Saturday, December 31, 2011

Zimbabwe: Beware of the Google types

Now, we have this Charles Ray busy cultivating a false consciousness within our youth, a consciousness that repudiates preceding generations in the name of a better-to-build-young-people false credo. A false consciousness that attaches heroism to a foreigner who has killed kindred spirits, who seems white and American in spite of himself, a privileged exception to an oppressed clan, to an oppressed colour, an exception to an oppressed and repudiated history, a black man conscripted to fight abroad America’s wars of aggression against Third World peoples.
Our youth call that type a hero? Our youth are instigated to repudiate their forebears by such?
The Herald

By Nathaniel Manheru
Picture this: Charles Ray Honoured by Zimbabwe Organisation for Youth in Politics (ZOYP), a “human rights” organisation working with youth at the grassroots. The award, 2011 Diplomatic Human Rights Defender, was given to the American ambassador for, in the words of ZOYP’s national coordinator, one Nkosilathi Moyo, “critical helping hand that Ambassador Ray gave” ZOYP, for which ZOYP notes “with bounteous gratitude”.


What that help was, we are not told. And Moyo goes further, rather rhapsodically: “Here is a man (Ambassador Ray) who on countless occasions removed his ambassadorial resplendence to the level of the ordinary man in the streets all in the name of meeting the Zimbabwean youths at their point of need.”
Not to be outdone, a ZOYP board member, one Patson Dzamara intoned: “It is better to build young people than to repair old men.” By the way, the youthful duo went to the US Embassy to present this mighty award to the Ambassador. They came all the way from KweKwe.

Bawling heroism
Of course the good Ambassador requited the felicitations: “Receiving an award is always a special occasion, but this is made even more special by the true admiration and respect I have for this particular group, ZOYP”. And in a dash of mock-modesty: “The award carries the word “hero”.
But, I am not a hero. The heroes in a struggle for democracy, human rights, equity, or any attempt to remind government of who it serves, are the people and organisations on the ground. The real heroes today are the leaders at ZOYP and other organisations in Zimbabwe and throughout the world, those who work tirelessly to create a space for young voices. The work you are doing is truly heroic and I am pleased to stand with you today.

Stay put, dear youth!
Ambassador Ray urged the youth to press on in their cause: “As leaders, you know the importance of getting involved. Yet, even more important than this, is staying involved. The causes you have taken up will not be accomplished easily or overnight. This is not a sprint, but a marathon, and victory goes to those who continue to run no matter the obstacles or challenges.
My encouragement to you now is this: be ready to hold fast and stay involved. Obstacles will come, challenges are a guarantee. But if you, as young people, persist in making yourselves heard in a voice that is strong and united, if you remain firm in your commitment to living lives of excellence and value, you will persevere.”

From the heart of the land
For the benefit of those who might not have some background on ZOYP, this is a Kwekwe-based youth organisation created by the American Embassy here through MDC-T structures. It is funded by the American Embassy, and has been used by the American Ambassador to test out the responsiveness of Zimbabwean youth to IT-based tools of mobilisation for social action, akin to what happened in North Africa.
This operation began in May and has been on and off, its most dramatic failure being in Kwekwe where the American Ambassador sought to use this group to try out this same experiment outside of Harare. The intended town hall meeting collapsed after Zanu-PF youths who saw through this mobilisation ruse, disrupted it. Nkosilathi Moyo hit the press headlines, rueful, mournfully.

British Ambassador, Father Nigel and licences
I am sure a picture is beginning to emerge. A little more detail. Western commissioned studies have noted that demographically, the youth are the epicentre of the vote for 2012. Apart from tipping provinces which are already earmarked, the other plank is an all-out drive to get the youth registered, indeed to mobilise them initially to vote for MDC-T and, where this fails to secure victory for the MDC, to mobilise them for action.
The American Ambassador, alongside other western ambassadors, are behind this project which is beginning to be paralysed both by a combination of youth indifference and by more aggressive mobilisation of the youth by Zanu- PF. The going has been quite tough, which is why the American Ambassador is urging perseverance.
The whole project badly needs mutual encouragement, which is why this award is important. What is worse, it is beginning to levy huge outlays on the West’s broken economies. But the stakes are high. That is not my story.
I am sure those responsible for handling such foreign-inspired mischief are hard at work, including checkmating Britain’s “excellent” lady here who has been working through Father Nigel Johnson to rig the next round of radio licences. She promises all applicants full financial cover, including start-up capital for such stations. We shall see.


