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Staring the abyss

Very slowly but definitely quite surely, the world is drifting towards a scary nuclear abyss. 

The conflict in Eastern Europe now has all the makings of a major superpower confrontation.

There is no telling how matters will end. Talk of nuclear holocaust now drops so freely and easily from lips of potentates whose fingers are a whim away from the button.

I wonder how many realise the danger humanity is in.

Tabloid diplomacy

Certainly not Boris Johnson, the British Premier, or his equally reckless Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss.

Both are primming for a British leadership, and thus compete to sound tough, even against world peace.

Even their own media now admit that their inflammatory, tabloid diplomacy is dangerous for Britain and the world.

The Russian bear is already furious, threatening to maul.

As I write, Britain has started to pick bags of bodies from a war it hasn’t declared, a war it is fighting without officially deploying. 

Some of its fighters are already Russian prisoners. Others have been published by irate Russia, earning the dubious tag of dogs of war.

The situation recalls George Orwell’s Spain, with its so-called International Brigade against General Franco.

Demented America

As if that is not bad already, dementia runs the other side of the Atlantic.

And like nature, power abhors a vacuum.

America, now with generals at its helm, runs riotous, to vapid cheer from the military-industrial complex.

Her defence budget has long hit through the roof, re-igniting global arms race.

The military-industrial complex has never had it so nice, grimly at our expense, we denizens of this planet.

The war complex already waxes fat from the proxy war which self-immolating Ukraine is bent on fighting even to complete self-destruction.

There is a difference between sacrificing for the defence of one’s Nation, and getting weaponised by the Other.

Ukraine’s original righteousness in the war has long receded before advancing imperial goals of NATO which instrumentalise it and its people.

The phrase “dulce decorum est” becomes hard to invoke in such set of circumstances.

America’s War Budget for no war 

Doddering Biden has gone to Congress to ask for USD33bn to finance a war he is still to declare, a war he hastens to claim is not American! 

Meanwhile the USD33bn he asks for, far surpasses the budget of Ukraine, itself the belligerent! Nothing seems to make sense, frankly.

Yet it does.

The logic of hawks in Washington is as simple as it is false and cynical: use dying Ukraine to degrade Russia’s ability to wage war now, or any war in future, including a cold one.

When Germany loses its head

The new western narrative pictures Putin’s Russia as worse than the Soviet Union of Lenin, and many others after him.

They don’t tell us what name they give the evil which Putin personifies and/or presides over.

Or even admit they goaded Putin by laying siege to his country through reckless eastwards expansion of NATO.

Until now level headed, Germany has since joined this mad bellicosity, seemingly forgetting its history in two European wars the world suffered.

Maybe Germany seeks to cleanse itself of its own history of human carnage, through the logic of evil displacement. 

Healthy balance sheet from war

But as with all wars, the unintended quickly take over.

All still positive for now.

Firstly, Putin’s Russia is getting richer, is economically better off because of the war.

Not from loot, but from clean trade with NATO countries Russia is fighting indirectly.

Gazprom has never had it so well, suggesting that more than peace, war improves its balance sheet.

And who are its clients?

Mortal enemies of its sole shareholder!

Geography and geology, Russia’s forte

Second, the very sanctions meant to hurt Russia are boomeranging badly on those who authored them.

NATO countries face more than a crippling energy crisis; they are grappling with soaring, searing inflation which could see several leaders fall.

That includes in USA itself.

Macron barely made it, showing how the Kremlin could easily brew regime change within NATO through this war.

Contrastively, the Russian ruble continues to firm well above its pre-war levels.

NATO, it seems, never realised Putin had long created a war economy.

Much worse, they forgot that like weather, geography and geology have always been Russia’s principal weapon.

Geographically, geologically, Russia is a continent against which any war is unwinnable.

Much like Afghanistan which USA abandoned in a huff.

We learnt all this in history.

Do Biden and Johnson read at all?

The heath of Europe

Thanks to geology, Russia is the heath of cold-roasted Europe.

Putin knows this only too well.

