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Morgan Tsvangirai

Reflections Isdore Guvamombe
Dear Morgan Richard Tsvangirai
Firstly, allow me, the son of a villager, to pass on greetings from the autochthons of the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve.Back in the village, an egg should not be deceived by the hardness of its shell, it cannot challenge a stone in a fight.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories, so the elders with cotton tuft hair, say.

In the village, it is unAfrican to look straight into the face of a man who is mourning but today, this villager will break tradition and look straight into your mournful face.

After all, you have become more European than African, so I do not think you will be offended.
This villager will, for once, ignore your cascading tears and even ignore that you are constantly using the back of your hand to wipe off tears and accompanying mucus.

This is a painful crushing defeat and one that you and your Western backers must learn to live with.
The sole reason why this villager has broken ranks with tradition is that you have carved yourself a distinct character as a darling of the Western imperialists, on whose shoulders you are crying on during these days when you are sorrowful over your huge election humiliation on the hands of veteran nationalist President Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

Even the village soothsayer, the ageless autochthon of wisdom and knowledge says politics is not in you Morgan.
You were pushed into it by the British.

Politics is not in your blood.
Try polygamy.
That is your area of artistry.
Secondly, the villagers understand you, since what you are doing after this monumental defeat is not new.
It has happened before in the village.
Once upon a time a man started a fight that he eventually could not stand.

Sooner rather than later, he was pummelled unconscious, with a combination of jabs, uppercuts and straight rights.
In the process he soiled himself.

As he gained consciousness, he staggered and struggled to keep himself on jelly and wobbly legs but still shouted, “Where is he, I want to beat him silly.’’
Onlookers had to restrain him from being further punished and embarrassed by his adversary who still stood fit and fresh.
This is the stage you are at this time.
Denial!

At this stage, you really need many reasonable people to calm you down and make you see that you were really beaten clean in this election and that you are standing on jelly feet.
You need to be stopped from further embarrassing yourself.
Your political career is soiled and fetid.
Fetid, fetid, fetid!

Villagers are generally perceived as silly and naïve by Westerners and those with Eurocentric ideology like you, dear Morgan.
And, true villagers are not sophisticated to some extent but when it comes to African humanism, hunhu or ubuntu, they are masters of sophistry and they know what they want.

You have largely missed that point Morgan and lost the villagers’ trust through your misbehaviour.
You are now more part of Europe than Zimbabwe.

The villagers wonder why you have largely remained British project, when you should be aware in your intelligence or lack of it, that their children lost blood, limp and life in a protracted liberation struggle against the British and their allies.

You have pronounced yourself clearly a Morrison Nyathi reincarnate, by announcing policies that seek to reverse the gains that independence our gallant freedom fighters brought.

That day as you campaigned before TV cameras, you got excited and let your faculties off the sockets, and chided us the villagers, for being unable to wear underwear, as if your assortment of Western-acquired undergarment would vote for you.
Did your underwear vote for you?
What leader are you, who concentrates on the area around the loins?
You really love girding your loins!

While you might think that you were rigged, you should know that you actually rigged yourself through monumental blunders.
When you went for he-goat courtship with your various ladies, village women watched with disgust and knew they would deal with you in the ballot box.
Chief Negomo took you on, for marrying in the prohibited month of November.

It was taboo, but, because of your acquired Eurocentric stance, you sought to dismiss it as nonsensical.
This villager is sure you behaved like a fly without an advisor that follows a corpse into the grave.

When you denigrated Chief Negomo, you denigrated the chieftaincy in Zimbabwe as represented by the Chief’s Council and indeed all the chiefs ganged against you.
Who then would vote for you back in the village?

In the village chiefs are powerful and influential. They are the leaders.
As if that was not enough, dear Morgan, on your campaign trail, you threatened to deal with all the chiefs once you went into power.
You even named the President of the Chief’s Council, Chief Fortune Charumbira as your biggest target. How silly?

This villager will not delve into your threats to the media and security sector, because, you might start sobbing, once again.
I see tears are beginning to blind your eyes.
Sorry Morgan, but the truth hurts.

You need an open mind and self-introspection, for, in the village they say minds are like parachutes; they only function when they are open.
Open your mind Morgan and see how you lost this election on your own.

It is better to know yourself than someone like this villager to tell you who you are.
These European ambassadors are sending you on another banana peel ride.

In the Glamis Arena, which you have believed is your freedom square, you promised heaven on earth hours after your brain was unhinged by your swearing in as Prime Minister, albeit through the back door, but you did not deliver.

You promised salaries for civil servants, you promised electricity overnight, you promised heaven on earth.
That was the moment you behaved like a boy who had just received a new toy.
Thereafter Morgan, you dined and wined with Europe’s greatest leaders.
You slept in the best hotels and bedded some of the best women on holiday.

But and a big but, you forgot there were voters somewhere, whose needs you needed to look at.
European leaders do not vote Morgan.
Even chicken in the village know that.

You sought to ruffle feathers with the security chiefs, in your acquired Eurocentric rhetoric of security sector reforms, but that did not concern villagers.
They would not vote for you for your security sector reforms because that is not a bread and butter issue back in the village.

You chided war veterans, the men and women who fought for freedom and brought independence.
I wish you knew how those men and women are respected in the village.

You effectively made yourself an enemy of the villagers and a friend of Europe.
But honestly Morgan, when will you ever learn that Europeans do not vote?
When will you ever know that you are Zimbabwean and not European?

Bring your mind back home and start identifying with your people. In fact, it is now too late.
You have soiled your political career.

If the truth be told, dear Morgan, you have made villagers suffer for too long and they want you completely out of the political scene of Zimbabwe.
You are a sell-out of great proportion and the sanctions you invited have caused untold suffering.

We, the villagers, have largely been unable to market our produce from the greatest thing that has ever happened to us — the land reform programme.
You also deride land reform and expect to win an election?

For that, villagers hate you.
They hate you with a passion.
After all, the other day you called them mushroom.
The other time you called them blind puppies.

Eish! Morgan, Morgan, Morgan, dogs and mushroom? You are not a politician, Morgan.
You expect dogs and mushroom to vote for you?

The village soothsayer says a foolish consistency with invaluable things and ideologies is the hobgoblin of little minds. Farewell from the political scene Morgan.
Accept defeat and be honourable, at least, for us to accept you back as a lost son.
In the village, a tree is never a forest Morgan.
You will learn that when your tears have dried.