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| Wednesday, 19 October 2011 00:00 | ||
By Caesar Zvayi
Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece, has a collection of fables that prove invaluable for the moral education of children, and even adults to this day. Many of the stories, such as The Boy Who Cried Wolf, the Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs and The Ant and the Grasshopper are so well-known that they have spawned clichés. In three of the fables, the raven or crow is a central character, embodying flippancy or stupidity. One tale has it starving while waiting for figs on a fig tree to ripen, while in another it was so vain that it sought to become king of the birds on the strength of borrowed feathers. It is, however, soon shamed when the owners of the feathers pluck them off leaving it stark naked. Having spent the first 10 years of my life in rural Goromonzi, I also witnessed firsthand some of the cerebral paucity of this bird of carrion that inspired some of Aesop's tales. A crow would wipe off a nest of eggs under the eves of a rondavel and bury them in the field but would only eat the last stolen egg, as it would have forgotten where it would have stashed the earlier loot. The mystery of the missing eggs would be unravelled when farmers break the clod for the summer cropping season, as ploughs turn the rotten eggs up by the dozen. MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai reminds me of this bird of carrion given his predilection for remembering the words of his very last counsel and perspiring to preside over this nation on the back of borrowed robes, the robes of Albion. Nowhere was this more evident than in his conflicting pronouncements over the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme. Here are graphic examples. On May 4 this year, during a dinner convened to discuss Zimbabwe's future on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Cape Town, South Africa; Tsvangirai had this to say about the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme: ‘‘Across the political divide, citizenship empowerment is a policy and we are committed to ensuring the majority of Zimbabweans' participation in the economy. It is not an expropriation strategy or a nationalisation policy but it's a voluntary piece of legislation. "There is nothing new about Zimbabwe's indigenisation programme. China has such laws and so are many other countries. What we just need to do is explain our laws better. ‘‘Investors must understand that it's in their interest for Zimbabweans to be empowered and they must view this as an opportunity and not a problem. When Zimbabweans are empowered it means their (foreign investors) investments are secure because if people are economically disenfranchised it is not good for business in the long-term. ‘‘The asset underground has value. Gone are the days when investors could get claims for free. Zimbabweans are no longer satisfied with surviving on taxes and royalties but they want equity,'' Tsvangirai, speaking in his capacity is Prime Minister, said. And we thought the man's plodding feet had finally arrived. Fast forward to October 16, venue Marondera's Rudhaka Stadium, occasion an MDC-T rally. Morgan Tsvangirai had this to say: ‘‘We are totally opposed to this programme being undertaken by (Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Saviour) Kasukuwere and Zanu-PF. There are some people who are moving around saying: ‘indigenisation, indigenisation'. How can you implement a party programme wakavanda neGovernment? "Yedu programme is a jobs plan, ndeye mabasa. We cannot have a society where 90 percent of our children are not employed. Our plan is of jobs and starts by encouraging investment. Our plan is not to take from Peter to pay Paul. We cannot have another situation like what happened with the land reform, taking away from a few whites and giving to a few blacks." Amazing, simply amazing! Where do I start? Well the clue to Tsvangirai's apparent confusion lies in the WikiLeaks revelations that he remembers the advice of his last counsel. In Cape Town, I am reliably informed that he was sitting next to Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere prior to taking the podium, while at Rudhaka Stadium he had Ian Kay and Obert Gutu. I am sure if, by any chance Kasukuwere had been the last man to speak to him before his address in Marondera, Tsvangirai would have repeated his Cape Town theme and we would have applauded thinking that Damascene moment had endured, that the man had arrived. But alas, Cape Town was further evidence, that Christopher Dell had Morgan all figured out. He needs massive handholding for consistency. But that is not my main point today, my point is Tsvangirai's insistence that we be a nation of workers not entrepreneurs, that jobs are more important than owning the means of production. It is however, not surprising why Tsvangirai thinks like that, that is prioritising jobs over matters of national owenership. He did the same in the early 70s as he was holed up in Mutare, just a walking distance from the border with Mozambique, as other young men his age trudged the night from places as far as Muzarabani to cross into Mozambique to join the liberation struggle. Tsvangirai, instead, opted to swim against the current, journeying further north to join Trojan Nickel Mine in Bindura. All to improve on the Z$5 for a 40-hour week (around US$8 at the time), that he claimed his family needed so badly. This is all captured in his book, Morgan Tsvangirai At The Deep End. "In the textile industry we worked long hours, were seriously underpaid and never enjoyed our rights as workers. I started off on a wage of Z$5 for a 40-hour week (around US$8 at the time). With that money, a single person could hardly afford the bare necessities of life, let alone maintain a large family, especially in an urban area, or send money to half-starved relatives in the rural hinterland . . . It was tough to be a first child and a man in a black African family. Our fathers eagerly bequeathed responsibility for our siblings to us. Many took early retirement, leaving the eldest son with the care of the entire family at an early age," Tsvangirai says in his book. As we say in Shona, shiri ine muririro wayo haiurege (a bird will always have the same song on its beak). Here he is again, prioritising jobs over national empowerment, all at the ripe middle age of 59 when age is supposed to have come with wisdom. While harping about jobs, that his party systematically worked to destroy through the ruinous economic sanctions it grovelled for and condones to this day, Tsvangirai conveniently forgets to tell us who we should be working for to get those jobs. It, however, does not need a rocket scientist to fathom. We have to work for the white baas, as exemplified by Roy Bennett who butters Tsvangirai's bread. In his mind; white capital must run the show and give us wages and salaries. That is his idea of empowerment. Contrast this with what President Mugabe had to say, during his visit to Zimplats to launch the Community Share Ownership Trust that released US$10million to the surrounding community 48 hours prior to the MDC-T rally. President Mugabe said the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme aimed to address the previous colonial exclusion of indigenous people from mainstream economic activity. ‘‘The policy seeks to broaden the economic base by involving the majority indigenous Zimbabweans in meaningful and gainful economic activity, thus giving greater meaning to our independence and self- determination. "The majority shareholding underlines the principle of sovereign ownership by the State, on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe of the natural resources of the land. It restores the identity of the indigenous people as the rightful owners of the land and its resources,'' President Mugabe said. And here, dear reader, is what next year's election is all about. Defending your right over your resources or ceding them to outsiders to become mere hewers of wood and drawers of water; or to put it bluntly, chattel slaves to the likes of Eddie Cross of the "crash and burn" fame. The battle lines are drawn as it were; let's wait and see if we strive to be Aesop's proverbial crow, that starved while waiting for figs to ripen, or whether we are the irate birds that saw beyond the plumage and give the impostor bird a hiding of a lifetime. |
