Rather, it is the extent of her (Zwambila's) activism in MDCT hat that denotes the alarming levels to which the party can take in its pursuit of its agenda.
Those who have followed the activities of the party will see a pattern of behaviour that does not befit a political force that can be trusted with running a country.
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| "Stripper"...Jacqueline Zwambila |
By Tichaona Zindoga
Does the "strip incident" in Australia in which Zimbabwe's Ambassador bared to her smalls (which rightly earned her Government recall from the posting) cause one to laugh or to cry or both, possibly?
Could anybody be mortified that today's politics of "inclusion" turned out that way with this once obscure individual who is said to have lost a chance to represent some constituency in Chegutu spiting that setback, ending up representing the whole country and with embarrassment to show for it?
It is true that the party that brought forth the same individual has also brought a whole new culture and dimension to Zimbabwe's politics.
With a multiplicity of embarrassing episodes thus far, can one not rightly feel some sense of vindication of any earlier misgivings of the party?
I recall vividly one September afternoon in 1999 when some excitement that greeted the formation of an outfit called the Movement of Democratic Change reached the part of country that I lived.
Admittedly, being in high school I had not taken time to follow what was developing outside of my small horizons, although having known about the strikes in the previous years, the culmination of the heady years in a new political force (or farce) was not so outlandish.
Thus my first contact with the new creation called MDC came through my peers who excitedly chanted the "Chinja Maitiro" slogans, which to me sounded more like what the guys did at their volleyball games.
By the way, my school had a proud volleyball culture that I think runs to this day which was made all the sweeter by a myriad of chants and slogans.
I soon gathered the import of the slogans, what with the fact that one of the old boys at the school would soon become the youngest Member of Parliament on the ticket of this newlyhatched outfit.
Admittedly, I felt a little disappointed I could not share the excitement of my peers and others of my age as well as many "progressive" urban folk.
Yet I just could not resist alienation from this creature.
It was the same "progressive" and urbane party that I later realised, far from being a workers' party that would serve even working father, carried the hopes of retrogressive forces that might as well had ambushed its agenda, and ranks.
As it turned out, these latter forces in the form of white commercial farmers, who had ridden on the legacy of colonialism and deprived black people, showed their colours and campaigned rigorously against land reform espoused in the envisaged new constitution that went into the referendum in February 2000.
Land reform would rehumanise a people so attached to their land, which had been stolen from their ancestors.
Then the farmers' freedom with money for the cause of their racist occupation of Zimbabwe's prime lands was carried into the elections that followed hence, banking the reversal of the tide of land reform on my peers' MDC.
The rest, they say, is history.
Eleven years later, minus the obvious wart of the retrogressive white commercial farmers, MDC better (or worse) represented by the one faction named MDCTsvangirai after its leader Morgan, has not passed for an organisation that one can be proud of.
Not even when the party is in the "inclusive" Government, via an agreement struck among itself, another MDC formation and ZanuPF in 2008.
In fact, it is this very fact that exposes pun intended the party to ridicule.
The "strip" incident by the party's appointee, Zimbabwe's Ambassador to Australia, Jacqueline Zwambila is but one example.
She pulled off the stunt as she confronted embassy staff that she accused of leaking information on a website on which she had denied the existence of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union.
She had said that these sanctions, which have drawn worldwide condemnation, did not affect the country even though her party, which invited the sanctions from its Western friends, acknowledged their presence in the inclusive Governmentmaking Global Political Agreement.
The region, Sadc, the African Union, the NonAligned Movement, among other world bodies have all been seized with the matter and calls have been made for their immediate lifting.
Her denial of sanctions is not at all surprising.
Nor her wearing of a party hat when she is supposed to represent the country not just her Westernsponsored party which necessitates such denial.
Rather, it is the extent of her activism in MDCT hat that denotes the alarming levels to which the party can take in its pursuit of its agenda.
Those who have followed the activities of the party will see a pattern of behaviour that does not befit a political force that can be trusted with running a country.
The treacherous and treasonous grovelling for Western sanctions aside, the MDC has generally conducted itself in the most ignoble of terms since getting into Parliament in 2000.
It has shored up embarrassments on those who thought politics were for the mature and seriousminded.
Does anybody remember one Job Sikhala who walked into the supposedly august Parliament buildings clad in shorts and a tshirt and rightly earned himself ejection from the house?
Sikhala was one of the "young turks" that MDC brought from student politics, whence its less than noble showing in Government arguably derives.
Then came the walkouts and countless boycotts and threats of boycotts, which at some point earned Tsvangirai the lessthancomplimentary name of "Mr Boycott".
The boycotts have run to this day.
Apart from that incident in which Roy Bennett assaulted Zanu PF Patrick Chinamasa, MDC also brought a new brand of showing disagreement in Government in the form of heckling with the most infamous example occurring just as President Mugabe was opening a Parliamentary session in August 2008.
As we speak, MDC senators recently caused two disruptions of Senate business, which resulted in the adjournment of the House to next year.
MDC senators heckled in the Upper House in protest over the reappointment of provincial governors who were constitutionally appointed by President Mugabe.
On the diplomatic front, MDC caused embarrassment among Zimbabwe's African brothers calling them "a club of dictators".
During the inter-party dialogue that led to the formation of the inclusive Government, Sadc-appointed facilitator former South African President Thabo Mbeki suffered the insults of the infantile MDC which called the veteran statesman all sorts of names and even wanted him out of the process.
The party called Mbeki a "dishonest broker" because he had shown not to bend to the whims of the party, as extending from its Western backers.
Of course, Mbeki tried to knock sense into MDC, reminding the party its fate lay in Africa and its African neighbours not Europe or America.
Unsurprisingly, the party do not seem to have heeded the lecture, albeit for obvious reasons.
On the main, it has to be feared, if not suffered, that MDC's brand of politics of embarrassments can continue: perhaps with the possibility of anything worse than public stripping.
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