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Nick Mangwana View From the Diaspora
No  State or government should be immune from criticism. In modern democracy we have opposition parties. Their role is opposing our ideas and proffering alternatives. They have to push in such a way that we end up being self-critical.

If we are doing something that is good for the country, the opposition doesn’t have to impede and undermine.

All they can do is improve on that idea and offer to do it better or improve on it. But when such an opposition colludes with others or tries to encourage others to that which destroys or hinders national progress, such an opposition can easily fall into the trap of betraying their country.

We are fortunate that while the Shona word “mutengesi” is a widely used as part of our lexicon, the English translation “traitor” is not.

It goes without saying that in our history being called a “mutengesi” was like a doomsday pronunciation.

Things have moved on and we have to put them in their right context. But that said, we still have modern traitors. We shouldn’t lynch them but we should never elect such into a national office. We are not the only country with such a challenge.

Modern traitors work with a foreign power against the interests of their country for selfish reasons. Let us look at a typical traitor.

The person that triggered the invasion of Iraqi by the US and its allies was an Iraqi national known as Ahmed Chalabi.

Chalabi was a leader of the opposition party known as the Iraqi National Congress (INC). There was evidence that he was actually an Iran spy whose role was to deceive the US so it could help weaken hostile neighbours for Iraq.

Whichever side of the opinion divide one likes, very few people would dis-agree with the characterisation of Chalabi as an Iraqi traitor.

Chalabi is the person who is credited or is it discredited with providing the US with a lot of lies that were classified as intelligence.

The US and its allies used that information to make a case for the invasion of Iraq.

As a result of Chalabi’s falsified damning reports on his motherland, Iraqi was invaded and hundreds of thousands of his people died.

The government was toppled and the country remains unstable to this day. This is a well documented story, so there is no need to repeat it here.

What people don’t talk about is that Ahmed Chalabi and his party failed to win a single seat in the December 2005 elections.

This is because Chalabi was serving his own interests and never the national interests. Every nation seems to have its own Chalabi.

That individual who pretends to be a super patriot who for all claims of loving his people, he still wants a foreign power to interfere in its internal affairs under the guise of human rights.

The surprising thing is that the same countries these quislings want to invade their own country have a strong aversion to traitors.

Let’s take the US, for example. It did not consider Edward Snowden a whistle-blower. To them he was a traitor. Bradley Manning was also not considered anything but a traitor and went to prison for a long time for what he considered simply a noble disclosure. The US calls itself the beacon of human rights and free speech.

But when it comes to national interests, there is nothing called whistleblowing.

They don’t take the word traitor lightly and they don’t treat a traitor with kid gloves.

All these guys did was to disseminate government information which is thought to undermine its ability to control information. This was nothing near the magnitude of the betrayal our country and people get from leaders in opposition.

What some of our compatriots are doing is to undermine the Government’s ability to attract investment and capital which has a cumulative effect of uplifting the standards of lives for our people. But we continue to cosset them and even indulge them to some extent. It is time we emphatically say no.

We can do that at the polls by refusing to vote for anyone who promotes their political ambition above national interests.

There is no expectation that the Government should legislate against this but the national mood has now shown mature revulsion against this self-serving politics which wants power on the back of suffering of Zimbabweans.

What’s left is to translate this mood into the polls and let them suffer the Chalabi electoral fate.

Zimbabweans are coming of age. We are not calling for prosecutorial zeal.

Let’s deal with these traitors politically. Venezuela went the legislation route.

That will defeat the whole democracy reform agenda. In February President Trump accused his Democrat rivals of being treasonous and said that, “they don’t seem to love their country very much”.

We cannot comment on whether he was right or not. But in Zimbabwe we do have members of the opposition that don’t seem to love their country very much.

These are the people that believe Zimbabwean should suffer economic hardship so they can get a chance to gain power. They cannot make a distinction between partisan and national interests.

So when a Zimbabwean supports the achievement of foreign policy goals of another country to the detriment of their own can they be called a patriot? Can someone who advocates for international intervention against their own country in a way that brings suffering to the people call themselves a patriot? I am afraid, you are nothing but a quisling and a traitor.

This is not the first time that one has called for suffering to be visited upon his own nation. Zimbabwe has gone through a lot in the past 20 years. This suffering can be attributed to bad policies, incompetence and treachery- induced sanctions. One of the strangest things happened during that time. Most top leaders in the main opposition party got rich whilst the country was bleeding. A lot of them built multiple homes during that period when the rest of the people were suffering. How do people explain that? It is the Chalabi spirit.

We have always heard that sanctions were targeted and that they were pretty much travel restrictions. If that were so, then why were some people getting hot under the collar at the prospect of Zimbabwean industry getting a boost through the CDC facility? It is because they are a disloyal lot.

It is treasonous to act against one’s natural polity and collaborate with those that wish to destroy it.

People with this kind of thinking will not think twice of collaborating with an invading force as long as it removes the current Government from power and installs them. We can debate till the cows come home but economic sanctions are devastating to the livelihoods of the common folk.

Sanctions hardly alter the behaviour of recalcitrant governments. But the Government in Zimbabwe is not errant. For someone to continue to want Zimbabwe to be punished until it crumbles and they attain power is tragic. From the time President Mnangagwa came to power, he did not ask for donations. He has not gone around begging cap in hand. What he has done is open the country for business. Lending money is a business as well. But what we have seen since then is the creation of more Chalabis. We started with that infamous trip to Capitol Hill in December 2017 soon after the new dispensation; now we have the anti-CDC ranting and raving.

In that infamous trip, lies were told with frothing mouths. There was a big advocacy for tightening of sanctions so that the new Government would fail. But the failure of the Government is the perpetuation of the suffering. Each day the youth of Zimbabwe spend out of work is a day their qualification is getting stale and expiring.

Whilst we acknowledge that it is the job of the opposition to oppose what the Government does, it is not their job to undermine national interests. We need to reorganise our economy, our democracy as well as our bureaucracy. The reform needed in Zimbabwe does not happen overnight. We need all hands on deck. To abuse the current liberal thrust by doing what is frowned upon even in the most liberal countries is to betray democracy.

Right now the country is divided along sectarian lines. Those who support President Mnangagwa want him to be given a chance.

Those backing Chamisa no matter how many gaffes he makes will defend and fight tooth and nail without asking him to account.

These divisions should be overlooked when it comes to national interests. We cannot stand and support clear cruelty to the poor just because it serves our partisan interests.

This is where Rtd Lt-General S.B. Moyo always says partisan interests should not stand in the way of national interests. But having policies that make it difficult to create employment, policies that try to stop inflows of funds into the country to trickle down into the health sector is having policies that are cruel to the poor. It is callous.

One individual in their quest for power should never be allowed to reduce our people to such degraded paupers like they continue to advocate for.