The Legacy of the Original Fallout Boy Shines On..

Regarding my previous article: I’m both impressed and shocked by Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to step out of the upcoming elections in Zimbabwe. As a powerful volte-face his course of action is comparable to Richard Nixon’s sudden resignation from his presidency in 1974. Facing impeachment and, many thought, inevitable conviction following the accusations levelled by the Watergate scandal Nixon’s sudden deflationary tactic meant that he could no longer face trial as he formally stepped down from the legally vulnerable position needed to carry out the prosecution process. Thereby allowing him to make the famous claim “I have never been acquitted” because he literally removed himself from the line of fire. Morgan Tsvangirai’s choice of tack is equally ingenious.

Without meaning to trivialise the matter, or to compare him too closely with the odious Nixon, Tsvangirai has done a great thing, both politically and from an ethical standpoint. Whereas Nixon could have righteously been accused of weaseling out of his predicament, Tsvangirai has made what you might call a courageous retreat. Faced with the numerous assassinations and rising intimidation of his fellow party members, the atrocities carried out against the Zimbabwean voters, and the fact that even by winning the election he would in some respect end up losing overall, Tsvangirai has attempted to quell Mugabe’s reign of violence. In doing he has also announced a highly provocative j’accuse that was already on everyone’s lips, perhaps also a subtle dig at the international community who are too complacently avowed to fight the wrong battles, in the wrong countries, which should bring greater pressure to bear on the horrific regime Zimbabwe is forced to suffer.

Now that Mugabe will win his election Tsvangirai has certainly put the ball in the opposition’s court. It is with a weak sense of optimism that I hope in gaining this hollow victory by his own dirty bloody ways, Mugabe will now stand under the crosshairs of the world, and that their aim will come to bear. Leaving Mugabe to face the realisation that almost all dictators will at some pointed in their jilted “career” succeed in hanging themselves if only by the testimony of their own actions.