The Herald
November 24 2010
IN one of his famous fables, Aesop — the slave and storyteller — who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC; relates the story of a shepherd-boy who tended a flock of sheep near his village.
The boy was such a prankster that on three or four occasions he brought out the villagers running by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbours ran to his rescue, there was no wolf to be seen and the boy had a good laugh at his neighbours’ expense for falling for his prank.
Then one day, a big hungry wolf did come, and as per habit the boy, now really terrified cried ‘‘Wolf, Wolf,’’ but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance as the wolf destroyed the whole flock. The villagers naturally believed the boy was up to his usual tricks again.
The moral of this fable is simple: People are always hard pressed to believe a habitual liar, even if he was to speak the truth for once.
This truism appears lost to MDC-T leaders who have been crying wolf even over their own shadows in the inclusive Government. Given MDC-T’s comical approach to the GPA, surely President Jacob Zuma and his colleagues in the Troika can’t distinguish MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai from the prankster in Aesop’s fable. This may explain why the other members of the Troika — Presidents Rupiah Banda of Zambia and Armando Guebuza of Mozambique — did not even bother pitching up in Gaborone to discuss Zimbabwe on the sidelines of the official opening of the new Sadc headquarters in the Botswana capital over the weekend.
The reason, I believe, is simple. Tsvangirai’s alleged ‘‘constitutional crisis’’ was nothing more than a little boy’s prank, they have seen it all before. There is no doubt that President Mugabe acted within the powers vested in him in appointing provincial governors, re-assigning ambassadors and appointing judges as per the recommendation of the Judicial Services Commission. In short, the President was not the big, bad wolf Tsvangirai tried to pass him for to Sadc.
Aesop does not say how the embattled boy related to the villagers upon his return home or whether he did not also end up in the wolf’s gut, but our shepherd-boy here left little to the imagination. He went straight to foul the communal well by insulting Sadc leaders whom he likened to ‘‘toothless bulldogs.’’
An ironic comparison if you ask me given that the bulldog is a British running dog. Need I say more? Tongai Moyo, advises in the song, "Ndiro yababa" off his latest album, Toita Basa, that ‘‘ngwariraiwo kuzvituka chinyararire.’’
But what is disturbing about the MDC-T’s attacks on Sadc is not only that they are baseless and unwarranted, but that it’s misdirected energy.
The people the two MDC factions or formations should be attacking are the Westerners who are clearly the stumbling blocks to the full implementation of the GPA with their continued refusal to lift the illegal economic sanctions. Let them keep the travel bans if they wish, but the economic sanctions have to go.
If the truth be told, Zanu-PF has done more to meet its part of the bargain under the GPA than both MDC formations combined. The GPA is quite clear that there are economic and other forms of sanctions on Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans. It’s quite clear that western-funded pirate radio stations should stop beaming their divisive hate messages into Zimbabwe. It’s quite clear that there should be no foreign meddling in our internal affairs.
What does the MDC-T leadership do? They continue denying the existence of sanctions claiming "bad governance and corruption" were responsible for the economic decline of the past decade. They feature daily on the pirate radio stations denigrating their partners in government.
They approach westerners seeking assistance to take on Zanu-PF in the next election to the extent of accepting intelligence agents seconded to them by the same hostile western countries. And after all that they turn around and cry wolf claiming Zanu-PF is violating the GPA.
Either MDC-T leaders think they are very clever or that everybody else in Sadc is very stupid. For how else can one explain their decision to go to Sadc, the guarantor of the GPA, claiming to have fulfilled their part of the GPA when their hands are so soiled with western excesses?
They deny the existence of sanctions and then go to the same Sadc that, at its last Summit in Windhoek, Namibia, tasked its own chairman — President Hifekepunye Pohamba and the Troika — which coincidentally the MDC expected would toe their line, to lobby for the lifting of sanctions that MDC-T leaders claim do not exist.
So is Tsvangirai saying Sadc, made up of all of 14 states, is schizophrenic and sees non-existent things? And such a man expects to be taken seriously? The mind boggles.
I have no doubt Tsvangirai is a stranger to history because if he knew his history he would not have accepted to be used as a cat’s paw by self-serving westerners.
History should have told him that such adventures never endure beyond the interests of the sponsor. He would have known that Sadc was built from the foundation of the Front Line States that ranged against the same forces driving the MDC today, and as such would never be willingly used to advance reactionary politics.
Instead of continuing to cry wolf in the wilderness, Tsvangirai should join others to confront the real wolves ranged against this our community.caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw
The boy was such a prankster that on three or four occasions he brought out the villagers running by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbours ran to his rescue, there was no wolf to be seen and the boy had a good laugh at his neighbours’ expense for falling for his prank.
Then one day, a big hungry wolf did come, and as per habit the boy, now really terrified cried ‘‘Wolf, Wolf,’’ but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance as the wolf destroyed the whole flock. The villagers naturally believed the boy was up to his usual tricks again.
The moral of this fable is simple: People are always hard pressed to believe a habitual liar, even if he was to speak the truth for once.
The reason, I believe, is simple. Tsvangirai’s alleged ‘‘constitutional crisis’’ was nothing more than a little boy’s prank, they have seen it all before. There is no doubt that President Mugabe acted within the powers vested in him in appointing provincial governors, re-assigning ambassadors and appointing judges as per the recommendation of the Judicial Services Commission. In short, the President was not the big, bad wolf Tsvangirai tried to pass him for to Sadc.
Aesop does not say how the embattled boy related to the villagers upon his return home or whether he did not also end up in the wolf’s gut, but our shepherd-boy here left little to the imagination. He went straight to foul the communal well by insulting Sadc leaders whom he likened to ‘‘toothless bulldogs.’’
An ironic comparison if you ask me given that the bulldog is a British running dog. Need I say more? Tongai Moyo, advises in the song, "Ndiro yababa" off his latest album, Toita Basa, that ‘‘ngwariraiwo kuzvituka chinyararire.’’
But what is disturbing about the MDC-T’s attacks on Sadc is not only that they are baseless and unwarranted, but that it’s misdirected energy.
