Popular award winning Zimbabwean journalist, Hopewell Chin’ono, has denied that he is working for General Chiwenga.
This follows accusations made by MDC Alliance youth leaders this week. The youth leaders were responding to Chin’ono ‘s comments that Chamisa is surrounded by bootlickers.
Writing on Facebook, Chin’ono said:
The past two days have been revealing for not only myself, but for many others who speak to me offline.
The minute I pointed out the MDC-A weaknesses, I got the same attacks that I get from ZANUPF and its supporters for revealing their looting, corruption and incompetence!
Many MDC-A supporters including some of their leaders accused me deceitfully of not accepting criticism when I blocked them.
I have posted what they said before some of them were blocked, you as a reader and someone with common sense, tell me whether you would call that fair criticism!
When I criticize ZANUPF, they say that I have been sent by the West, America, Britain What-What.
Now I have pointed to the MDC-A the areas that they must work on in 2021, and they say that I am working for ZANUPF, and some of their leaders say that I am being sent by General Chiwenga 😂😂😂
Now how different is their thinking from ZANUPF’s thinking which assumes that one can’t think for themselves without being told by someone else?
Would you have continued engaging with someone who is posting such horrible insults and LIES?
Let us talk among criticism, a lot of them confuse insults for criticism.
I am a journalist, I am not always right, when I write something, you can engage me on the issues and we discuss them with civility.
If you think that I am wrong, then make me see your superior logic so that I learn.
Do you do that by calling me names including lies that I work for Chiwenga or saying “…there is no hope on Hopewell,” as one of the MDC-A leaders did?
The MDC-A must know that there is a huge silent majority that doesn’t comment on social media, but it reads these things!
Their behavior here as a leadership of that party will either make people feel energized to vote for them, or stay at home and disengage from politics.
The average Zimbabwean wants political change, and not just a change of political parties!
Political change is seen in how you engage with those who disagree with you, not just those that agree with you!
A lot of them have been taking about criticizing me too because they said I criticized their party, I am happy to be criticized because I became who I am through constructive criticism!
If I were them, I would not bother with criticizing a journalist, I would engage with what he has said and see if we can get something of value there or put what we think has been misconstrued into perspective.
Criticizing journalists instead of their contend is pointless because they are not the ones that have failed to deliver water into urban homes.
It is not journalists that have looted public funds or failed to create an environment conducive for job creation.
It is not journalists that have failed to put medicines into hospitals, but if they say, if you did things this way, this will help the masses, what is wrong with that?
During the GNU I told Morgan Tsvangirai in the presence of Alex Magaisa that his office was packed with CIOs and plants.
He laughed it off and said that I was wrong, I kept quiet.
His head of security and legal research at the time are running Mnangagwa’s unit that has been ordering the arrests of people including myself.
His spokesman is Mnangagwa’s ambassador to Senegal and the beat goes on.
In 2018 I wrote a piece that you all know advising the MDC-A to have a congress after Morgan’s death, I was called a ZANUPF supporter after mentioning that an illegality would be used by ZANUPF to come after Chamisa.
We all know what happened! A political party that sees constructive advice and criticism as an attack will be no different from the one in power!
The abuse I got from some MDC-A leaders for merely expressing a view was so vile such that if they had keys for a jail, they would have thrown me on there.
I will NOT stop expressing my views because the constitution of Zimbabwe protects that right.
Unlike others, mine will not be insults but genuine views rooted in wanting to see a political culture change and not just a change of political parties!
We should not support political sycophancy or bootlicking as I said in my response to one of the MDC-A leaders.
Mugabe didn’t start of the way he ended, it was the people around him that built the monster he became by attacking anyone who constructively criticized him until he started killing people!
We don’t want that culture ever again!!!!
Now if we express that and you insult me, don’t complain when I block you.
It is for my own sanity as engaging with insults doesn’t add any value to our political culture!
ALL political parties should know that there is a silent majority that doesn’t necessarily make noise on social media, they must win their hearts and minds.
You don’t do that by behaving exactly the same way your political opponent you want to remove behaves!!
