EVER since his latest appointment to the influential post Information, Media and Broadcasting Services minister, Jonathan Moyo has spearheaded a flawless campaign of rebranding and sanitising his image.
After his unexpected electoral defeat to a hitherto political nonentity in the July 2013 elections, Moyo has for some strange reason mutated into a perfect example of a conciliatory and progress-oriented statesman.
The erudite one has managed to remain level-headed at a time when the least expected from him would be the typical Zanu PF arrogance and fortitude as others of his political ilk engage themselves in. Those indoctrinated with raw Zanu PF dogma continue to falsely pontificate on the successes of ZimAsset.
Apologies for any misgivings, but the economy is not firing on all cylinders and the dream that ZimAsset promised is becoming a nightmare.
Moyo has taken a different approach. He has recreated himself as a man of reason and rationale. He has fired warning salvos to errant Zanu PF appointees in his ministry. He has offered well thought out suggestions and comments to pertinent issues. The man has been a gem to listen to really. He surely is a cut from a different cloth we have known him to be.
Moyo is no longer the man who acted like a rabid dog towards the privately owned media. He is a different from the Moyo who oversaw the dismantling of Capital Radio’s transmitters on the roof of the Monomutapa Hotel in 2000.
He is different from the loquacious junior minister who barked obscenities when the Daily News suffered the fate of having explosive and incendiary devices set off at its offices and at its printing press respectively.
He is now talking the talk of freeing the airwaves and walking the walk of embracing journalists from the private sector.
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Moyo seems to have assumed the higher moral ground which was previously a feature of the opposition. One would think that the current state of limbo the opposition finds itself in due to in-fighting has left a void in the monitoring and exposure of heavy-handed use of State machinery. Moyo has taken it upon his new good self to fill the apparent void.
Recently, he denounced the overzealousness of the police in thwarting a Zimbabwe Union of Journalists march to commemorate Press Freedom Day.
He is a man on a people oriented mission.
The professor’s current display of humility and good reason shows that not all hope is lost for Zimbabwe. This could be a beginning of the much-awaited vindication for Zimbabweans from the globally held belief that they are cold-hearted people who cannot survive outside the cut-throat domain of dirty politics.
The new Moyo lends credence to the fact that it is easier to be natural than to put up an artificial, rehearsed and expensively fitted political facade. It is obvious that during his rogue days, Moyo had to do a lot of research into badness.
He had to coin phrases that epitomised evil and he had to recite satanic verses just to conform to the siege mentality of the Zanu PF crew.
Moyo should be experiencing some dramatic relief by reverting to his default, natural and humane position.
He does not need to blame colonialism for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation being haemorrhaged huge sums of money to meet the unhealthy financial appetites of its top brass.
He no longer has to find clauses in the Zanu PF constitution to use in apportioning blame to the opposition for the country’s economic woes.
Life’s laws dictate that telling and sustaining a lie is more stressful than telling the truth and considering his learnedness and shrewdness, the professor is conversant with that simple axiom. It seems he has decided to live up to it.
Moyo’s current actions, utterances and body language are a living testimony of a man living the truth. He is happy to leave the stressful route of flavouring wrongs with more lies and live the naturally in honesty, openness and candour.
There should be no stopping the good professor now. Let the goodness in him shine through the darkness of his colleagues in Zanu PF. Let him cleanse the misguided beliefs held by most Zanu PF members that propaganda has to be all lies and no truths.
Thanks to Moyo’s new approach, everyone maybe slowly beginning to realise that the truth is the way forward.
Mindsets are slowly being decolonised from Zanu PF’s lies and deception. When all Zimbabweans begin to realise that they have all along been fed on a diet of lies from Zanu PF’s propaganda dish, then the march towards wider change may begin.
At the moment Moyo is pioneering a carefully managed change process from within the juggernaut. Such a paradigm shift instigated from within can help the cause.
After Zimbabweans had become hopelessly disillusioned about their future, the advent of a rebranded Jonathan has sprung up new hope.
The trend has now been set for others to follow. The stubbornly stolid elephant in the room will soon be named without fear or favour.
Masola waDabudabu is a social commentator