As I write, Poland and Bulgaria face an uncertain winter which Russia has contrived simply by turning the gas tap the other way.

All indications are that this is just a dry run.

The real recipients of the Russian winter are yet to feel Russian wrath, foremost Germany.

Strangely NATO media now accuse Russia of “resource blackmail”.

What did they expect Russia to do?

To warm them while they sink her battleships, and encircle it existential ruin?

I suppose they thought suicide in an abiding trait of Eastern Europeans.

Widening proxy war aims

In retaliation, raging NATO is widening its proxy war aims, in the process making the nuclear menace even more probable.

Russia must be totally defeated in Ukraine, NATO opines.

And be made to withdraw completely from Ukrainian territory.

That includes Crimea which Russia re-took a few years back, thus reversing a reckless gift to Ukraine Stalin made in a fit of joy.

Putin’s Russia is sober, and will not have NATO seamen in the strategic Black Sea.

This war makes Putin even more convinced about that, clearly showing all of Russia has to die before NATO’s enlarged war aims are realised.

Unless the West relents, Russia is long in trenches.

Russia’s new quartermaster for NATO hardware

Putin now says all of NATO’s arms supply lines to Ukraine are legitimate targets. Already, Putin has blown up a dump full of Western weapons, but not before selecting assets representing the West’s choicest war technology.

Yet another big irony: Russia for the first time has easy access to latest western war technologies, thanks to this war.

Far from being degraded militarily, Russia’s Military might actually emerge from the war with better war technologies, thanks to Ukraine, NATO’s suicidal quartermaster.

To telling measure, the London Daily Mail released an American security report quantifying the dollar value of weapons the US left behind in Afghanistan, US’ bounty to the Talibans.

Running into billions of dollars, those assets are priceless pieces of war technology which the Talibans are busy mastering through reverse engineering.

The irony of war!

Enough of war.

Let me come home.

Hopewell, Chamisa’s errand boy

Chamisa tells us he will not go for a Congress, certainly not before 2023 harmonised elections.

Yet he is Triple C’s presidential aspirant.

He relied on Hopewell Chin’ono — a.k.a. meemee goat investor of Murehwa — to fly the kite.

This stupendous goat investor lately has been Chamisa’s trusted errand boy. Including on probing missions for a pact with Zanu-PF.

About that, let little be said for now.

But he flew the kite, and did so with the panache of a bull in a China shop!

Hard and hot in tow was Hwende, ready to officialise what Hopewell seemed to goof about: Triple C would not go to Congress ahead of 2023! Congress is expensive business, Hwende added, pasting some USD2m cost tag to it.

The harmonised elections themselves would need some USD200m or more, he opined.

When a Professor from the East went berserk

That put the Triple C dove-coat in a swooning flutter.

All hell broke loose, with Professor Jonathan Moyo — Triple C’s unhappy ideologue — stridently registering vehement objections.

How could anyone sane and with any pretensions to democratic credentials sidestep so crucial a stage and process to leadership legitimacy, wailed the Professor from the East.

He quoted chapter and verse, quoted all and any example from history — history past, present and future — to fortify his outrage at this political abomination most foul!

Was he heard?

Triple C’s Twitter hit squads lacerated, nay eviscerated, the good Professor, including superfluously reminding him of his G-40 roots, a reminder he did not need, least of all from TripleC’s irreverent kids.

Not known to take blows lying, the Professor came back, darting venom, spitting big book, and big English on his hapless “O”Level tormentors.

What political burlesque! In feigned politeness and with a mighty hoof in cheek, I asked the good Professor: do you think they grasp this recondite stuff you are adumbrating?

He ignored me, suitably!

Neo-colonial project

Beyond the burlesque, I found the defence raised by Chamisa’s people a sample of political tragicomedy.

Let’s face it, Triple C is the West’s vehicle for a neo-colonial project targeting Zimbabwe.

It is not organically connected to any interest or community of interest, the way Zanu-PF is.

