There is a saying: ‘better late than never.’ And on a day when it looks like Grace Mugabe and her husband have fallen, let us learn a new phrase in our lexicon, ‘thank you, thank you, thank you, by God thank you Gen Constantine (Guvheya Chinenge) Chiwenga!’
There will be others that are going to respond to the developments in Zimbabwe with the usual cliches: the military must never be involved in civilian affairs, the military must never take over from a constitutionally elected government, what what.
Trash and nonsense I say. First, it can be argued quite legitimately that we do not have a constitutionally elected government, but one that has stolen election after election since 2000. Secondly, the military has not taken over from that government, constitutionally elected or not.
But rather from the unelected person that was actually running our government, Grace Mugabe. The fiction that the government of Robert Mugabe and his bloated cabinet was running anything is only sustainable as a justification for the pillaging of the national purse that has been going on and nothing more.
It was Grace, and Grace alone, that was the government. And if there has been a coup, it is one that has removed her. The statement by the army said as much.
The truth of the matter is that Grace had taken over and there was nothing we could have done democratically to stop her. She was in charge and cruising to the Presidency. So, once again in their lifetimes, veterans of the Chimurenga have risen up to say no, this is not the Zimbabwe we want.
Having stood up to Ian Smith and his racist government, standing up to this interloper has come way too late, but while we might criticise their timing, by God let us thank them for coming and say, ‘better late than never.’
Grace was a cancer that was spreading. And while she and her supporters like to give her the nickname Dr Stop-it, she must in fact be called Dr Takeover. Her life has been one of simply taking over. She was not happy with her husband and his prospects, so she took over Sarah Hefron’s husband.
She was not happy with buying milk from Dairiboard like the rest of us, so she took over dairy farm, and being unhappy with its name, took that over too and named it Gushungo Dairies. She was not happy with owning most of Mazowe farmland, so she took over Manzou farm. She was not happy with sharing fishing rights with the povo (ordinary people), so she took over Mazowe dam and banned public fishing.
She was not happy with just having access to diamonds and gold so she took over our minerals in Chiadzwa. She was not happy just being the President of Zimbabwe’s wife, so she took over as the President of Zanu PF’s counterpart in that party, telling party veterans that she was more senior than they in that institution because of who she shares her bed with.
She failed to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of London so she took over the entire UZ Senate and gave herself a research PhD degree despite repeatedly claiming at her rallies that ‘isu vasina kudzidza’ (us who are not educated).
She was not happy with her delinquent boys’ choice of girls so she took over the role of one of their mothers and decided to discipline them. She took over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to grant herself diplomatic status to escape prosecution in South Africa.
And , when on 13 November 2017 the army issued a statement raising their constitutional duty to protect the country from all threats foreign and domestic under section 212 (The function of the Defence Forces is to protect Zimbabwe, its people, its national security and interests and its territorial integrity and to uphold this Constitution), she took over the ZBC to suppress the news of this momentous intervention so that the lead item in the news was some cockamamy story about some tourism thing.
Grace, you see, was in charge.
She is the one that had the guts to tell the President to cut his speech short because she felt he had spoken too long. She is the one that went around the country using state resources to drum up support to have the last two Vice Presidents fired. These were elected officials, if we run on the constitutionally formalistic formulae, and she is not. But, what she says goes.
Under her protection, her delinquent children waste state resources on parties and drugs. Under her protection, Patrick Zhuwawo can send out tweets calling Chiwenga an imbecile, because …what? Do you know our history Patrick? These are people who risked their lives for our liberation, and Zhuwawo thinks that they are imbeciles? Who does this family think we are?
There is always an almost instinctive reaction to be against the military takeover of any government. The idea of ‘boots of the ground’ is synonymous with war and, to some extent, West Africa in the 1960s to the 1980s.
So, the news that the army might have taken over in Zimbabwe, in a region where military takeovers are unheard of, might inspire some to feel a fair bit of dread and trepidation. But, I posit that if it is a coup, then it is one of those rare ones: the one you celebrate and hope that it succeeds.
The reason for abhorring coups is that they are an unconstitutional way to change a constitutionally elected government. When people take time to go and freely register to vote, then freely go and participate in free and fair democratic elections, they should be the ones that have the right to change their leaders, not the men and women in uniform.
If those leaders turn out to be imbeciles and dotards, like a certain Mr Trump in a place far far away, why, such is the function of democracy. The law is clear: the constitutionally elected government must be respected.
But, all the words we use are important. The government, in order to earn the protection of the law, must be a constitutionally elected government that is serving the people. In Zimbabwe, the evidence doesn’t show that.
This is a government that is being run by an unelected official in the name of Grace Mugabe. Vast state resources are used in her Insulting Tour, where she spends time denigrating elected officials and making snide comments about their manhood. Even the President, when he fired Mnangagwa, made reference to his wife being booed as one of the reasons. So we cannot even boo her now?
So, in reacting to this coup (which is what it is in all but name), may I ask that we refrain from the usual Zimbabwe thing: someone says here is an orange, and we say rakamenywa? (is it pealed?), here is some peanuts, and we say dzakakangwa? (have they been roasted), come to my wedding, and we say, are you providing bus fare? or the classic, I found you a wife, and the question is anemimba? (is she pregnant?)
Instead, let us look at this as a chance to start afresh. Instead of talking about the constitutional this and that, let us instead say, how do we use this opportunity to ensure that our future does not breed another Mugabe, be it Grace or Robert.
Let us start talking about giving these people our support to run a transitional government that takes the time to fix our institutions and allow us a fresh start. Instead of asking the international community to condemn a coup, let us instead help create the calm that ensures that lives are not lost while we put our house in order, and then rejoin the international community with a set of leaders that are truly for the people.
I think that if we were happy enough to trust Constantine Chiwenga to risk his life as a boy to go and fight for this country, it is not too much to trust him now as a man and respected General to fix this mess. And, while we are at it, to say: ‘thank you, again but, what took you so long?’
Tinomudaishe Chinyoka is a Lawyer and PhD candidate, University of Pretoria
