Tuesday 24 June 2014

Are the gloves coming off?

Those of us who have been blessed and fortunate enough to herd cattle in our younger days know exactly what is happening to Edmund Kudzayi. We come from the generation that enjoyed the spectacle of bulls preparing to fight.

Accompanied by thunderously loud bellows, the bulls would circle each other. Occasionally one would charge the nearest unfortunate bush, or violently plunge its horns into the soft ground - demonstrating to the foe how ferociously he was going to deal with him.

Both bulls would paw and dig at the ground with unnerving ferocity, heads bowed in attack mode. Tufts of grass would fly, like the clothes and bags of a woman being divorced in a Nigerian movie.

In this ferocious scenario, Edmund Kudzayi is nothing but an unfortunate flying tuft of grass. The real fight is yet to come.

As the twilight of Robert Mugabe's rule darkens, and the sunset of his life approaches, the bulls in Zanu-PF are circling each other. Woe betide to any tuft of grass that happens to be in the battle ground. And there is no battleground more obvious than the state media.

Even a blind mole living underground can see the correlation between accusations of using the state media to fight Zanu-PF factional battles and Kudzayi's sudden arrest. It is as obvious as the buttocks of a baboon.

The gloves might be getting off in the factional fight within Zanu-PF. Fists and feathers are starting to fly. Claws are being bared.

Anybody who thinks the turn of events has been unfair to Kudzayi should go and have a little chat with Julius Malema. There are no permanent allies in politics, especially factional politics. The pedestal from which Kudzayi is falling is far much lower than that from which Malema fell in the ANC.

In both cases accusations of state powers being used to further the ends of factional politics have been made. Malema still has South African Revenue Services (SARS) breathing down his neck.

On more substantive matters, freedom of expression, is protected by the constitution of Zimbabwe. In other words Kudzayi has a right to state his opinion no matter who disagrees with it. In fact, he earns his living by doing just that.

If he told lies, fabrications, the constitution and laws of Zimbabwe equally gives potential victims the right to sue him in a civil court and claim compensation.

When police officers break down doors looking for a newspaper editor and long time journalist 'because of articles he wrote' what form of harassment could be more obvious than this. They are not even bothering to pinpoint a specific article as is normally the case.

This suggests that the 'articles he wrote' accusations are just a convenient excuse.  The inner motive for the arrest lies elsewhere. From whichever angle I look at it, Kudzayi looks like a proxy victim of the Zanu-PF factional struggle.

Which leaves us to wonder, is a bare knuckles brawl on the way?

No comments:

Post a Comment