By Wisdom Mumera.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News of The South) – Anthills of the Savanna written by Chinua Achebe in 1988 is my favourite novel and I have returned to it time and again to renew my fondness for it.
However not being a book critique I don’t possess the necessary intricate vocabulary to elaborate on the exact factors that makes the political drama beat Robert Ludlum’s thrillers, Soyinka’s many plays
or plenty other writings out there.
It’s like being asked to detail in word orgasmic feelings. You know the feelings only but can’t render into the words the multiple shudderings and jerks. That discounts nothing from the thrill.
What I know is the feeling the book gives me. The salvatory wash of going through a fictionalized rendering of what is actually happening in and around here and everywhere.
Achebe manages to dish out a somewhat parodied account of African heads of state playing their game of power and the ultimate shedding off of their false veneers of authority at the end.
Finally they are mere man hobnobbing towards decaying into grimacing skulls and ashy white skeletons. But in the while of their reign they put up the front of ‘called’ enigmas with haloed heads.
The whole book is not the focus today but a certain passage from it is the foundation as a form of verse to the sermon on a country that is going through a tailspin.
“The sun in April is an enemy though the weatherman on television reciting mechanically the words of his foreign mentors tells you it will be fine all over the country. Fine! We have been slowly steamed into well-done mutton since February and all the oafs on our public payroll tell us we are doing just fine! No, my dear countrymen. This is Brigadier Misfortune of the Wilting 202 Brigade telling you, you are _not__ fine”.
The passage inserted freely-standing in the middle of the logical narrative thus ends so.
Here Achebe literally throws a jibe at the everyday weatherman on TV who have allowed themselves to speak like Whiteman coming from frigid climates.
To the Whiteman used to the frost and snow of England or some other European country the April African sun is fine weather.
He can freely intone that it will be fine all over the country.
However that is not so for the native African who has been born with the sun overheard him. The April sun is not fine weather since he requires a respite from its full glare.
Thus here Achebe laments the after-effects of colonization that have meant that even with the Whiteman gone from power we are still operating and speaking as if he is still here. That’s on one level.
On another level Achebe being the subtle satirist he is scoffs at media propaganda of everyday massaging and pushing the population into the woolen sock of ignorance with one sided information.
Just recently in December the Zimbabwean Head of State President Mugabe held a celebratory event at State House where the main focus was celebrating the events of the fading 2015.
A piece of his statement reveals the kind of fake normalcy that a section of this country is enclosed in resonating with the fine weather parodied by Achebe in his book.
“We have perfectly gone through the year and surmounted the challenges, many of them that faced us and others we continue to challenge”, he said.
He listed what he termed outstanding events which included the visit by the President of China, Xi Jinping and also the holding of the National People’s Conference held in Victoria Falls.
These were the highlights for the President when he ruminates over the fading year and seeks for high points.
After the debacle of three months dismissals from work. After the many companies that closed. With the party failing to deliver on its over 2 million jobs promise.
After all these challenges who could blame him when he carved out a small cave of peace from a frigid time where nothing is moving along the rails of normalcy.
Whilst we are still using other people’s currency. When there is so much load shedding and the unthinkable has happened with low water in Kariba. With liquidity challenges still shackling us and foreign goods flooding us.
With all this who can blame the President when he picks the coming of Xi and sees in it a ray of light waiting to explode into a beam of financial salvation to end the present economic decay.
Thus we have been reduced to a people that holds onto the minuscule of actions and events, and project them to our mindsets as giant exploits in a bid to maintain our endangered sanity.
The formerly colonized people who borrow the oppressor’s viewpoint and make it their own, lauding a fine weather even as their armpits soak wet with heat.
How the National People’s Conference can be taken to be a national highlight in a country lacking everything from jobs to locally manufactured products, can only be understood in the context of our
uniqueness as Zimbabwe, the former breadbasket of Africa.
The coming of Xi despite the historical peculiarities that underpinned it is nothing to eulogise about so far despite the mountains of agreements that were signed.
Speaking at a Post Budget Seminar in Harare economist Godfrey Kanyenze actually lamented the obsession that we have come to have with mega deals that ultimately bear little to nothing.
“Its high time that we followed up those agreements and see to it that
they bear fruits”, he said.
So Xi came and it had been a long time since anyone of his stature came from China for a State visit but we don’t get employed by those historical banalities, we need the resulting benefits of that visit,
and it’s that which the President should have been pointing at as a celebratory marker.
However since the visit is yet to bear actual tangible and currency valued results, we have to content ourselves with lauding the power of the sexual thrust instead of the born baby since it’s not yet there.
“We succeeded in convincing our people to stand by us and accept these challenges as challenges to our nation together. So it was, we felt that a little reception at the end of December might perhaps wipe off our tears at the end and that can encourage us, so we can face the New Year with new determination derived from the old”, he said.
Determination is what the people of Zimbabwe have shown to have but not the kind which the President thought. Whereas he sought to place the determination in the context of a people who have come over to his side of the thinking and united with him and his party, it’s a different reality on the ground.
The people are determined but only to survive and outwit whatever conundrum that his policies can throw onto their laps. They have outwitted the chase of Council in the CBD through sheer determination and obstinacy, returning again and again after every chase.
They have decided to build everywhere and anywhere to deal with high cost of residency even in the face of destroyed houses. His rallies they have decided to attend especially those held by the First Lady who brings foods and clothing. Another survival skill.
Having followed the rallying of some opposition politicians and been brought nowhere, the people have decided to stay away from much idealism and eke out a living and that translates into strong
percentages for the President when popularity barometers are taken. It’s a not a sign of people supporting him more but merely staying away from the opposition as they forage for life.
The well-done mutton that is the public is expected to believe that they have just succeeded in doing something here since the year has come to an end.
How far true that is very questionable. The weather may not be fine as the weatherman has just said on TV.
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