On the 12th of London, a group consisting of MDC, ZHRO members and human rights activists participated in a demonstration outside Chatham House, where SB Moyo, the 2017 coup announcer, was carrying out a PR exercise designed to appropriate the brutal Zanu regime in the eyes of the British establishment.
By demonstrating against SB Moyo, these men and women were doing something that would never happen in Zimbabwe right now. Demonstrating against a big shot soldier like him is unthinkable in Zim and those who would dare to do such a thing would be thrown in prison on trumped up charges, if they are lucky.
Zimbabweans living in the democratic diaspora should celebrate the freedom they have to demonstrate against these junta types who have descended the country back to the dark ages. There is no electricity or water in Zim, yet Zanu and their cohorts continue to buy themselves SUVs and much else luxurious using taxpayers money. Watching all this profligacy and corruption happening is a frightened and spooked Zimbabwean public people who can only whisper amongst themselves their displeasure at the detritus in the country. And so, one would have thought the demonstration at Chatham house would be celebrated by Zimbabwean progressives. But, so far, the public discourse by some eminent progressives has been worryingly fraught with nimbyism. We need to celebrate this demonstration and the defiance shown by these men and women because many of our people living in Zim can only wish they had that freedom. In fact, we need more demos against junta types who venture into the diaspora to give the moneyed establishment a rosy impression of things in Zimbabwe when in fact millions are languishing without water or electricity, in addition to the poverty and state oppression.
By
Terence Rusirevi
Information and Publicity