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@Jamwanda2 on Saturday Poor Pamela Tremont I have watched Pamela Tremont’s hearing in preparation for her posting to Zimbabwe as US’ next ambassador. Both the line of questioning by US Senators, as well as her responses, were, to say the least, hilarious. Zimbabwe the country, with all its own internal politics, was not that much of […]

@Jamwanda2 on Saturday Mere Hokum Back in 1926, America witnessed the clash of two African-African American giants — then they were called Negroes — over the notion of Negro Art. Was Negro Art a separate creative tradition with distinct Afro-American canons, or just a small, tender offshoot of Eurocentric artistic mainstream? On the one side […]

Von Hornick’s nine principles on National Economy In 1684, an Austrian lawyer-turned-civil servant, Philipp Wilhelm von Hornick, published nine principal rules of a National Economy. The 17th century was the age of mercantilism, which is how his treatise became the manifesto for mercantilist Europe. The anvil of Europe’s mercantilism were States that would later become […]

A belch from a priest has greater value For a shiny trinket / Give not away your country / The foreigner is a trafficker / To mind him is no bargain / If you were skilled and artful / You’d stay away from all concoctions: / The stranger always gains. / Your goods are worth […]

Self-fulfilling, self-annulling prophecy Two developments caught my attention this week. One is a Brenthurst Foundation scholarship invitation to young Africans intent on pursuing postgraduate studies. Brenthurst Foundation is owned and financed by the Oppenheimers, and recently commissioned some outlandish opinion survey on Zimbabwe’s 2023 Harmonised Elections. The cellphone-based opinion survey granted Chamisa undisputed lead in […]

Joint American-Norwegian State terrorism So an American journalist, one Seymour Hersh, has now confirmed what we have always known, namely that the United States of America and Norway blew up the Nordstream gas pipeline which used to deliver Russian gas to mainland Europe? One cannot think of a worse act of bi-national State terrorism and […]

All set for the plebiscite now So the false furore over the Delimitation Report is now over, what with the submission of Final Report to the State President yesterday by ZEC chairperson, Judge Priscilla Chigumba? There was visible relief on her face, after the long-drawn out, fraught ritual; but there was also a glint of […]

@Jamwanda2 on Saturday Upsetting Uncle Sam big time ON February 17 and 27, the South African National Defence Force, SANDF, joins units of Russian and Chinese Defence Forces in tripartite exercises off South Africa’s Indian Coast. Dubbed Exercise Mosi II, this tri-national military exercise comes hard on the heels of a working visit to South […]

One Morris too many What it’s a name? The name of the old Triple C activist “beaten” in Murehwa is Morris Seremani. Morris as also the name of one turncoat freedom fighter who betrayed the Liberation Struggle, and led Rhodesian soldiers to ZANU’s rear camp in Mozambique for a wanton slaughter of hapless refugees. The […]

@Jamwanda2 on Saturday Welcome back, dear reader! Happy and Prosperous New Year to you my many readers. I hope and trust you didn’t drown your intellect in the bar of festive joys! You need to be fully equipped so we resume the robust exchange through this column. With no holds barred; calling a spade a […]

US Grand Canyon WIKIPEDIA tells me the US Grand Canyon is 446km long; 29km wide and attains a depth of over 1 857m. By all counts, these statistics point to a formidable barrier. Here in Zimbabwe, we have a saying which distills age-old wisdom of our forbears. It says: kukava dzetse kuri yambutsa. Lexis and […]

Obdurate immaturity IT is not like Nelson Chamisa had not been warned, whether by living men or by past circumstances. Both did; yet he still hurtled headlong towards yet another blunder, which left him bloodied, again underlining this obdurate knack for political missteps. His repeated immaturity strongly suggests some premature birth. On leadership, that is. […]

Not my cup of tea Football is not my cup of tea; or call it cup of leather. I neither care nor miss it. Except for the noise football occasions, I would not even take notice of it. Nor do I know how many players make a team, or how they are arranged and planted […]

Horror times for Triple C Kikikiki, Professor Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Zhuwao have caused a perfect storm in Chamisa’s already troubled, and inexorably shrinking space. They have written to “comrades” in Zanu PF, a party to which Chamisa and his ilk thought these two had given permanent back. Right or wrong, time, which resolves all […]

Barbara W Tuchman is a prolific writer on politics as read through history. I enjoy her take on her subject. But she is American, western, itself an important qualification epistemologically. Presently I am reading her book, “The March of Folly.”