Sex smitten candidate is all we got
My real objective is to reveal the absurd side of American structures here, and how desperate they become once wrong-footed, and thrust into overdrive prematurely. Obviously the Americans are not too sure when elections are coming.
They are working in remarkable panic, more so when they see their protege here fumbling, dramatically tripping on inane, amorous matters in the season of critical choices. Far from seeing a presidential candidate, they find forlorn character, sex-battered.

Theatre of the absurd
Does it not get a bit absurd when a whole American ambassador asks for an award from an organisation which he himself set up, which his own Government funds to achieve the very same objectives for which he was deployed, namely to cause regime change here?
And to have all that gigantic diplomatic award exertion covered by a paper which his Government again set up, which his mission funds to carry his messages, including this speech?
And Ray and his politically henpecked youth parley for heroic greatness, each calling the other “the real hero”? It gets a bit incestuous, does it not?

Much worse, these little politically empty vessels had called Charles Ray their “hero”? My goodness? I suppose Ambassador Ray liberated the Vietnamese? Is here to liberate Zimbabweans? And you cannot miss the quality of that liberation by the consciousness coming through these two youths.
One superlatively thanks Ray for “the critical helping hand”. Hand helping the youth in which critical direction? Or has America widened its hand-holding beyond the MDC-T leader, to include MDC-T youths? Cry the beloved generation then! The other sees in Ray a figure who “builds young people” rather than “repair old men”. Goodness me!
What age is Ray? Why is it only in America that old men are young? Only from America that we get old Ambassadors with the gift of building young African people, while dismantling “old men”, presumably African ones? Whose old men are these who should not be repaired?

The lesson we cannot learn
Certainly not America’s white old men. Otherwise why would America bother to reissue Ronald Reagan after a double death: of the brain while still in office; of body well after office? Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter trudges on, undiminished in America’s estimate. Each year, America splashes new glory on him, adorns him with fresh plumes of resplendent glory. It is always like that for America, a country at peace with its history, and the personages who presided over that history.
That even-handed view of history extols even those men of staggering foibles and handicaps, all redeemed by the national role thrust upon them, however undeservedly. And America knows that after their foibles comes a great narrative, free of human errors, human frailties, human warts, for the sake of her undiminished greatness.
In its timeless narrative, America knows no low points in its national life. In its narrative, America knows no scoundrels, only men of high honour and higher calling. It fought no inglorious wars, invaded no country, assassinated no leaders, oppressed no blacks, stole no country, massacred no one, committed no genocides, pillaged no oil, infected no Guatemalans with STDs, created no germs, unleashed no imperialism. It is all glory, glory, glory and higher glory as America panegyrizes itself, its history and its leadership, indeed as America scales to dizzy heights, all against a mesmerised human crowd.

Repudiating ourselves
Now, we have this Charles Ray busy cultivating a false consciousness within our youth, a consciousness that repudiates preceding generations in the name of a better-to-build-young-people false credo. A false consciousness that attaches heroism to a foreigner who has killed kindred spirits, who seems white and American in spite of himself, a privileged exception to an oppressed clan, to an oppressed colour, an exception to an oppressed and repudiated history, a black man conscripted to fight abroad America’s wars of aggression against Third World peoples.
Our youth call that type a hero? Our youth are instigated to repudiate their forebears by such? And now that it happens that those “old men” who should not be repaired belong to the generation that created a free Zimbabwe, what now Sir Ray and your depraved youths?
This is a repudiation of history, of our origins, of one’s very being, all to transfer identity and reverence to America? Aaaah? You see it from that angle and you realise why this false award has such grave implications for all of us.

