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Who is afraid of John Nkomo?
Comment from The Sunday Mirror
June 06, 2004

Virginia Wolf was the female enfante terrible of western letters who is an icon of the female liberation movement in those quarters. Her, A Room of Her Own, is a tour de force about the need to accord women their own space in a patriarchal world. There is a famous play that plays on the impact of her formidable intellects called, Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf? Now, Zimbabwe is a highly patriarchal society in which Wolf would probably not have been accorded enough space and a room of her own in which to express herself. But John Nkomo, because of his gender, has had ample space to express himself and has been accorded a room in which to exercise political power and authority.

He comes across as a highly intelligent and visionary man, who was moulded by the nationalist movement and his closeness to the Father of the Nation, Joshua Nkomo. Added to that, President Mugabe seems to have great faith and trust in him. Now, that does not go well in certain circles within Zanu PF. And perhaps one inspired playwright, perhaps the banned writer of Super Patriots and Morons, will one day write, Who is Afraid of John Nkomo? For, it is quite obvious that since Zanu sinjonjo, there are certain forces that are terrified of the minister and cringe at his very sight. This lot might not be characters out of Raisedon Baya’s Super Patriots and Morons, but in their bid to create jambanja for the upright but currently beleaguered man of principle, they have stooped so low as to concoct dubious letters calling back white farmers to their appropriated land. And they have even gone even lower below the belt by appropriating clueless Chinotimba to the camp. The latter, not surprisingly, took on the baton and came out raving and ranting in The Herald (which should be a clue as to which camp is behind the entire furore). Chinos blindly played football in a china shop like a blind elephant, making all sorts of accusations which demean the office of a senior party and government official. The circus, which had been in town all along, had at last reached its climax.

It is quite obvious that there is a worm in the Zanu PF fruit. Many would argue that Zanu is the worm in the Zimbabwean fruit basket, but that is not our call. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions but never, of course their own facts. Yet it is apparent that Zanu PF is being destroyed from within and the rot has been eating into the party on whose shoulders Zimbabwe was born for a very long time. The works and words of the worms reveal who the worms are. They siphon away national money so that Zimbabwe is brought down on to her knees. They say and do things that destroy Zimbabwe’s economic and moral fibre. They espouse policies that make Zimbabwe a laughing stock of the world. They speak destructive venom each time they open their motormouths. Why, they eat, speak, sleep and even saved venomous destruction. But rine manyanga hariputirwe – and the truth shall come out eventually. We shall indeed find out who the mercenaries and who the true revolutionaries are in due course. As always, time will tell.

Bob Marley has never been more prophetic! The food statistics war reached fever pitch this week following revelations of government’s importation of maize to beef up national reserves. Well, it is understandable that public interest should be so drawn to this disclosure as it evidently has. Obviously, based on the experience of the previous season, when the relevant authorities dishonestly claimed there was enough food to feed the nation, scepticism attended the latest announcement of this year’s official projected harvest. Last season, agriculture minister Joseph Made took a helicopter tour of the country’s farming regions and, upon disembarking, claimed he had established there was enough for all to munch through to the next harvest. Of course, we all know what transpired soon thereafter. And it’s an experience we all would love to forget very quickly. Interestingly, the same optimistic estimates have come back to greet us. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with optimistic forecasts. In fact, nothing would trigger more national euphoria than the guarantee of unyielding food security throughout this and the coming year.

Of course, former white commercial farmers and their ilk within and beyond our borders would love to gloat over negative statistics pointing to a lower yield this year and any other year in future in their mistaken belief that they were the salvation to this country’s food security. It is a fact that our agrarian reforms are undergoing a process of consolidation, without which maximum optimal food production would not be realisable. Hence it is neither here nor there that the country produces a record harvest this season. The haggling of government by disgruntled white farmers, NGOs and their hangers-on over the food situation in the country is really nothing more than a function of their traditional opposition to the fundamental re-adjustment of land ownership patterns in the country by the government through its land reform programme. It is, therefore, predictable that such factors should wish unprecedented famine upon us, if only to prove that the land reform programme was a failure.

In this regard, therefore, it escapes our comprehension why government would, in turn, seek to conceal its noble efforts to achieve food security by going the extra mile through grain importation. That the detractors of land reform would grasp at this fact as evidence of failure in land reform, is a given. Whether we fly to the moon, Mars and back, this predisposition on their part would not change, period. It is our view, therefore, that their conclusions from our importation of grain would not change an iota insofar as their perception of our situation is concerned. To them, we are a basket case. We therefore need not worry about what they think, vane waya! In this vein, Behind the Words feels there was no reason for the government to have kept its responsible approach to achieving food security through grain importation such a closely guarded secret after all.

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