that left more than 800,000 civilians dead. The genocide lasted for hundred days and engulfed the country into a turmoil as organised killings and massacres of the Tutsi escalated. The colonial practice of ethnic profiling on identity documents aided in the easy identification of Tutsi minorities during roadblocks and targeted searches. Churches that had since time immemorial been credited for speaking truth to power become complicit in the killings and often deceitfully offered “safe” refuge to Tutsis but only alerted the Interahamwe’s ( Hutu militias) who massacred hundreds of thousands in cold blood. The snail’s pace by the international community to intervene and stop the killings further aided the killers and saw the killings stretching up to hund
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