Becoming The Muse

If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you to my tangle of words and offer you a warm beverage, its one of those cloudy days where you stay indoors if you can help it…

On a day just like this, 8 years ago, begun what people now refer to as National Dzungu Day, which roughly translates to “the day we co-signed a very bad deal” on 18 November 2017 which culminated in the resignation of the late former president of Zimbabwe, Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

What begun as an ordinary overcast Saturday, amidst a very uncertain week, became a festive street carnival as people marched to the Presidential Statehouse in solidarity of the military intervention, that state media broadcasted as “not a military takeover of government” But the defence forces pacifying a degenerating political, social and economic situation.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you how memory is such a fickle thing, I notice a lot of people referring to the 17^th of November as our Dzungu Day yet it wasn’t, that’s when the power brokering was done behind the scenes under the guise of the military safeguarding the president, from the criminals surrounding him.

On the 18^th of November 2017, the solidarity march sanitised everything that had transpired, how could it be anything else when people were cheering as army helicopters flew by and taking pictures with arm personnel…

Fast forward to 8 years later, and we now recall this as national dzungu day, as if our actions on that day changed the course of history, that we the people had single-handedly marched to the Statehouse, and demanded for the president’s resignation, when we were simply inconsequential pawns in a game of chess whose outcome had already been decided weeks before.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that afterwards I wrote a blog post on the Solidarity March and another one year later, looking back and reading between the lines, we shouldn’t let history be rewritten to make it seem what happened was our decision, nor kick ourselves for enjoying the singular most euphoric moment to have happened in the country in the last 40 years.

https://twitter.com/Beatonm5/status/931784449431343104?s=20

I have never seen people that happy, nor have they ever rallied behind any other solidarity march, now whenever any sort of movement calls for people to march, to demonstrate their support, people are likely to stay away and when asked to stay away, suddenly remember how they wont be paid if they stay away… Some of that can be traced back to the dzungu day feeling, that they did this before and nothing came of it…

Of course our government in its great benevolence, wants to keep the country peaceful and tranquil and will not tolerate any actions that destabilise a constitutionally elected government or spread unnecessary despondency and alarm which are considered treasonous actions.

If you were having coffee with me, I would ask where you were on the 18^th of November 2017 and whats been happening in your neck of the woods?

~B