Zanu-PF is united around legacy and land; Chamisa’s Triple C around nothing, which is why it has no bidding ideology or interest around which to coalesce.

While most of us forgave Tsvangirai, Chamisa’s predecessor, we find it hard to grant Chamisa the poetic license of earthiness.

Chamisa and those around him preen themselves as part of Zimbabwe’s literati, the learned one in his case.

In typical Dickensian style, he is a coxcomb who loves big statute books behind him as props.

Let’s grant him all such pretences. But he should not blame us for measuring him by the rod of his own choosing.

So many bald excuses

With him unilaterally — nay unconstitutionally — at the helm, one thought the West’s neo-colonial project had acquired some modicum of literate local leadership; that however misplaced and treacherous to country and continent, the project would be sold better to the masses, with a fair amount of decent pretences.

Not what we got after the Professor’s rejoinder! Congresses are a Zanu-PF mechanism for infiltrating the opposition, one bald section of his supporters bellowed!

Did ZANU-PF itself go to Congress after 2017 “coup”, wailed another section! Why won’t the courts fast-track the legitimacy case in courts against President Mnangagwa, yelled yet another section of Chamisa’s supporters!

Who says congresses are a must for a political party, roared another portion!

To which another added: we have no Constitution, meaning nothing provides for a Congress!

You can’t breach a Constitution which doesn’t exist, came another dart!

When a toddler drops two milk teeth

Never in my little life did I ever imagine I would meet, let alone grapple, with this type of crass political thinking in this column.

Never at all.

Yet here I am, afflicted by it, and in this my late life!

Let’s start with the bedrock: the party Constitution.

Triple C says it has no Constitution; and because it does not have a Constitution, nothing provides for a Congress! In one illogical logic, two Cs are knocked off the Triple!

 The name Triple C now looks incongruous, what with only one C left!

It’s like a day-old toddler growing, decaying and dropping two milk teeth in the crib!

You don’t snuff out an original or antecedent sin by inanely leapfrogging to brew a false debate on the succedent.

Why doesn’t Triple C have a Constitution anyway?

While claiming it is ready to govern, but without a governing covenant in its home!

Even the earthy Tsvangirai was literate enough to use NCA as an interim vehicle as the yet-to-be-launched MDC was “working” on its constitution!

Why not become a monarchical party?

What we now have at the helm is a man who by self-proclamation is an advocate who says he sits in chambers.

But he seems seems completely unaware that an organisation called a party needs a ‘setting’/founding document?  

And this several years after Tsvangirai passes on, and after usurping power thereafter?

And this more than a year after losing the party he usurped to one Mwonzora, and staying as long and quiescently in nameless constitutional twilight before emerging from the chrysalis as Triple C?

Worse, with a whole year to go before the next harmonised elections, he cannot envisage drafting a constitution, because he can’t stand democracy on whose ticket he rose?

And because he won’t subject himself to an elective Congress such a constitution enjoins?

Well, let him draw up a constitution for a monarchical party; monarchs don’t run on womb constitutions, on DNAs!

We refuse to be stampeded into the next, false question: Why is Triple C without a constitution in the first place?

So they have a bad, unconscionable retort to charges of not holding a Congress?

What monster have these guys sired and let loose upon Zimbabwe’s political society?

Tell the world you aspire to be a fictitious ZANU-PF!

Then you have a whole barrage of defensive or justificatory questions directed at, and indicting of Zanu-PF!

Is it being suggested Triple C was formed to be another Zanu-PF?

Not even the real Zanu-PF but one of its own imagination?

Who doesn’t know Zanu-PF held a Congress after November 2017?

That it is set for yet another elective Congress before year-end, certainly before 2023 harmonised elections?

Well, Zanu-PF, Triple C’s role model, has a constitution enjoining it to go for a Congress.

Could Triple C please then go for the same, now that it aspires to be a true chip off the Zanu-PF block?

I won’t waste time on this Musengezi guy’s legal challenge.

Kutonga nedimuro

What do we read from all of this?

A clear train or continuum of illegitimacy within which Triple C finds itself entrapped.

