IN less than two months, our one year rotating chairmanship of Sadc comes to an end — and we hope it is not just Muckraker, who has not seen any value that our time in that important role has added to the regional bloc — apart from just confirming the obvious fears that Sadc is a mere trade union of dictators.
In the few short months that we have been in that role, we have been implicated in the chaos that has rocked most neighbouring countries. We were implicated in the massive vote rigging in the Mozambican election — with proof that our people actually voted for Daniel Chapo in an election whose disputed outcome resulted in the death of hundreds of people.
We were also fingered in the elections in Botswana and Namibia, where our electoral rigging machinery was heavily deployed.
And our interference in the internal affairs of Zambia has continued right into this week when there were suggestions that the late former president Edgar Lungu could have been traveling on our diplomatic passport.
When you have become a mafia state, and are known to arm fellow criminals from around the globe with your diplomatic passports, it becomes very hard to stop your people from believing just anything.
Mozambique stands out as our Owner’s trophy when it comes to successful poll rigging. Sadly, the world has eyes to see through it all and reacts in the most appropriate manner.
Despite attempts to hide the reality, Mozambicans are still hurt by our criminal act, and they are ever ready to show it. As Mozambique this week “celebrated” 50 years of its Independence from Portuguese colonial rule, the event was anything but a celebration.
“What I can guarantee is that invitations were sent and we have confirmation from 32 heads of state for the ceremony, as well as from some former heads of state,” Mozambican government spokesperson Inocêncio Impissa told the media two days before the June 25 event.
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Some 48 hours later, only our Owner and three others were at Machava Stadium for the “celebrations”.
Please do not ask Muck what had happened to the other 28 heads of state that had reportedly confirmed their attendance.
That is the problem with cheap propaganda, the very same brand that we see in the hereabouts. Muck’s colleague in Maputo told him that the 45 000-seater stadium was virtually empty, with the state television showing only a small section of stadium where villagers bussed in from the countryside were crowded.
This was because police and military had sealed off unhappy urbanites from getting anywhere near the event ... for obvious reasons. There is certainly no doubt who is micro-managing this Chapo chap, so there is not even any need to wonder what our Owner thought when his boy was addressing a virtually empty stadium.
Very soon the boy would have developed a thick skin, just like his handler who no longer needs to do anything under the cover of darkness. That is what happens when you become the head of a mafia state.
Personalising patriotism
Recently even our captured courts had to admit that the dragnet that is commonly referred to as the Patriotic Act was too wide as to be draconian even in a false democracy as ours.
The High Court struck down Section 22A (3) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Act No. 10 of 2023, declaring it vague, overly broad, and in violation of fundamental rights guaranteed under the country’s Constitution.
The provision had, among other things, criminalised participation in meetings discussing sanctions against Zimbabwe and allowed penalties such as citizenship revocation, restriction of voting rights, and bans from holding public office.
Although Muck and you know that the entire law is a criminal piece of legislation as it is unconstitutional and undemocratic, the court only struck off part of it, instead of just tossing the whole thing rightly into the bin. Sadly this will not be happening in the current set-up because to have perfectly constitutional laws, you first need to have a constitutional and democratic government, one that is lawfully for the people, by the people. What we currently have is far from even being a caricature of the ideal.
It is a government that came into power through a coup and is only obsessed with keeping itself in power — hence the creation of demons such as Tshabangus and the like, themselves creations of courts whose top judges are themselves appointed to – and kept on — the bench via political chicanery, all to serve the purpose of keeping this criminal enterprise masquerading as a government in power.
The Patriotic Act has parallels elsewhere. In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA came up with a strangely oversized definition of antisemitism to include the criticism of the Zionist State of Israel.
Since then, this definition has been so shamelessly exploited by the regime in Tel Aviv to do anything knowing that it is protected from any criticism. This has horrified even the authors of this working definition into disowning this newly-weaponised version. Actually more than 100 Israeli and international organisations have rejected it, and in 2021 over 200 scholars, including Jewish ones, had to come up with the Jerusalem Declaration in order to clarify the differences between genuine antisemitism — discrimination against Jews as a religion, race, or ethnicity — and imaginary antisemitism, which is criticism of Israel or Zionism.
This is what Zimbos need, a clear definition of patriotism, not conflating everything, not just with Zanu PF, but particularly with its owners.
One should be able to be a super-patriot such as Muck, without necessarily being friends with Zanu PF, our Owner & Co.
To try and make our Owner’s happiness and approval a precondition for a fellow citizen’s patriotism is certainly trying to play a Zionist trick of some sort.
Iran of southern Africa
Iran is a country in the news of late, right? Muck usually tries to read something about those places that would be topical.
So, this week he grabbed a copy of Mehran Kamrava’s recently published book, Triumph and Despair … In search of Iran’s Islamic Republic. This is what the book’s cover says: “Triumph and Despair tells the dramatic story of post-revolutionary Iran’s first four decades, from its establishment in 1979 until today.
“The revolutionary coalition that overthrew the monarchy was at once democratic, populist and Islamic. The Islamists, and the Khomeinists in particular, were able to capitalise effectively on prevailing conditions on the ground; to frame the new republic’s constitution, capture nascent institutions, and consolidate their power by eliminating opponents through a reign of terror.
“Once the war with Iraq was over and after the death of the new order’s charismatic founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic was consolidated: first by tweaking its institutional arrangements, and then by fostering economic development and post-war reconstruction.
“A reformist interlude then followed, reversed unceremoniously by a return of populism and a broader authoritarian retrenchment.
“Today, Iran remains at odds with itself, its economy too deeply political to yield meaningful developmental results, its foreign relations too conflicted to allow it a productive place in the community of nations.
“As Iran’s nationalities and its women and youth carve out spaces for themselves in the broader narrative, competing identities — religious, national and otherwise — abound. After forty years, the Islamic Republic remains a country in search of itself.”
While this might be about Iran, this story of triumph and despair sound very familiar to many Zimbos as it perfectly applies to another certain Iran as well, the Iran of southern Africa.
