Is this the best that Africa can offer to a globalised world, a world created by other people, who are now busy revisiting their drawing boards in order to change or review their policy positions about the continent? Feeding their platforms with so much information, to the extent that we do not know that we are in the process also being swallowed by what we do?

In my two-decade use of the Internet, and watching its growth and development, including its sudden swoop by big business, I ask myself why the people of this great continent marvel at leaving behind all those footprints anywhere and everywhere, cyberspace in particular.
Whom are we trying to impress? Indeed we can hide behind portals or any such technical terms, but why are we cheapening ourselves? At whose expense, I ask because talk is cheap? After talking and talking, the next thing we do is, begging bowl in hand, go and seek food handouts (humanitarian assistance), from the very people who created the spaces where we spend most of our time.

I could be wrong, but it is only on this continent that I have seen people pouring in their energies celebrating the demise of their leaders because they hated them. It is also on this continent that you find people’s fertile imaginations going haywire, and speculating in a celebratory mood about another person’s death.
I have been to a few places where their leaders fell ill and/or died whilst there, but I never witnessed what I witnessed at the passing on of Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika last Thursday.

For argument’s sake, if Nigerian prophet TB Joshua’s prophecy was realised or fulfilled, we also have to know and understand that a prophet prophesies to people and among people. The prophetic word is not pronounced in void. How people deal with that prophetic word is a different kettle of fish.
Let us assume that the prophetic word is seed sown among the people. When the fulfilment of that prophecy is realised, then we would say that that is the harvest from that prophetic word. Even if it does not come to pass, a harvest would still have been realised. Farmers know this principle very well.
However, when we celebrate the death of someone as has been happening in the past week, we have to tell ourselves that we are also sowing seed, seed which will follow the same principle as that of the prophetic word. It remains to be seen the type of harvest that people will reap from those joyous moments, irrespective of whether or not we wished those people ill will.

The reactions have also made some people wonder why a region like Southern Africa, which claims to have more than 70 percent Christians among its population, would really act in this manner.
A friend asked me: “But I thought that the devil is the one who kills. So, if death is from the devil, are the people celebrating about death and ill health of our leaders on the social media non-Christians? What are the more than 50 percent Christians doing about this whole thing? Should the devil be allowed to run riot in our midst?” But an observer said this is a manifestation of people’s levels of faith in Christianity. Some are carnal Christians, while others are like babies who desire milk and the remaining group is spiritually mature.

It has also become so convenient for some people to use the Lord Jesus’ second coming to explain away things, in the process refusing to own up their responsibilities. These days, you hear such popular statements, “Satani wacho mazuva ano ari kufamba, kwete zvokutamba”. (These days, the devil is on the loose, and he is creating all this chaos).

It is as though the devil from the very beginning was not on the prowl, and never responsible for chaos, mayhem, death, misery and all other ills that the human race faces, irrespective of whether or not we like certain people. But, when we conjecture, speculate like people on psychic connection, what messages are we communicating to the world?
Let me be more explicit, and come closer home where rumours about President Mugabe have reached fever pitch, with some privately owned local daily newspapers yesterday running the following headlines: “Mugabe not on deathbed . . . Expected home today” (NewsDay) and “Mugabe is alive: Zanu-PF” (Daily News).

The Internet and social media were worse than that, with a suddenly created website (to me at least), zimbabwemail.com being the authority on the state of President Mugabe’s health. However, a careful check on the original message showed that it was coming from another well-established source.
The president’s persona is of interest to various stakeholders, with some interested in him for the wrong reasons, while others genuinely have that affection that supersedes the daily political trials and tribulations.

But even in the US, they now realise the dangers to national security that can be posed by such reckless abandon. Maybe, this is why people also argue that despite the difficulties, laws about governing the Internet must be put in place. But what we know is that websites that border on terrorism would not be operational in the West and other parts of the world.
But the observer I spoke with as I wrote said, what the media has shown is that in the true sense of the word, it is a mirror of society. In which case, it goes to show

how decadent and/or pretentious society can be.
One website, newzimbabwe.com, also wrote yesterday, “President Robert Mugabe’s opponents have ‘gone crazy’ in their desperation to see him out of power by spreading false rumours that he is ‘on his death bed’ in Singapore”, his party said.

It added, “Those who hate our President have gone crazy. They look at every movement the President makes, even a holiday move, they want to read more into it than the ordinary”, said Christopher Mutsvangwa, a senior member of the Zanu-PF Politburo, while Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu said: “It’s a lot of hogwash.”

And, the thread was running on.
In conclusion, let me say that I know some people will disagree with all, most or some of what I have tried to communicate, but, the bottom line is that when you institutionalise something, it does not necessarily have to be physically present in order for you to feel its impact. The same with President Mugabe! It is a truth that we do not want to face up to.

Some people might wish him the worst things ever, but there are entrenched principles in our society that bear his marks. The Internet, a creation of the West, is awash with his persona. Zimbabweans, let alone Zanu-PF, did not design it. The same with satellite television! As Christiane Amanpour advertises the return of her question and answer programme on CNN, one of those “powerful” personalities she uses in the advertorial is President Mugabe, because he was the fourth most prominent personality she interviewed when she launched the programme.

With the above, I have followed in letter and spirit the saying that when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and Rome today is awash with, “What news in the Rialto?” Those who read Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice understand that that was not just an ordinary question you asked. We say in Shona, “Chihwerure hachiendi kumba”!
May the soul of President Bingu wa Mutharika rest in eternal peace!

 

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