This is something that Team Pachedu and their handlers failed to achieve when they tried to call for a national shutdown in their twitter revolution attempt which was called for by foreign elements who had nothing in common with the masses they purported to be representing.
Team Pachedu, a group of online self-proclaimed “patriotic Zimbabwean citizens who strive to promulgate the culture of transparency, responsibility and accountability without any fear or favour,” tried to move their revolution from the web into the streets but no one was buying what they were selling.
Since 2018 when they introduced themselves to the Zimbabwean political landscape on twitter, they enjoyed a brisk rise in online followers and this gave them a false sense of confidence. They thought that their online success would translate to real life followers. They could not have been more wrong.
With the aid of a failed South African politician, Mmusi Maimane, Pachedu called for the masses to stay at home on 9 May 2022 but the call was resoundingly ignored by the people as they went about their business.
Pachedu’s wishful thinking was to shut down the nation and arm-twist Government to bend to their will. Alas, their misguided motives to cause chaos and confusion with a view to advancing their regime change agenda were transparent and the people embarrassingly ignored them all together.
Promulgating a regime change agenda through social media was not the invention of Pachedu. It has been tried before by other wayward elements and the result has always been unsurprisingly the same. They all failed, this should have been a lesson for Pachedu.
Once upon a time, a man named Evan Mawarire tried the online activism route with his #ThisFlag campaign but now he is nothing more than a footnote in the history of the nation. Mawarire also had the support of the United States of America who even went as far as rewarding his family with citizenship and ‘protection’ in the US.
The #ThisFlag campaign fell flat on its face and did not manage to bring the nation to its knees through mass protests mainly because it was not a home grown movement.
It tried to hoodwink the masses by disguising itself as a people’s movement by a simple man-of-god with genuine grievances. However, it all fell apart when people saw the lavish life Mawarire and his family were living as reward for steering up confusion in the country. That was the end. Now people do not even remember the name of the false prophet called Mawarire.
Recent memory also recollects the attempts by another online movement by keyboard warriors in the form of the #Tajamuka campaign. The movement was led by one Promise Mkwananzi.
This movement also tried to call for mass stay-aways and a national shutdown. The results were identical to those faced by Mawarire and the reasons also similar. Mkwananzi could be seen rubbing shoulders with the then US Ambassador. This was enough to make people question his motives and the real hand behind his calls was exposed and as they say was the end of it.
Just like Mawarire and Mkwananzi, Pachedu got drunk on the illusion of power that they got from online followers and keyboard activists. They forgot the key fundamentals of a revolution as taught by Mao Zedong. Mao preached that in a revolution, the people are water and the revolutionaries are the fish, for a fish to succeed and survive it cannot do without water.
These keyboard revolutionaries at Team Pachedu are now presenting themselves as the water and forgetting that the equation only works if the people are in-on-it and their views matter than those of any foreign donor deep pockets.
Team Pachedu thought they had made it when they passed the two hundred thousand followers threshold. However, they failed to take into account that Zimbabwe is not twitter and the masses on the ground have critical free minds that can assess the veracity of a threat and weigh the pros and cons of following foreign advice from western nations with their own misguided agendas for their country.
Pachedu overplayed their hand and there is no coming back from this. They are headed for the same exit as Mawarire and Mkwananzi.
