Muckraking politics Morgan Tsvangirai
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI

MORGAN TSVANGIRAI

Reason Wafawarowa on Thursday
It is a given reality that any competition in political life looks like a contest of words and images, and protagonists will always resort to the use of colourful descriptions targeted at their rivals or competitors, most of the time in the most slanderous of ways.

As the failed efforts to oust Morgan Tsvangirai from the leadership of the MDC-T climaxed in February this year, the Mangoma/Biti camp labelled their leader “Gumbura,” a derogatory nickname after the notorious serial rapist clergyman Martin Gumbura, jailed for 40 years after conviction on numerous counts of rape against members of his flock. Tsvangirai’s opponents generally accuse him of an open zip policy when it comes the fairer sex.

Tsvangirai’s supporters attacked Elton Mangoma himself for his physical disability, while Biti was, and continues to be routinely abused over alleged failing health, especially on social media.

Now ZANU-PF is heading towards its 6th National People’s Congress early next month, and naturally the political race for posts is truculent, almost totally unrestrained. The race has already seen the dramatic fall of weighty names like Francis Nhema, Dzikamai Mavhaire, Nicholas Goche, Dydimus Mutasa, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, Flora Bhuka and so on.

Often the descriptions we hear from rival politicians are dramatised, exaggerated, and even distorted. That is not unique to any one particular environment or country, but a common trait in both the democratic and less-democratic world. Of course these descriptions are aimed at personalities, not at policies or actions of the targeted people. The intended hurt is political, moral, social and psychological; and the motivation is to harm the targeted person and reduce their public support.

For the more principled and legendary leaders like President Robert Mugabe and most of Africa’s post-colonial founding fathers, character assassination is often intended to hurt the cause that the targeted person defends or symbolises, in Mugabe’s case independent nationalism and Pan Africanism.

In his book “Character Assassination,” Jerome Davis asserts that the assassination of character counts on the public’s “fear, ignorance, envy, suspicion, malice, jealousy, frustration, greed, aggression, economic rivalry, emotional insecurity, and inferiority complex.”

These were Davis’ own labels on the public, as he wrote his book in defence of himself against certain vicious character assassins who were after his own personality. There are always conditions that breed these kind of attacks, and in almost all cases there is an underlying clash of political interests, as we are told exist between President Robert Mugabe and his deputy at party and government levels, Joice Mujuru. The interests clashes reported in the media are of far reaching implications, not only for ZANU-PF, but also for the country’s direction, especially in regards to continuity of ZANU-PF’s pro-people policies.

The attack tools used in muckraking politics include mass media, social media, oral/written statements, testimonies, books, interviews, rumours, and all forms of information and disinformation.

President Robert Mugabe’s rule has attracted the production of numerous documentaries; some of them based on absolutely fictitious fabrications, and several books on Mugabe have also been published in the West, almost all of them assassinating the character of the veteran revolutionary leader. Even Tsvangirai’s autobiography book “At the Deep End” is more known for what it says about Robert Mugabe than for the story of the autobiographer himself. Without the name Mugabe in it, Tsvangirai’s book would not even rise to the level of nonsense.

The target in muckraking politics is always the personality of the person, and that is why things like sexual or financial misconduct always come in handy.

We all know of the infamous sex scandals of Bill Clinton, and many people believe that Morgan Tsvangirai’s sexual anatomy seriously messed up with his political fortunes, and more than likely Tsvangirai himself privately concurs, especially after the disaster of July 31, 2013.

Sometimes things like laziness; indecisiveness, ineptness, dishonesty, corruption and other forms of malfeasance are used to attack someone’s personality. The Vice President Joice Mujuru must for the past few months been having sleepless nights over sensational media reports about her alleged related shortcomings.

Why does one get targeted with muckraking politics? Usually the person has to be engaged in a specific political race or competition, and we hear the Republic’s Vice President was secretly racing her principal and purported “father” and “mentor,” ostensibly to ambush him with an unceremonious ousting at the upcoming Congress. Clearly those that take exception to such clandestine machinations have decided to be angry on their own behalf, and also on behalf of the would-be ambuscaded principal. They have gone into overdrive to discredit the purported mischief of the VP, and by every definition they want to diminish any chances of her succeeding, and it looks like they have already buried her fortunes before the Congress.

Secondly the targeted person must have already achieved some social status or reputation. The year 2007 was the second for this column, and the column was just beginning to give this writer some recognition locally and internationally.

