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Civil society organisations have just announced that they have abandoned their oppositional stance. As reported by our Harare Bureau yesterday, the non-governmental organisations have suddenly realised how lost and anti-national development they had been to warrant a public declaration that they now want a constructive relationship with the state. Sadc Council of NGOs
regional economic integration manager Rangarirai Machemedze said confrontation between government and the civil society was bad for the country.
“We have to close ranks and work together as a collective unit for the good of the country,” he said adding that the civil society could play a major role in complementing government in developing the country.

The regional forum also came up with resolutions that would be submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for onward submission to the Victoria Falls Sadc Summit. The NGOs held a meeting in Harare this week that was also attended by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa and agreed at that meeting to change course.
Ambassador Mutsvangwa welcomed them back, but chastised them for their old adversarial position. Nevertheless, he expressed happiness in that civil society had reached their Damascene Moment.
“For a long time,” he said, “the civil society has been sponsored by anti-government people, but now after the July 31 (2013) elections, they are now abandoning the position of being anti-government.

“They say they are now ready to work with government because they are abandoning the donor-driven agenda. They are now desperate for legitimacy by associating with government. It is a major shift. They are saying they are now keen to meet the President with their regional organisations.”

Governments exist to serve everyone; therefore they work to accommodate all, even those that seem hopelessly reckless. Our government has taken a policy of building national consensus for greater national development which is why Ambassador Mutsvangwa took a positive view of the NGOs announcement.
But the welcome should be a grudging one, and that makes sense.

NGOs in Zimbabwe had embedded themselves shamelessly in MDC-T politics and were openly advancing the opposition party’s campaign for political power.
They denounced Zanu-PF, pretending they were independent organisations unhappy with the politics of the country.  They campaigned across the globe for governments to isolate Zanu-PF and Zimbabwe and to back MDC-T. Government tolerated them for a while, but with time, justifiably took NGOs for what they had become, legitimate political opponents. At some point parliament passed the NGO Bill, a tough piece of legislation that was meant to enhance stronger government oversight on civil society activities in the country.  That was correct as they indeed had become a political opponent dressed in the garb of independent non-state actors.
That the Damascene Moment was announced by a Sadc network of NGOs is testimony to the broad strategy that went beyond our national borders to malign and fight Zanu-PF.
But with MDC-T now history following its spectacular defeat in elections last year, the civil society now pretends to want to work with the Zanu-PF government for national development!

The other day we had a foreigner, of all people, calling on local civil society organisations to revise their ways and work with the Zanu-PF government for national development. This must have embarrassed the NGOs to their death, but these are institutions that have allowed themselves to be used by donors since 2000 and have no shame in them anymore.
European Union Ambassador to Zimbabwe Aldo Dell’Arricia said the civil society leaders and opposition politicians were not doing themselves and their country a favour by seeking to fight the government all the time.

Civil society’s shameful about-turn or tactical change is analogous to a husband who because he loves the high life, abandons his wife to enjoy himself spending money on prostitutes and beer.
When the money gets finished or when he sees himself on the precipice, he turns back to swear undying love for his original wife. Few women take such men back!
But can we trust the NGOs?  No we don’t think they deserve much trust. We reject this self-preservative turn, which may not be sincere.
Experience has taught us not to trust them.  It is always clever to be vigilant anyway.

This is the starting point, a watchful one, but no one has anything to atone for, apart from the NGOs themselves. They have to demonstrate that Saul is now Paul, totally. That is a true Damascene Moment.