Reuters photo

By

Mbizo Chirasha

Robert Mugabe is a full time dictator and African despot. He has failed to anoint a successor and by doing so has given all executive roles to his diplomatic clueless, protocol, careless and politically immature, Grace Marufu Mugabe. From the time Grace insulted a young girl in South Africa, Mr. Mugabe has launched a scathing attack on the South African authorities. Surprisingly, he denigrated the revolutionary reputation of the Nobel Peace Prize winning stalwart Nelson Mandela and also on the 7th of September 2017, while addressing prominent business executives in Zimbabwe, took a swipe against a high ranking  ANC official, Gwede Mantashe, for rebuking him after he attacked Madiba the previous week.

Ironically the same ANC is the one that gave his clueless, trouble rousing wife diplomatic immunity after her gaffe in South Africa. Mr. Mugabe should thank the ANC for helping him into the Government of National Unity after he lost the elections in 2008. Mr. Mugabe is actually torching a storm because many Zimbabweans are at present economic refugees in South Africa and are feeding the majority of their families living in Zimbabwe. The South African Rand is very useful in the failing Zimbabwean economy.

I think Mr. Mugabe must be taken to task by Zimbabweans who are reeling under serious economic challenges. I think Zimbabweans have been seriously subjected to abject poverty, corruption, neglect, disorder, victimization and violence by his government. If he doesn’t have anything good to say, he should just keep quiet. He is more torching a xenophobic storm, than perpetuating xenophobia. He should act like a statesman and revolutionary leader. He is now acting like a clueless clown, it being very wrong to insult neighbors for no reason.

Zimbabwe has many problems to solve on its own plate. Mugabe denigrates others, while scoffing at those who correctly expose his autocratic behavior. I think many Zimbabweans who are homeless, hungry, moneyless and beaten require a slice of freedom. We need him to respect the masses of Zimbabwe, the masses he has subjected to untold suffering, the masses that are victimized every day by his wife, displaced, attacked and threatened. His war cadres are rejecting him, his despotic tendencies and his anointment of the current de-facto prime minister, his wife. We need new names.

Robert Mugabe did well by leading the struggle as history tells us but he should give others a chance to run this country. We are tired of seeing one man presiding over national issues. He has failed to stop corruption, he is even perpetuating hegemony. We can’t remain like this any longer. Zimbabwe does not belong to one family and one man, Zimbabwe belongs to all of us who are born in it and live in it.

Stomachs belong to the state

Kalanda, Kalanda we are raised through the smoke and stink of dumping sites,

In dusty broken streets of dingy shanties

Chilling culture of poverty whipping our backs and slapping our scarred faces

Kalanda, Kalanda we passed through rough fingers of the state

Purity of sisters corrupted by bowls of spaghetti in district light cafes

Kalanda, Kalanda their bitter smiles plant want than wheat on our doorsteps

Mr. Mugabe and his regime have blood on their hands and, come 2018, if the UN and other organizations of international repute fail to intervene, we are in for another bloodbath like that of previous years. Many opposition activists died in waves of violence, some disappeared, some incarcerated, some disabled. ZANU-PF needs to renew itself, the country needs a leadership change. I think that statements by Mr. Mugabe towards the South African leadership are tantamount to another diplomatic gaffe as perpetuated by a spent African leader in Mugabe; he should prove to be mature.

It can’t be a ‘Mugabe is always right‘ charade. During the Third Reich, in the time of Adolf Hitler, everyone from artists, to poets, to journalists, to activists and to teachers were trained to say, ‘Heil Hitler, the Fuhrer is always right, Hitler is always right.’ It is dangerous to run a country through gutter and kitchen politburo gossip. The country no longer functions from the nation’s bureaucracy/ Munhumutapa House but instead, is now being run from the corridors and kitchens in his Borrowdale residency. Mantashe is not stupid, otherwise his sons are clueless, and he should take the advice with a positive zeal. Zimbabwe needs an economic surgery, a political bandage and a social ointment to apply on moral wounds. I don’t think those who still go to his rallies like him, but most of them are forced. It is no secret that Mugabe has destroyed and is destroying Zimbabwe.

Pasi Nemadhisinyongoro Vamugabe (down with disorder Mr. Mugabe).

Letter to my daughter

this poem reshuffled cabinet

the rhythm resigned the president

its metaphors adjourned parliament

my daughter

awaken sleeping patriots eating peanuts in slogan darkness

rise dozing voters in the warmth of political acid

awaken struggle heroes in graves tired of wrong epitaphs and fake eulogies

awaken fat cats puffing zanunised and mdcided propaganda burgers in slumber

rise green horns drinking much talked herbal tea of change

grandfathers of patriotism to bring back

truth drowning in potholes of grief

god fathers of change to bring back my vote choked in drums of new renewed

corruption

bring red hot charcoal to roast political bedbugs sucking our blood in daylight

bring a word scientist to burn the justified injustice in poetic sulphuric- acid

my daughter

this poem reshuffled cabinet

the rhythm resigned the president

the metaphors adjourned parliament.

The Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign

Mbizo Chirasha

Mbizo Chirasha The Black Poet, works as a poet/writer in residence , creative/literary projects expert , poetry festivals manager and performance poet. He is an acclaimed international performances poet and is published in more than 60 journals around the the world, websites, anthologies and literary reviews. He also works as a media relations strategist and consultant.

Mbizo’s Poetry can be found at http://www.mbizotheblackpoet.blogspot.ca/ and blog at http://personalitiesofinspiration.wordpress.com/ also.