From the days of Tsvangirai, the neo-colonial project has never been able to handle challenges that come with diversity of thought and growth within its ranks.

Hence the history of splits and exfoliations which continue to haunt it, including tomorrow.

With the precedent which Chamisa set at Humanikwa, MDC or its successor, Triple C will know no succession peace.

Succession is a threat, which is why Chamisa, like his predecessor and his successors, barricades himself inside the throne, using very crude processes supported by equally crude arguments of flimsy self-rationalisation. He brags about it through his favourite phrase: kutonga nedimuro or ruling by the axe.

He has now become some little terror against his own peers and erstwhile acolytes.

Key lesson: illegitimacy keeps self-radiating, ever growing like some widening gyre.

Humanikwa usurpation gave rise to sham Gweru Congress, which in turn created a declaratory called Triple C.

That in turn dissolved everyone but Chamisa, to create an un-elective, Congress-free pre-election dispensation of a sole, self-proclaimed leader, which I am dissecting now.

We know we also stink

With what implications nationally?

Well, if one is generous enough to invoke the worldwide rule of regarding the opposition as a potential government, the picture gets scary.

A party snubbing democracy in its own structures has none to give to the nation it aspires to govern.

It is that simple; that scary.

What is even scarier is how Triple C supporters embrace such an ineffable destiny with riotous cheers and the chorus of born-Siamese.

It’s like all its followers have grown accustomed to the doom of denied democracy.

Or hope to profit from a similar set-up in future.

Helon Habila in 2021 wrote an essay titled “Coming to Lagos”.

Recalling his maiden trip to this mad coastal city of big Nigeria, he deliberately assaults the reader’s senses by dwelling in great detail on urine, human dung and grime piled in a congested third class of the locomotive which took him there.

In the course of the long journey, one burly woman commuter took a plastic container to release herself into it right in front of all and sundry.

Done, she doddered to the dirty window of the train to empty her waste, nonchalantly!

Wrote Habila: “. . . all faces [of passengers] looked exhausted, smudged with grime. We tolerated each other’s foul smells because we knew we also stank.”

Exactly the situation Triple C supporters, foremost Advocate Mahere, find themselves in!

The snake bites a charmer

I am not exaggerating how potentially baneful this sidestepping of elementary democratic processes is to our nation.

Chamisa and his MDC then, his Triple C now, are behind the Mutata-Magaya proposal of an election sabbatical under the pretext of a national dialogue.

They want elective politics suspended for a minimum of seven years, during which cross-party elites join hands in some consensual pact of dictatorship.

Even certain sections of the media and the academia have bought into this.

Those rejecting this falsely consensual, holy benediction to dictatorship, are traduced as hardliners.

You can see how intraparty dictatorship threatens to spill over into national space, with holy men as diligent midwives!

Do we want that for our Nation?

Ever at all?

And coming from avowed apostles of democracy?

Until the snake bites him dead, how do you not believe it when a snake charmer tells you the mamba is man’s best friend?

Even Animals follow constitutions

Here is my parting proposal.

We have all sorts of requirements we constitutionally set for all presidential aspirants.

One of them is that he/she must garner signatures of support from across all the country’s ten provinces.

For political parties, accessing funding from the Fiscus is predicated on given numerical thresholds.

Why would it be strange for us to push frontiers of eligibility slightly beyond and further by, for instance, insisting that all parties eligible for participation in presidential elections should deposit basic instruments of party governance like a clean constitutions?

And evidence of compliance with those constitutive articles?

Let’s face it: we are dealing with persons aspiring to run affairs of our Nation.

How do we lower our guard to allow dangerous governance pimps to sneak in?

Or even a meter nearer selection processes to the throne? How do you demand or deserve a national plebiscitary right when you grant none to your political henchmen and women?

We pin our hope in a litigious Mwonzora to challenge illegalities relished by a potential president of this country.

No mheni, human beings.

Even in our Animal Kingdom we have constitutions!

Am I a drunk donkey? Of course not! How come I bray, and moo?