Former Foreign Affairs minister Dr Walter Mzembi suggests that Britain, with its historical infIuence over Zimbabweans, could mediate political differences again.
He cites past instances like Lancaster.
Mzembi praises the British Ambassador’s diplomatic skills and urges for commercial diplomacy to aid in uniting people.
He writes:
The British our former colonial master have a unique convening authority & spell over Zimbabweans which they can strategically invoke again for the second time to help resolve our differences. Lancaster 2.0.
For time immemorial from my time in Government noone turns down invitations by the @UKinZimbabwe British Ambassador of the time to celebrate in the past the Queen’s Birthday or now the King ‘s Birthday.
Many of the RSVPs hardly remember their mother or father’s birthdays, some even their spouses and children but the Royal Birthday is a must and privilege to attend!
So it is not surprising that yesterday’s celebrations hosted by the British Ambassador @Petevowels had this political “who is who” turnout from both Zanu PF and its Government and the now fragmented opposition formations and their leaders.
But it is not the royal toast that stole the day yesterday, NO! ; it was the mingling of “friends and foe” and people who have severely fallen out and irretrievably insulted each other including acrimonious political divorces that was the hallmark of cultural & folklore diplomacy on “British soil. I have already complimented
@PeteVowels the current British Ambassador as recently as last month at the Berlin Institute of Cultural Diplomacy Forum on Folkore Diplomacy for being able to marinate our hard politics with his culinary soft skills.
He is an acceptable personality across the board.
Seeing political folk mingling laughing and talking about this and that in British jurisdiction reminded me of Lanchaster in 1979 which hosted the most hostile opposites of our liberation era leading to our Independence in 1980. Only the British could do it.
Recently the King himself extended an inaugural invitation to the President @edmnangagwa to attend his Coronation and many of us also don’t forget how the last British Administration sanitised the Nov 2017 Coup transition that gave birth to the “New Dispensation” under the veil of a reform minded administration that the British could do business with.
Catriona Laing sired this narrative on
“British grounds” even before Mugabe had gone. I was one of its endorsers at her official Residence when i sold the man i had worked with for 15 years as a potential Reformer and successor to Mugabe in a speech i did to visiting British businessmen.
Don’t ask my opinion now, many opportunities have been missed and lost, it is not the subject of this post.
My submission is the British still hold a unifying and constructive spell on Zimbabweans if they choose to, and extend their current commercial diplomacy thrust to finding a lasting solution to our acrimonious politics.
All they need to do is host and facilitate, under the King ‘ s patronage. Noone will say No.
I speak from experience, even Mugabe himself a few months before his ouster had agreed to” tea with the Queen” . 7 years down the line and before that we have not been able to convene ourselves and resolve our differences.
South Africa had an electoral stalemate which is being resolved amongst themselves as we speak @MYANC & @Our_DA going broke for a Coalition of Opposites no matter how imperfect but its effort at nation building.
Zimbabweans are still waiting for Jehovah Rapha & Jehovah Nissi to come down and sit them down!
Happy Sabbath Reflections
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