Letter to Grandpa Hamudiamwe on Unity day

In Zimbabwe it is a holiday called Unity day today. It is the day that the late Dr Joshua Nkomo put a stamp of approval on a one party state system in this country and I can't help wondering if Mudhara wethu, Nkomo, knew the mistake he was making in doing that. I wonder if he knew that in so doing he was killing democracy in this country. But you know what, I forgive the old man because he was only trying to save his Ndebele tribe from being completely eliminated from the face of the earth by Gukurahundi. As I woke up this morning and realised that I wasn't going to work I sat down and thought about the political events that have unfolded in the country ever since that fateful day of 22 December. Somehow my thoughts went to the fictitious Grandpa Hamudiamwe, chief of our village whom I told you about in an earlier article entitled, "Grandpa can't you see that your time is up," because he is one staunch believer of a one party state. I thought about how mindsets keep changing as people evolve and undergo personal development and growth and learn from experiences. To be sucessful as a leader one needs to have a flexible mindset that changes with the changing times and be aware of the paradigm shifts happening in the world and adjust his/her leadership style in line with them. That is were Grandpa Hamudiamwe, Chief of our village got it all wrong. Somewhere during his reign, he lost touch of the political paradigm shifts and got stuck in the old autocratic style of leadership and the old communist ideologies that had failed the test of time. The onus is now on us to teach the old dog new tricks and it is proving to be very difficult to do so because grandpa thinks he has got the monopoly on knowledge and wisdom and so will not listen to anyone. I thought of spending the holiday writing a letter to my Grandpa Hamudiamwe as part of efforts to teach him new tricks and then sharing the letter with you readers since I am afraid to have it delivered to him because I am afraid of facing his wrath if he reads it. Here is the letter to Grandpa but please will all forms of intelligence remember that Grandpa Hamudiamwe is a figment of my imagination and any resemblance he might have to anyone you know is pure coincidence.

Dear Grandpa
Grandpa we know how the communists poisoned your mind with their Marxist/Leninist theories of a one party state, when they were providing you with guns which you used to liberate us from the foreign settlers who had settled in our village. We know how they made you believe that having a one party state would unite all the villagers. They were wrong grandpa. What unites the citizens of any village is not the one party system, but freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from abductions, freedom from detention without trial, respect of human rights, respect for the independence of the judiciary, free enterprise, equal opportunities, fair competition and a reasonable profit motive. Give these things to the people of our village grandpa and they will feel liberated and will be united in peace. Give them a one party system and they will feel oppressed and unhappy and where there is unhappiness there is disunity. Nowhere on earth has the one party state brought about national unity. For 72 years the USSR tried to use the one party system, the Communist Party, to unite all the 15 Republics but it failed. Ever since you got the chieftainship , 28 years ago, you have been trying to implement the one party system grandpa and it is clear that you are failing. In consequence of which you resort to strong arm methods like state organised murders, abductions and detentions without trial, gross violation of human rights, censorship of the press, rigging of elections and so forth just so as to kill all forms of opposition and maintain a one party system. Please grandpa get it into your head that a one party system does not work and it will never work no matter how desperate you want it to work. Allow other political parties in the village grandpa and let them contest you in fair democratic elections for chieftainship in peace, without intimidations, killings, tortures or detentions and gracefully admit defeat if you are defeated. Learn to let go the chieftainship position grandpa and get it into your head that the fact that you liberated the village from foreign settlers, doesn't mean that you have to rule the village until Kingdom come.

Grandpa if you had cared to keep up to date with the political paradigm shifts in the world you would have noticed that the communist ideology that you are still clinging on to as proved by your actions of killing opposition party supporters died and got buried ceremoniously when the Berlin Wall was torn down. You would also have noticed that democracy became the accepted ideology the world over and rightfully so because it is full of so much goodness. It respects the life of human beings and has policies that ensure that there is peace and happiness among the people. If for one one day you had cared to stop and ponder you would have thrown your, "I know everything," complacent and arrogant attitude out of the window and changed your communist leadership style and applied democracy into this village. You know what grandpa, if you think I am making a lot of sense, you have got a chance to make things right again in this village by swallowing your pride and calling for fresh fair democratic elections as early as February or March next year, 2009. Doing so will save a lot of villagers' lives who are living with the danger of the probability of dying from cholera and hunger if you remain in power. If you do decide on calling for fresh new elections I advise you to keep your over-zealous youth militia on a leash so that they don't unleash violence on to the the opposition parties supporters. Tell them in no uncertain terms that you will not tolerate any violence during the campaign period or after the election results have been announced and repeat it over and over again so that it gets through to their dull brains.

Let me conclude my letter by telling you grandpa that I respect you for liberating us from the foreign settlers and will always do so in spite of everything that you have done wrong since then. I refuse to judge you for your wrong doings, will leave God to do the judging. I will forgive you for your indifference as your helpers let the village go down the drain with their gross corruption and incompetence and as the villagers died of hunger and cholera, if you make this one right move and save the village from total collapse. My late Grandma Sarai, your late wife loved humanity and I am sure she would have agreed with me on this way forward. Please if you can't do it for me your granddaughter whom you hate for always coming up with controversial topics, do it for the memory of your late wife who loved you a lot. Please grandpa I plead you to do it for the innocent lives of the villagers who have suffered enough and expect you to be humane enough as to be sympathetic to their pathetic plight.

Grandpa even though you disowned me for the mere reason that I talk to much and have always been the one to argue with you concerning your tyrannical dictatorship, I remain your grand-daughter.

Yours sincerely
Muzukuru Stillwaters