Veteran investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono says his will not stop fighting for a better Zimbabwe by holding the President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa led regime to account for its actions and deeds.
Chin’ono says he will take on the regime at the international level and
He says he is not interested in forming political parties or becoming politicians, as he and his supporters are above that and are only interested in fighting for freedom by helping vulnerable people stay alive and having their cause heard across the world.
Responding to a comment by political commentator Maximilian Lion, Chin’ono said:
Thank you very much,
@maximilianlion, for this enlightening and honest observation.
The overwhelming response I have received from ordinary Zimbabweans, both at home and abroad, is that the project must go ahead, and it will go ahead.
My desire is for the project to articulate the daily struggles that our people face, such as healthcare, corruption, jobs, migration and more.
We have political prisoners in jail, and the fight to secure their freedom and put an end to these arbitrary arrests and imprisonments must also now be fought on the international stage.
You don’t respond to a political crisis by sending mobs of trolls to attack people with different ideas.
You unite around a cause and ideas with those genuinely fighting for change, there is room for everyone who means well.
So, thank again for your honest insights. The days of talking without action are over for some of us.
We will roll up our sleeves and work using our skills on the international stage.
Those who want to work can come along, those who are content with the existing socio-political reality can stay where they are!
We are not interested in forming political parties or becoming politicians, we are above that, we are only interested in fighting for our freedom by helping our vulnerable people stay alive and having our cause heard across the world.
Anything else is just hot air that we should ignore, substance speaks for itself once work is being done!
Anyone who finds fault with a group of people fighting to keep people alive and getting our freedom is a selfish person who doesn’t have Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans at heart.
Lion had posted:
Throwing Out The Baby With The Bathwater: A @daddyhope
Conundrum.
What stood out to me listening to @daddyhope over the last few days is the response from those in government and in the opposition.
Whether you agree with what he said or not, you have to acknowledge that when conventional methods fail, people can get creative.
That is life.
There was a sense of panic from the Zim political landscape. They were shaken because they thought what Hopewell was proposing is a threat to their political parties.
A threat to the control that they enjoyed endlessly.
This control made them complacent and take people for granted.
It was good for once to see them feel threatened and it exposed their hypocrisy. When we tell them to govern in the interest of the people, they ignore us. When we tell them to create ideas driven systems, they ignore us. When we tell them to facilitate voting for the diaspora, they ignore us.
They’ve been drifting comfortably with no sense of duty and accountability. Some leaders who never speak up against violation of human rights and corruption spoke against Hopewell.
There is a plan in motion to amend the constitution so the President can govern beyond constitutional provisions but leaders are missing in action.
It was quite telling that even opposition members who never spoke against the potential abuse of the constitution, had strong words against Hopewell.
There is a serious point that Hopewell was making and it’s important that people don’t miss it. You may not like what he said, but you need to see the elephant in the room.
He was implying that there is no space for credible opposition to operate in Zim. He was not convinced by the manner in which the opposition executes its politics.
Further, he finds the health infrastructure deplorable and its impact on ordinary people. In essence, he was thinking outside the box because conventional methods have failed terribly.
There is no realistic prospect of transformation coming from current political parties and their leaders. We may not like the style and manner in which he submitted his message, but let’s at least learn to read between the lines.
It’s like eating fish, you take the flesh out and leave the bones. A dissection that is needed if one is to separate what is essential from what is not needed.
A similar approach would help when digesting ideas instead of letting emotions get in the way of logic.
