The revolution shall not be televised

By Paidamoyo Muzulu | Oct. 14, 2023

During the course of the previous week, Sengezo Tshabangu who claims to be the interim secretary-general of the CCC wrote to the Speaker of the National Assembly recalling 15 MPs and 17 councillors using section 129(1)(k) of the Constitution.

THE main opposition, Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), is in a conundrum. It has to show unity, have a shared fighting strategy and more importantly prove to be a real alternative to Zanu PF. However, events in the National Assembly early this week paint a bleak future.

CCC leader Nelson Chamisa in turn wrote to Parliament asking it to disregard Tshabangu’s letter, but it was late and a futile exercise. It was futile in the sense that the issue of recalls has since been decided by Zimbabwean courts. The Speaker of the National Assembly just has to read out the letter and is nowhere involved with adjudicating whether the person who engineered the recalls is authorised to do so.

We know this because in the case of Temba Mliswa vs Zanu PF and Parliament of Zimbabwe the courts emphasised that the Speaker’s duty is simply to read the letter and not try to adjudicate on internal issues of a political party.

And in any situation, since the recall law was introduced to deal with Edgar Tekere then, Parliament has never got involved in solving internal disputes, it just acted on the letter and did what the law required of it. The opposition in all its manifestations has used this time and time again.

In a last ditch move, Chamisa on Wednesday issued a statement that his party had disengaged from parliamentary and local authority affairs until the recalled MPs are reinstated. The move has left many people baffled as it remains clear that the demand will never be met.

Mount Pleasant MP Fadzayi Mahere communicated this to her constituency through X, a microblogging platform. She posted: “In line with this continued onslaught on the will of the people and on the back of a stolen election, we are taking a principled position to disengage from parliamentary business until this illegal conduct has been purged.”

The post elicited an interesting response from one resident of Mount Pleasant, Roger Stringer who in turn asked: “I'm sorry, Fadzayi, but unless you tell us what "disengage" means in real terms, this statement serves no practical purpose.”

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Mahere duly responded: “Disengagement entails not transacting official business in the House of Assembly including parliamentary sittings and committee work. This has been necessitated by the fact that unless the illegal conduct of the Speaker is challenged strongly, there is a real risk that we will all be wrongfully recalled, thus compounding an already existing constitutional and governance crisis.”

We now know that the call to disengage did not last 24 hours. On Thursday, CCC MPs Sesel Zvidzayi, Jameson Timba, Nonhlanhla Mlotshwa and Amos Chibaya attended the Standing Rules and Orders Committee meeting that had the duty to allocate MPs into portfolio committees. It also has the duty to put MPs into multilateral institutions such as the Pan Africa Parliament or the ACP-EU forum.

The disengagement was meant to last for two weeks before it’s escalated. However, interestingly enough many of the CCC National Assembly members are suspended from the house for six sittings (two weeks) for raucous behaviour. Could the CCC be hoodwinking the public by acting as if they are boycotting where they are not wanted and have no audience? This duplicity serves no one better.

This reminded me of the poem, The revolution will not be televised, by Gil Scott-Heron. The poem was also turned into a song and appears on the 1970 album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox.

Excerpts of the poem read:

“You will not be able to stay home, brother

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out

You will not be able to lose yourself on skag

And skip out for beer during commercials, because

The revolution will not be televised

Will not be televised

The revolution will be no re-run, brothers

The revolution will be live”

But what does the poem/song mean? A poetry critic online said: “What Gil meant in the song is obvious from hearing the lyrics, is that you have to be active, you can't be a passive participant in the revolution. When the revolution happens, you’re going to have to be in the streets. If you want to make a change in society, you have to get off your ass and take action.”

The CCC has failed in that regard. It has been lethargic at best and disjointed and indecisive at worst in its responses. It appears resigned to its fate and waiting for 2028 if it does not implode in the meanwhile.

Its diplomatic offensive in Sadc has hit the wall. This was confirmed by the Sadc Election Observer Mission final report that was released on Thursday.

The report read: “The SEOM calls for all concerned parties to ensure that any grievances with respect to the election results are channelled through the appropriate legal processes to ensure the exhaustion of domestic legal remedies.”

This was not done and it seems hard to see how it can escalate the disputed elections to the region when it has not exhausted the domestic remedies available to it.

The observation mission further wrote in passing, “At a Press conference held on 29 August 2023, the CCC stated that they would proceed to form a government. The modalities of such a government are not clear.”

The line seems innocuous at first instance, but further reflection on it shows that the CCC just makes statements at Press conferences that are not well-thought out and leaves the audience bewildered. This is the same conundrum it has put itself with its “disengagement” statement. It has left its audience none the wiser.

Probably the CCC can learn a thing or two from Gil Scott-Heron’s poem, The revolution shall not be televised. It has to roll its sleeves and be ready to get dirty.

Paidamoyo Muzulu is a journalist based in Harare. He writes here in his personal capacity.