A heresy that stinks all the way to heaven
This is the kind of a-historicity which America preaches abroad, often using mouths that bear our colour. A repudiation of parentage, an overwriting of your history for an American one, indeed a joyous soiling of the heroes of your people, your struggles, your history, all for another sense of history, one so deeply Americanised.
You are incited against that history, sponsored to fight it, to organise against it, all in the name of democracy, human rights, equity. And all those values which are yours by heroic struggles, by huge sacrifices of your own people, you are made to believe you gratefully owe to America which invented them for lesser mankind, indeed you are made to believe you owe them to Ambassador Ray, even though he only came to this country a few days ago, long after Zimbabwe had become free, freed by black Zimbabweans now fashionably referred to as “old men” in disrepair.
How many died? How man perished before Que Que could become Kwekwe? Do these youths know that? And against whom were they fighting? Against white interests, American interests which saw continued white rule as the only guarantee to continued exploitation of chrome over which America repudiated sanctions against Rhodesia. How does a country with such a shameful history vis-a-vis our struggles here, ever produce a representative we can call a hero? For those filthy trinkets? I am disgusted.

Resplendence and sanctions
Lest I get overworked, I need to make a larger point. While these two youths were busy decorating Ray and his country, America was busy de-listing two strategic Zimbabwean companies from trade by adding them on its sanctions list. Ignorant America would never know Mbada, would never know Marange Resources, small companies located in some little, great country called Zimbabwe.
It is America’s mission here — headed by one Charles Ray — who tells America that there is Mbada, that there is Marange Resources, both trading in KPCS-certified diamonds which belong solely to some small but sovereign African country called Zimbabwe. It is America’s mission here — again headed by one Charles Ray — which tells the spiteful American government that unlike Chrome under white Rhodesia, those diamonds are benefiting an African government for an African people under some man called Robert Mugabe: old, black, African and consummately anti-imperialist.
It is Ray, in other words, who counsels the American Government to include our companies on their sanctions, all to disable Zimbabwe. Then you hear some strange youth, drunk by a dollar or two from the American ambassador, radiantly asserting that the same evil ambassador “removes his ambassadorial resplendence . . . to meet the Zimbabwean youths at their point of need”? My goodness. You reward a man who has robbed your country, you, of a prosperous future?

What even Newsday could not support
Not even Newsday, another American funded project here, could agree. Here is their editorial comment only yesterday: “The recent addition of Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources to the United States sanctions list is the clearest indication yet that Zimbabwe’s erstwhile enemies in the West will do anything to make sure they suffocate the nation’s attempts to extricate itself from the effects of sanctions.
“The latest development, coming barely two months after the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) approved the sale of the country’s gems, is an indication of the double standards that have become the hallmark of countries of the West.” As if to help it’s cousins (ZOYP) in American sponsorship, Newsday adds: “The government anticipates $600m in additional revenue from diamond sales in 2012, which is earmarked to go towards social services that benefit the masses directly. What will become of these programmes if the funds do not come through? Is this not punishing the ordinary people who have been hopeful that their basic needs will be met and their meager salaries improved?”
The editorial clearly questions US’ fatuous assertion to have “the interests of the ordinary people of Zimbabwe at heart as they claim”. Is it not instructive that even this American sponsored organ found American sanctions just too repugnant?
Indeed, could this be the beginning of an awareness that Zimbabwean citizens, corporate ones included, stand to get better rewards from a thriving and therefore advertising Mbada and economy, than from small rolls of newsprint, spasmodic salaries, little T&S from USAID, apart from the vast thought control from USAID and Charles Ray personally? If that is so, then the days of illegal sanctions are clearly numbered.

The day the Pharaohs rebelled
Whichever way, I take great heart from Egypt, the land of the African pyramids. Two days ago, the Supreme Council of the Military, Egypt’s usually pro-American ruling military junta, decided it has had enough of gross American interference, all done in the name of promoting human rights, democracy and all. One morning, the army was mobilized to freeze operations of 17 NGOs, principally National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI) and Freedom House from America. The rest were little Egyptian pretexts Americans had created, pretexts like ZOYP, created and locally staffed and American funded to create an illusion of a national civic society movement through which to influence national politics towards the preservation of America's global interests. All those 17 NGOs were severely quartered, to great American diplomatic howl. But the stubborn generals are unmoved. However wrong they may be politically, on this one matter the generals are correct, and have opened a new chapter in Africa-US relations on the continent. When America's pernicious instruments of intrusion and influence get rejected even in her client states, what more elsewhere? An all those institutes of deadly intrusion have been at work here, playing cat and mouse with the authorities in Zimbabwe.

