Tsvangirai Rhodesia remarks draw fire
Morgan Tsvangirai
Zimbabwe MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday received a barrage of criticism from furious Zimbabweans for saying he missed Rhodesian rule that enabled him to get drunk for a dollar or one Rhodesian pound.
The embattled MDC leader, who was addressing his party’s youths in Chitungwiza on Wednesday, said he looked back to the Rhodesian days with homesickness (nostalgia).
Zimbabweans said by pining for the Rhodesian regime, Mr Tsvangirai who fronts a party that has a host of ex-Rhodesian security services man in its rank and file, had exposed himself for the askari that he is.
Launching what he termed “national youth assembly jobs campaign” on Wednesday, Mr Tsvangirai said he missed the 1970s when one pound used to get him drunk.
“When I was a worker in the mine in 1975, I was being paid Z$450 but those were equal to pounds. Takamwa doro tikange ticharutsa nemari iyi (We drank beer until we felt like vomiting) but, of course, those were the old days, handichamwi zvangu (I no longer drink) but we recall those days with nostalgia,” Mr Tsvangirai said.
Tsvangirai made similar assertions while addressing his party’s supporters in Norton in May, where he said independence had devalued Zimbabweans.
“Smith left a surplus and then Zanu-PF began to loot, President Robert Mugabe never added any value to our lives, we were all devalued,” Tsvangirai said.
Zanu-PF national spokesperson Rugare Gumbo said the statements showed that Mr Tsvangirai belonged to the white colonial regime.
“He does not belong to Zimbabwe, but Rhodesia,” he said. “This is expected from a mentally ill person. You cannot miss a colonial regime that exploited us. His approach and outlook is colonial and there is nothing you can do about such a person.”
Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa said the MDC leader had a “depraved mind”.
“This is the typical language of an Uncle Tom,” he said. “You can free a slave, but cannot take the slave mentality out of him as on announcing his new freedom he timidly asks who is going to be his new master.
“Even after ocean cruises frolicking with hired love as the country’s Prime Minister in a free Zimbabwe, Tsvangirai still hankers for kachasu in a Bindura mine compound of racist Rhodesia.”
MDC Renewal Team spokesperson – whose camp is pushing for Mr Tsvangirai’s ouster from leadership of the fractured opposition party – Mr Jacob Mafume weighed in saying: “One cannot simply remember the price of beer and forget the suffering people endured under Rhodesia.
“We do not want to restore Zimbabwe, but renew it to the best levels on the values of the liberation struggle. What we simply have is a dispute with the liberation movement, Zanu-PF for not fulfilling some of the aspirations of the liberation struggle not that we want to go back to Rhodesia.”
War veterans’ leader Jabulani Sibanda said at last Mr Tsvangirai had come out in the open to stand for what he believed in.
“We are happy that he is saying it, that he stands for Rhodesia,” he said. “We have always tried, sometimes with pain, to explain to the people who this person is. He believed in a Rhodesian system that a black person should not own land and cattle, should not go to school.
“He believes that whiteness is superiority and blackness is a curse. That beer he is talking about, blacks were not allowed to drink the spirits, but Bantu beer, masese.”
Political analyst Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri said it was tragic that Mr Tsvangirai missed a bigoted system.
“Rhodesia had a legislated racial segregation law where blacks were seen as a lesser species,” he said. “Mr Tsvangirai is focusing on the value of a dollar not looking at the whole life concerns such as economic freedom, the freedom of expression, freedom of association and the right to participate in polls.”
Dr Mhiripiri said during the colonial era, blacks were restricted to the reserves while Harare was the preserve of the whites.
Source: Zimbabwe Herald