TO achieve their ends on the continent, since time immemorial, the whites have employed subtlety, reserving the hammer till the last.
When King Leopold of Belgium sent out missionaries to ‘soften’ Africans to prepare them for colonisation, he urged them not to treat indigenes as an ignorant people, for they were not.
Ever since, once a decision has been taken to colonise, conquer or effect regime change, strategies will be crafted, honed, perfected and if need be crafted, honed and perfected again, until the end has been achieved.
The West, after failing to remove the Robert Mugabe-led Government from power has adopted a conciliatory approach, re-engagement it calls the process.
But we must not be fooled for the regime change agenda is still very much alive.
Only this time around it is no longer overt, no loud noises, no blatant use of the media to show the horns and tail of the ‘evil regime’.
Theatre has become the preferred tool to make the people ‘rise’ against the ‘evil’ Government.
The idea behind theatre being to employ ‘their sons and daughters, who are black and using their languages to drive the regime change agenda rhetoric’.
As they wine and dine with the regime they despise, presenting ‘deals’ and ‘opportunities’, behind the scenes they are orchestrating maneuvers to oust the Government whose ideology is steeped in the empowerment of the masses.
Did not Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister of the UK take a friendlier approach to Muammar Gaddafi. He even flew to Tripoli to seal a deal for Gaddafi to rejoin the international community.
This led to the lifting of Libyan sanctions and the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber suffering from cancer. 
So perfect was the re-engagement and making-up with Gaddafi that in 2009, he was invited to address the United Nations and as the veteran Libyan leader celebrated the 40th anniversary of his revolution that year, he was obviously happy with how relations with the West had turned out.
And when Gaddafi stopped his nuclear programme to please the new ‘friends’ in March 2011, a multi-state NATO-led coalition began a military ‘intervention’ in Libya.
And today there is no Libya worth talking of.
Locally, the proliferating number of arts and theatre groups now engaged in anti-Government plays, the so-called political satires, should ring alarm bells.
These plays have now left the realm of festivals such as the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) and theatre parks and gone to the grassroots, to the people.
The themes of plays shown at this year’s HIFA are a clear testimony of how regime change agenda has morphed into the arts.
For instance, the number of theatre and musical groups in Bulawayo that are being sponsored to go on month-long tours to some European countries hostile to Zimbabwe to perform anti-Government plays and songs is on the increase.
Writers are being sponsored to attend writing workshops abroad where they are urged to produce, in the name of ‘democracy’, books and plays with anti-Government themes.
Visual artists have also been roped in to demonise the country through artworks that are exhibited in private homes and galleries.
This new wave of regime change tactics comes in the wake of failure by regime change proponents, through the civil society groups, to effect regime change through touted political, social and economic reforms that manifested in hard-biting illegal sanctions imposed on the country by Britain and her allies.
According to the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute (ZDI), a local political think-tank, in its recently published policy document titled ‘Priorities for civil society-donors engagement in Zimbabwe’ the civil society should realise that the ‘regime change agenda’ they have been pursuing has not yielded the desired outcomes so far and should therefore be abandoned forthwith.
It also encouraged the donor community not to prioritise NGOs per se as funds poured into these organisations only benefited the few elite civil society office-bearers.
Instead, funds would better be channelled to organisations like arts groups.
“The civil society must drop the regime change agenda with its logic rooted in the ‘will to power’ and adopt a ‘will to transform’ approach. They must not be funded to produce political change narrowly constructed as regime change. This makes them abandon their role as conscience of society meant to transform society,” recommended the think-tank.
The paper further said: “Civil society programming must be driven by the ‘will to transform’ that is to advance the life of the community of the people to improve political conscientiousness and quality of life.”
Political analyst Tonderai Damba said the arts sector had been identified as more effective as it was deemed ‘not too confrontational’.
“It must be noted that the arts, especially theatre, has been effective in promoting health issues. People got to understand issues surrounding HIV/AIDS, malaria and immunisation through theatre,” said Damba.
“It was through dramas delivered in languages that people got to understand these issues at the grassroots. Now regime change proponents are adopting the same tactic. How best can you get the attention of the folk in the rural areas, in this case to corrupt them, but through theatre.”
“Presently there is proliferation of these groups across the country purporting to be engaged in civic education on political rights, media freedom and voter education programmes to transform the lives of the communities.”
He said ‘vulnerable’ arts groups were being targeted to deliver plays that ridiculed achievements gained thus far and some were meant to foment divisions, for example, between the Ndebele and Shona people.
“What raises eyebrows is why there are no plays highlighting the achievements of the country, celebrating successes we have recorded in areas like agriculture, even in entrepreneurship,” said Damba.
“Clearly regime change proponents continue to seek ways to destabilise the country. Even as they say they are re-engaging the nation, they are just bidding their time. We must not be caught napping.”