There is a great line in one of the signature songs by Oasis, a popular British rock band from the 1990s, from their second studio album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, which was released in 1995.
The song Don’t Look Back in Anger, is about defiance, having no regrets about one’s life. But following a terrorist attack in Manchester which saw 22 people killed at an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017, it became a song for commiseration.
The line that stands out for mein the song is, however, on the second verse which goes:
Please don’t put your life in the hands
Of a rock ‘n’ roll band
Who’ll throw it all away
In the context of recent developments in Zimbabwe’s politics, it brings home the messiah complex that has gripped a country that is seemingly in need of a political saviour.
Nelson Chamisa’s political travails and the resultant chaos in opposition ranks has gripped the country for the past week or so.
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In his 13-page letter, Chamisa claimed that the Citizens Coalition for Change, the party that he founded in January 2022, had been “hijacked” and “contaminated” by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Zanu PF through the abuse of state institutions.
This was the party through which he promised to lead Zimbabwe to its own Canaan, and assured them through his popular slogan and hashtag: #GodIsInIt.
It seems he reckoned without the source of his latest toils, Sengezo Tshabangu, a previously obscure member of the party who declared himself its interim secretary-general, who, with support from the courts, started recalling several lawmakers from the party.
“The emergence of this imposter should not be looked at in isolation from the 23 August sham,” Chamisa said.
“We are being thrown into the river with hungry crocodiles, but clearly in our view, I will refuse to swim in (that) river.”
Chamisa, it seems, is struggling to understand that his “Strategic Ambiguity” may have, in fact, befuddled his own party and left him with no response to Tshabangu’s actions.
Chamisa, the country’s best-known opposition leader, if not the most popular politician in the country right now, needs to figure out how to build a credible opposition to the ruling Zanu PF after losing two general elections to Mnangagwa and his party.
By the same token, Zimbabwe needs to break from this political messiah complex and as citizens, we have to understand that our fortunes as a nation will only change when we realise we are the masters of our destiny.
The post-August 23 polls refrain was that the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) will somehow intervene and force fresh elections, with someone other than the discredited Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in charge.
Now, the release of Job Sikhala from prison seems to be a galvanising point for some.
Fat change. Is it only politicians who understand our suffering? Why should we continue to have faith in them?
Politicians are by nature selfish and no one is coming to our aid. Its time we realise that.