Buffeting Africa
What is the grand plan? Well, simply to fashion the world after American and western values. To make it quiescent to western interests and whims. To make the world safe for western and American interests and dominance. It is not any human right, any democracy, any equity which America seeks to give us willy nilly, through organizations like ZOYP. Rather, it is America's democracy. Human rights and equity the American way. And today Africa is a battle ground for competing models. America has her own definition, her own models. Europe has hers. Africa has to content with both, willy nilly.


Enter the Google generation
Here is Tony Blair only a few days back, reflecting on the fate of the lesser peoples from the lesser world. Remonstrating with the West for showing reticence in supporting what he termed "liberal and democratic elements" in the Middle East and North Africa, Blair depicted the lesser world as split between two contending forces: "One is what I would call liberal democratic elements, what I would call the sort of Google types who were initially out in Tahrir Square, the up and coming, aspiring kind of middle class people who want the same type of things we want, the freedoms we want. Then you have got this Islamist movement, in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is very well organized, and where frankly, it is not clear that they want the same things as us and it is not clear that the type of democracy they would create would be genuine democracy." And for him, the tragedy was that "the more religious and extreme elements are very well organized and the liberal and democratic types basically aren't". He then called on the West to support the liberal type, the Google type. Like ZOYP? Clearly the democratic touchstone is "the same type of things we [the West] want", the "freedoms we want". Needless to say it cannot be that type of freedom or democracy which allows Robert Mugabe, Tony Blair and George Bush to coexist as equal Presidents of their respective different but equally sovereign nations. This is what the West and rest of us means, the kind of values which Ray is here to promote, here to inculcate in our youth. And he is right: this cannot be a sprint, but a marathon requiring lots of perseverance.

Exit the Google type, enter new history
Yet all is not lost, as Blair' s lamentation clear show. The native is about to return, smashing the Google type. After all the West, having long lost the moral high ground, has since lost its soft power hold over us. And it being an era of resources, a Third World era in other words, these backward Google types shall soon join the terraces as Africa marches forward - unstopped, unstoppable - its old men in tow, well repaired through a new history, through new times. Icho!
nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw

Friday, December 30, 2011

US must reconsider sanctions on Zim diamond companies

What makes the development sad is the fact that the two companies had done everything possible to comply as had been asked by the KPCS only for US to shift goalposts because they have been praying for the classification of the gemstones as blood diamonds so they could not be traded on the lucrative international market. 
Newsday
EDITORIAL

The recent addition of Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources to the United States sanction list is the clearest indication yet that Zimbabwe’s erstwhile enemies in the West will do anything to make sure they suffocate the nation’s attempts to extricate itself from the effects of sanctions.
The latest development, coming barely two months after the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) approved the sale of the country’s gems, is an indication of the double standards that have become the hallmark of countries in the West.

According to the latest US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the two companies have been added onto the “specially designated” updated nationals list.

The list extends to any assumed names the companies might operate under, including Block Wood Mining and Condurango Investments.

What makes the development sad is the fact that the two companies had done everything possible to comply as had been asked by the KPCS only for US to shift goalposts because they have been praying for the classification of the gemstones as blood diamonds so they could not be traded on the lucrative international market.

We are told the approval of the sale of the country’s diamonds was reached after negotiations involving the KP council, Zimbabwe, the European Union, South Africa and the United States. The approval will be effective until a KP meeting next year.

Yes, there could still be issues that have to be addressed, but we do not believe the sanctions route was the way to go.

In fact, the sanctions with which top government officials have been slapped over the past years don’t seem to have shaken them, and this is likely to be the case with the diamond companies.

Considering the immense benefit the diamonds are expected to bring into the country not for certain individuals but for the economy as a whole, these sanctions are unnecessary.

What the US should be advocating for is transparency in the usage of the funds generated from the sale of these gems rather than completely shutting the country out.

If they really have the interests of the ordinary people of Zimbabwe at heart as they claim, this is what they are supposed to do.

What then is it that we should do as a country before we can enjoy the proceeds from the precious mineral resource?

The government anticipates $600 million in additional revenue from diamond sales in 2012, which is earmarked to go towards social services that benefit the masses directly.

