Zimbabwe -- A quick guide to duplicitous doubletalk and deceit

Zimbabwe Standard ^ | august 17, 2003 | Overthetop By Brian Latham

[Clive]

There is much in the troubled central African nation that is not as it seems. And much that is said that, to an outsider, seems incomprehensible.

And so it was last week when the most equal of all comrades and lord high chief of the Zany party said that the More Drink Coming party must repent before talks begin.

Puzzled foreigners asked why the More Drink Coming party should repent, but troubled central Africans, being fleet of mind, knew that the More Drink Coming party has to repent being beaten, bludgeoned, tortured, murdered, raped and otherwise suppressed by the Zany party.

That is the way it works in the troubled central African banana republic. And indeed in banana republics the length and breadth of the troubled continent. It tells us that if the troubled central African basket case has adopted nothing else from the bland, neo-liberal imperialists in the West, it has at least purloined Orwellian logic.

From the drug-crazed warlords of Liberia to the mad king of Swaziland, the situation, and the same upside down logic, is the same.

Those same neo-liberal western imperialists wonder why this doesn't worry troubled central Africans. They wonder too why troubled central Africans aren't turning into embarrassed central Africans, because the behaviour of the government is surely cause for deep embarrassment.

Well, it would be if anyone took much notice of government. Government might be important in the US, or Britain perhaps. It certainly is in Germany, where people fawn over their rulers. But troubled central Africans don't believe that government is anything more than a necessary evil, a bureaucratic stumbling block that must be endured and where possible undermined.

So, no, it isn't embarrassing to listen to the most equal of all comrades telling his opponents to repent. On the contrary, troubled central Africans may well be deeply troubled by the turmoil and tyranny they're experiencing, but most of them remain proud.

Still, it was curious of the most equal of all comrades. Just when the troubled country and its increasingly nervous neighbours thought progress might be in the offing, along he comes and throws a well aimed spanner in the works.

Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, troubled central Africans could have seen it coming. But perhaps not. The breathtaking brazenness of the statement takes some beating and it will take the More Drink Coming party's spin-doctors some time to match that well timed and well aimed bazooka.

After all, what's there to repent? If the More Drink Coming party isn't kicking itself for not making the now famous "repent statement" first, it should be. But then it would have been blamed for wrecking the talks before they even began.

That sort of accusation can't be made against the Zany party, even if it's true. Had the More Drink Coming party told Zany thugs to repent, leaders from the region would've woken from their slumbers to lob insults at it.

But as it came from the Zany party, the region's leaders (such as they are) slept on unperturbed and undisturbed. Troubled central Africans have come to expect little else. If they once considered looking up to their southern neighbour, they now look down on it - and not just geographically.

Led by an old soak of such spinelessness he surely needs a corset to remain upright, the Zany demand that the More Drink Coming party repent passed - at least publicly - without comment.

That, not surprisingly, led many troubled central Africans to consider whether their silly southern neighbour might have an agenda of its own - and to decide they'd rather live with tyranny than become an adjunct of that lunatic asylum.

[Clive]

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[Dante3]

bttt

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Mugabe can say whatever absurd and insane thing he wants,
he gets no cold shoulders from his African neighbors.
There are no real penalties. His family doesn't suffer.