By Nick Mangwana
When someone who brands
themselves come out and issues a personal manifesto, not of an organisation,
not of a team, just about themselves as if it's a pitch for a job then one
should know that they have entered the zone of personality cults. This is when polity becomes about an
idealised image of a leader and not
about the people or even colleagues for that matter. It is about a messianic packaging of someone.
As was the case in the Bible, It
was Jesus first, then the 12 would be chosen or unveiled later. It turns all the rest into exiguous minions
who are just an appendage to the individual that personifies the project. The media has also been roped in to help in
generating a kind of aura of the "anointed one". This has largely
failed.
When Zanu PF was formed on the
8th of August 1963 it was about the Organisation and not about a single
individual. It was about the ideals of that Organisation and the value system.
It was these that made it to have a life of its own even at the time when the
bulk of its leadership was either in prison, detention or exile. There was no deification of the individual
over the organisation and its ideals. And more importantly, it was about the
people. So when one comes out to criticise a system they have helped build, a
system and ethos that has made them who they are and a system in which they and
their family enjoyed excesses in, they should surely make sure they come up
with something beyond reproach. Sadly
the blue print of the new system does not inspire confidence for it is a system
about an individual. Nothing could
happen while she was dithering. Everyone and everything had to wait for her.
For without her the new system could not happen. Then after long periods of
prevarication, she came out. And it is about her.
Opaque plans, opaque decision
making structure opaque ideals only issued through a press release that look
like an advertisement reminding one of those good old Roger Boka adverts
(apologies to his family for the association). No authentification of the blueprint
itself. Would we not wake up one and she
says it had nothing to do with her? Zimbabwe can do very well without this idea
of personality cults.
This has been seen before. Simba
Makoni came out and went to the nation and said vote for me because I am a brand.
I am Simba. I will tell you of the name of the organisation later. But for now
this is about me the icon. It did not work. A lot of other names can be added
to the mix. Now already people are talking of coalitions between tired
organisations and those that do not exist. Gore rino tichaonerera.
We have had it before again when
after a split, one part of the "amoeba party" (a party that reproduces by splitting itself
in a process called binary fission) appended the surname of the owner as a
surname of the party. That generated
another personality cult which has caused mayhem in the organisation because in those
situations there is no collectiveness. The individual is the embodiment the whole
being.
Whilst naturally, parties have to
be led by very visible leaders, this one that issued the personal manifesto is a cacophony of
contradictions. There is a hint of a
reluctant leader. Many have spoken for her. She has hardly spoken except when
she said she will never leave Zanu PF.
Is it the reason why she did not issue her 2 page colourful press
release which was both a manifesto and policy in the name of any
organisation? Then the contradiction is
that of a reluctant leader who overstate their personal value to the lives of
Zimbabweans. The party itself (if/when
formed) is automatically downgraded to just an instrument of power acquisition
endeavour and not a vehicle for mass organisation and fulfilment of national
aspirations. Should a party eventually
emerge here, it will struggle to shade off the shadow of its reluctant leader.
It will be the same situation as Simba is Mavambo. Mavambo is Simba. No perpetuity of life beyond the
"owner".
The idolisation of any leader
should emerge from their source of authority. In fact in these days of
modernity there should be less idolisation of the person but more idolisation
of the office which a person seats in. Because it is the office which is a
constitutional construct and not the individual who seats in them. When adoration and devotion start with the
individual and ends with the individual the people should realise they are
being walked into a trap. Normally these reluctant leaders do not make
themselves. They are made by the individuals that describe them with cringe-worthy
superlatives and sycophantic adulations calculated to convince them that they were the best thing
since sliced bread so they should lead this or that organisation. The folly of
it all is seen when they start believing
that hype. And leaders do always fall for it.
Soon they issue personal manifestos and to sound macho even sign in
their nom-de guerre 35 years after independence. For god sake whose blood do
you want to spill?
So a potential individual leader
issues a manifesto and a so-called blue print, what is the Congress going to
do? May be there would not be a congress. After all there is not even a draft
constitution. There is just a blue print cum manifesto which is also not a
draft, it is projected as a final document. If a different leader is elected do they issue
a different one? Or if the people choose a different pathway at that congress
what happens? Suppose they do not want everyone " who calls Zimbabwe their
home" to have access to land in
Zimbabwe what do you do? On the 5th of
September the American Ambassador Bruce Wharton issued a Facebook posting on
his wall saying, "Heading home to Zimbabwe after 3 weeks in the U.S.....".
Well, he just called Zimbabwe "home" and in accordance with BUILD is
entitled to land in Zimbabwe! If or when the congress happens and the people
disagree with that notion what do you do? You become a dictator? This most
likely the situation as from the get go you have made yourself the fountain
head of a yet to exist organisation.
There is an implied declaration through the Manifesto/Blueprint that
your leadership of the party is a fait accompli. Organisations that have good governance
structures . Was that the case that would go a long way to make sense. So the supporters and prospective members are
already deemed irrelevant. The leader knows what is good for everyone?
Well, The direction of parties like Zanu PF is
determined at Congress. This is because the people are the party. Authority should come from an institutionally
defined position. One's power should derive from somewhere. Where does this one
derive from? Is it from the former office? Because the glaring contradiction of
Saying People First and the first thing you project is a personality cult is
already smirking of disingenuous inconsistency.
Max Weber gave three types of
legitimate authority. These are the
Traditional Authority which rests on “an established belief in the sanctity of
immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under
them”. He gave the second as Legal Authority and says this is “a rule by virtue
of ‘legality’, by virtue of belief in the validity of legal statute and the
appropriate juridical ‘competence’ founded on rationally devised rules”.
Finally he gives the third as Charismatic Authority and defines it as, “the
entirely personal devotion to, and personal trust in, revelations, heroism, or
other qualities of leadership in an individual”. Should one agree with this
theory, then one is led to ask where this lady derived her authority to issue
that two page document on behalf of the "People of Zimbabwe"?
A Party shouldn't be about the
leader. It should be about the people and their aspirations as expressed by
them. Everyone out there can be a rebel leader. Not every rebel is a statesman.
And everyone with an unbridled ambition can lead a rebellion. It is carrying the people with you that is a different
proposition. Ask Mr Biti who seems to be having a hard lesson on this. Zanu PF
has had its share of rebels without cause but acquisition of power. Their endeavours came to nought. Nobody should be bigger than their
organisation. Unless that organisation is the personification of their
ego. The people of Zimbabwe have no role
in massaging arrogantly inflated egos. And the people of Zimbabwe are not looking
for a messiah too so those with highly chequered history of corrupt activities
should remove their fake cherub wings and
their made up halos. History has already shown us what they can and
cannot do.
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