What will become of these programmes if the funds do not come through?

Is this not punishing the ordinary people who have been hopeful that their basic needs will be met and their meagre salaries improved?

In that regard, we urge the US to reconsider its decision.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

2011: A year of travails

Revolt is what the West got in North Africa, during the so-called Arab Spring, and profited from it.
(There have been uprisings in Europe and the US itself but they have not been so viral. Could this have anything to do with lack of outside support and interventions?)
Arguably the biggest trophy of the West during the Arab Spring which saw the demise of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, was the cruel death of Libya's colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who died at the hands of Nato-backed rebels in October.

By Tichaona Zindoga
If there is one word that was this year most used by Zimbabwean politicians and commentators in reference to the inclusive Government, it is "dysfunctional". 
This is read in the context of the "marriage of convenience" that Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations entered in 2009. That the marriage is now "dysfunctional" is the basis for calls, which have become more strident lately, to terminate the life of the inclusive Government.
This is not unjustified. 
Parties in the inclusive Government have bickered on anything from civil servants salaries and financing agriculture to diamond revenues. Perhaps the disagreements have been overplayed to the extent of painting an unduly negative picture of the inclusive Government.
Was it not columnist Nathaniel Manheru who wrote something to the effect that society is wont to hear a couple's disagreements rather than the quieter, productive - and reproductive moments? However, President Mugabe has said that the inclusive Government should no longer subsist. He and his party say elections should be held as a matter of course, that is, in 2012. The party, at its annual conference - dubbed mini congress in Bulawayo earlier this month resolved as much.
The other parties in the inclusive Government are not prepared for elections and they have been seen to hold it out - demanding the "full implementation" of the GPA and the Sadc roadmap on elections.
The long-winded constitution-making process has put a drag on the holding of elections, which were initially hoped to be held this year, if the 18-month timeline to complete the process was adhered to.
The MDCs have been accused of stalling the process with Finance Minister Biti being accused of not funding the process adequately. The year ends with drafters on the table meaning the text of the constitution might be available in the first quarter of 2012.
It also ends in drama, which would make a body weep or laugh or both. Consider Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's controversial "marriage" to Locardia Karimatsenga Tembo in the "sacred" month of November. The issue was a talking point politically and socially.
It could have a bearing on Mr Tsvangirai's long-held presidential aspirations. In October, Mr Tsvangirai came out in support of "gay rights" during a BBC programme. He was apparently influenced by the British government's policy that it would not give aid to homophobic governments in Africa. The issue landed Mr Tsvangirai in trouble. For a moment it seemed that his "marriage" to Tembo was a way to steer himself from the maelstrom around the gay issue.
However, his marriage lasted only 12 days and he (or was it his staff?) made a statement confirming he had a relationship with Tembo but thought it would not consummate because it had been taken over by the CIO.
The Herald was blamed by Mr Tsvangirai and his minions and supporters of being part to the plot to destroy him. The paper did an excellent job in breaking the news of the marriage right up to the moment where Locardia was playing daughter-in-law at the Tsvangirai's in Buhera.
And what a sight Locardia was when she appeared with a "Zambia" wrapped around her waist, with her manicured hands on the short rustic broom and her head covered with a doek but for a few strands of "weave"!
The Tembo story had the effect of upsetting people within the MDC-T. After the episode lapsed, the MDC-T, sought to claim some victories to gain confidence. The party sought to give itself twin Christmas presents, all brewed in Parliament.
The party moved motions to oust Clerk of Parliament Mr Austin Zvoma and to dissolve the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe which awarded commercial radio licences to Zimpapers Talk Radio and Supa Mandiwanzira's AB Communications.
The party had in tow MPs from the other MDC formation. It remains to be seen whether the MDCs will succeed in both fronts.
However, what is clear is that with a majority in Parliament, the two MDC formations can give Zanu-PF a tough time, which situation the revolutionary party finds itself in. The "kingmaker", the smaller MDC formation is in trouble. After the party's congress in February, Professor Welshman Ncube took the reins at the party only for Professor Arthur Mutambara to dispute the legitimacy of the congress and Ncube's ascent.
A group aligned to Mutambara challenged the legality of the congress in the courts. The case is still pending. As a counter measure, the Ncube faction approached the courts seeking to bar Mutambara from acting as MDC leader, which they won this December.