There was a relentless character assassination that saw the end of a work contract with a UN affiliate agency in Australia, a massive campaign to de-register my studentship with Macquarie University, an elaborate sting operation to get me deported out of Australia, and a failed campaign to drag me to The Hague on frivolous and malicious fabrications disguised as charges.

In all these malevolent campaigns there were fellow countrymen and women spreading the baseless slander that I had at one time engaged in murderous activities and other egregious human rights violations against my fellow people with political views deemed different to mine. They simply could not stomach anyone who did not hail the MDC as the answer to Zimbabwe’s challenges, and for that person to be residing in the West? Well, that was simply unacceptable.

The character assassination ended up in defamation lawsuits, and settlements happened, and so on and so forth. One reason this column is in its eighth year is the resolve never to surrender to acts of character assassination, and also to let time prove to all and sundry that the Pan Africanist ideology is justice that cannot be denied, and also to show self-declared adversaries the best form of revenge – success and forgiveness.

Thirdly, the person targeted by character assassination usually must be successful in some area, and the current tribulations of Bill Cosby will come to mind easily, or so do the sex scandals of golfer Tiger Woods.

Lastly, persons representing a powerful ideology or political cause, party or movement will normally get targeted in schemes of character assassination.

Nelson Mandela was labelled a terrorist for standing for the freedom of South Africans, just like many other founding fathers of African independence, the likes of Samora Machel, Julius Nyerere, Dedan Kimathi Waciuri, or Kenneth Kaunda.

For engaging in the repossession of Zimbabwe’s colonially stolen lands Robert Mugabe has been labelled a tyrant, a dictator, a murderer, and an international criminal.

His political rivals within Zimbabwe have collaborated these slanderous labels in pursuit of their own political ambitions, and tens of thousands of Zimbabweans have secured asylum status in Western countries by fabricating all manner of atrocious stories against Mugabe, and they fully know that their character assassination is no more than a manufactured convenience. There are specific types of character assassination quite common in political practice. The scope may be individual or collective. While we have already covered significant examples of individual character assassinations, collective character assassinations are quite common in factional and inter-party politics.

We have often heard that all MDC leaders and supporters are “puppets of the West,” or “sellouts”. On the other hand ZANU-PF supporters have often been collectively labelled “thugs,” “goons,” or even “murderers.”

Now ZANU-PF has been entertaining us with the “Team Weevils” and “Team Gamatox” drama. The first group is accused of being the pest that destroys the crop from inside, while the Gamatox Team is accused of being akin to reckless indiscriminate users of a deadly pesticide, targeting even the highest office of the revolutionary party. These labels are all part of character assassination tactics so common in political races. They can be costly, and the ousted ZANU-PF provincial officials will easily testify, and so will the trouble-prone Rugare Gumbo.

Slogans, songs, and literature can be used to inflict maximum damage on political opponents, and this is the regrettable expression of intolerance so characteristic of Africa’s political landscape. It is as if we are unaware of the disasters of the Hutu/Tutsi collective character assassinations in Rwanda, or the tragedy of the Nazis discrediting the Jews in Germany.

Time is very important in character assassination. The timing of the demonisation of the person of First Lady Grace Mugabe by opposition politicians and the private media is very informing.

To these people, she comes onto the political scene as a reminder of Mugabeism continuity, and her mere presence within the country’s political spectrum brings out demons out of every Robert Mugabe foe, and they are many.

Her nemesis within ZANU-PF have all become de facto comrades of her husband’s opponents, and through the name Grace Mugabe, VP Mujuru can at least swim in some measure of sympathy of convenience during these trying times, something that Japanese Ken Yamamoto thinks she does not deserve. The researcher-cum-academic seems to thoroughly enjoy the VP’s “payback time.”

When it comes to radical ideologists like Robert Mugabe, character assassination can be posthumous.

This is because the primary target in this case is the cause, not necessarily the personality. Momentum is a very important factor in the politics of muckraking. Surely VP Mujuru and her alleged comrades in conspiracy had seemingly gained a lot of momentum towards ZANU-PF’s Congress, and it has been hard to say whether the furious tide coming against this faction was planned or has been spontaneous. No doubt it is systematic.

What is happening in Zimbabwe right now is almost natural in any political competition. However we are a country that cannot afford the luxury of endless political games.

We have a dire economy to turn around, and a suffering people with a huge chunk of their lifespan thrown to waste by years of marauding poverty.

Our politicians must know better than sticking it out for only the achievement of personal ambitions.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in Sydney, Australia.

 

You Might Also Like

Comments

Take our Survey

We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey