Sunday, July 20, 2008
By Rejoice Ngwenya, San Diego, California
I have been travelling through three different continents, outside of Zimbabwe for a couple of days now. As I ponder over the degree to which Johannesburg, London and Washington have developed while the likes of Robert Mugabe and Thabo Mbeki haggle over political breadcrumbs, it is more than clear in my mind that the Zimbabwean tyrant should quickly be removed from the formula of the country’s long term survival.
The truth of the matter is we cannot wish the ZANUpf constituency away, but a model of reconstruction that includes Robert Mugabe is bound to contaminate the atmosphere of sustainable reconciliation.
Just watching the elements of democracy at work in the three capitals convinces me that Mugabe’s rantings and ravings must be ignored with the contempt they deserve – just as we would a village bully – wherefore the world proceeds to immediately impose on him a political alternative that leaves him with two choices – to go now or to go yesterday!
Compared to Harare, my encounter with life in the West brings me face to face with modern-day civilisation where money, freedom, choice and enterprise combine to form the essence of human existence. As I think how my day-to-day life in Harare has depleted into stone-age survival, I wonder how I have tolerated Mugabe this long. I ask myself what right he has to steal my right to good life, and how he can possibly keep insulting the West where almost one million of his citizens are etching a living to sustain his wretched economy.
If ever Africa in general, or Zimbabwe in particular, should even consider putting itself in a frame of mind of development, we should take bold steps, depart from soft-glove critiques to drastic elimination of all elements that run counter to the progress of mankind towards freedom and development. Mugabe is one such element.
Rejoice Ngwenya is a regular columnist for www.AfricanLiberty.org. He is a Zimbabwean Freemarket Activist and Political Analyst based in Harare. Send him an email at rejoice@earth.co.zw