Their victory came hard on the heels of an announcement of a new executive by the Mutambara faction at which point five MPs and senators from the party aligned themselves to Mutambara.
The state of affairs means that Ncube is virtually without a member in Parliament.
Yet Mutambara seems moribund as a "principal" of the inclusive Government as his status, having been barred by the courts to act as leader, remains doubtful.
Some analysts point out that his stay will be at the mercy of President Mugabe.
The Ncube faction has said it "donated" Mutambara to Zanu-PF. In November, the Mutambara faction suffered another setback when they were chucked out of an anti-violence indaba that parties convened allowing for the interaction of the central committee of Zanu-PF and the national councils of the MDC formations.
The anti-violence indaba was in itself a significant milestone in the country's politics which is characterised sometimes by violent clashes. The parties agreed that violence had to be avoided and President Mugabe emphasised that parties had to approach the electorate on the strength of their programmes.
Zanu-PF banks on its people-oriented programmes such as the indigenisation and economic programme which took shape this year. President Mugabe launched the first community share ownership scheme at Zimplats in Mhondoro in October.
The scheme will help locals in resource rich areas to get 10 percent stake in companies that exploit their resources. The employee share ownership, by which employees get stake in their companies, was also launched at Schweppes and has included companies like Miekles.
The indigenisation train is set to move irrevocably.
MDC-T has said it has its own "Jobs and Investment and Upliftment Plan", to rival the indigenisation programme. Either way, the issues over indigenisation or lack of it might win or lose the next elections to the protagonists.
 Will sanctions be another election issue?
It could be; and who knows what those behind the National Anti-Sanctions Petition Campaign have up their sleeves? The programme was launched in March by President Mugabe and sources say two million signatures were collected. The next step is likely to be as big as the raucous launch that beautiful day in March.The MDCs snubbed the function. One of the highlights of 2011 was the unfortunate demise of General Solomon Mujuru in August. The national hero was killed in a fire at his house in Beatrice.
Thousands of people from all walks of life converged at the National Heroes Acre to pay their last respects to the late Mujuru. The event was deemed one of the biggest of all time; probably second to the first Independence celebrations in 1980.
The death of Gen Mujuru remains a mystery.
Another talking point will be Zimbabwe's gruelling win at the Kimberly Process. In November the KP allowed Zimbabwe to sell its Marange diamonds unconditionally. The US and other western lobbyists did not block the move. However, the US had other ideas. This month, the country flexed its hideous muscles and slapped sanctions on the companies that are operating in Marange. Effectively, after the US imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe exactly a decade ago, it still is at war with Zimbabwe, strangle the economy of the country so that the people suffer and revolt.
Revolt is what the West got in North Africa, during the so-called Arab Spring, and profited from it.
(There have been uprisings in Europe and the US itself but they have not been so viral. Could this have anything to do with lack of outside support and interventions?)
Arguably the biggest trophy of the West during the Arab Spring which saw the demise of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, was the cruel death of Libya's colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who died at the hands of Nato-backed rebels in October. After being besieged by Nato since March 19, Gaddafi did not flee his country but remained defiant. He paid for it on October 20. Gaddafi's demise has been viewed partly as a self-created tragedy since he did not allow democratic participation of the citizenry and chose to go to bed with the enemy. Gaddafi did not invest in Africa but in the West where he stashed about US$150 billion.
Zimbabwe only got two camels from the oil-rich country, according to President Mugabe. The West froze his assets and supported rebels and pummelled Libya, destroying the infrastructure and the social services that Gaddafi, for all his warts had built in 42 years.
That three African countries South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon - supported UNSC Resolution 1973 that authorised the occupation of Libya courted much controversy and anger. Closer home, the drama around the suspension of ANC Youth League president Julius Malema made headlines across the world, including here. Malema was in the news for his "Shoot the Boer song", deemed hate speech; and his call for regime change in Botswana where he said President Ian Khama was a Western puppet.
He also embittered the ANC leadership when he criticised President Jacob Zuma. For a time, he looked set to unmake Zuma in the fashion he made him through mobilising youths. But the elephant called ANC crashed him and it remains a conjecture whether he will rise again.