{"id":88904,"date":"2015-02-05T16:03:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T16:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=88904"},"modified":"2015-02-05T16:03:48","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T16:03:48","slug":"robert-mugabe-fell-tried-hide-ended-becoming-meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=88904","title":{"rendered":"Robert Mugabe fell over, tried to hide it and ended up becoming a meme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwe president\u00a0and recently elected chair of the African Union (AU), was in\u00a0Harare on Wednesday to give a speech. As he walked down from the podium, he appeared to trip and fall. It was caught on\u00a0film.<\/p>\n<p>For a 90-year-old man, a trip is\u00a0understandable. What&#8217;s less easy to understand is what happened next: Zimbabwe&#8217;s government issued a denial.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018\u2019Nobody has shown any evidence of the president having fallen down because that did not happen,&#8221; Information Minister Jonathan Moyo toldthe state-owned Zimbabwe Herald, before offering a more obtuse explanation.\u00a0&#8220;The hump on which the president tripped was formed by two pieces of the carpet which apparently had not been laid out properly where they joined. And to be honest with you, even Jesus, let alone you, would have also tripped in that kind of situation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the circumstances, there\u2019s really nothing to write home about the nonsensical celebrations by malcontents who are imagining a fall that never was since it was actually broken by the president himself,\u201d Moyo\u00a0said.<\/p>\n<p>The information minister&#8217;s comments formed part of a broader media response. While international media like the Associated Press caught it on film, local photographers are claiming that they were\u00a0forced to delete their pictures of the fall by Mugabe&#8217;s security personnel. For many Twitter users, the response to the fall seemed ridiculous: And thus, a meme was born: #MugabeFalls.<\/p>\n<div class=\"flex-embed\" data-twttr-id=\"twttr-sandbox-0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88905\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/0.jpg\" alt=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"481\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88906\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/13.jpg\" alt=\"1\" width=\"499\" height=\"524\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88907\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/2.jpg\" alt=\"2\" width=\"496\" height=\"452\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88908\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/3.jpg\" alt=\"3\" width=\"500\" height=\"473\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88909\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/4.jpg\" alt=\"4\" width=\"501\" height=\"423\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88910\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/5.jpg\" alt=\"5\" width=\"497\" height=\"425\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88911\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/6.jpg\" alt=\"6\" width=\"502\" height=\"526\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88912\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/7.jpg\" alt=\"7\" width=\"503\" height=\"479\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88913\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/111.jpg\" alt=\"11\" width=\"502\" height=\"459\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The official concern over the public perception of Mugabe&#8217;s health is nothing new. The Zimbabwean strongman will be 91 in February and has led his country for almost 35 years, a period during which he has slowly become an international pariah.<\/p>\n<p>Exactly what happens after he leaves office isn&#8217;t clear, and reports about his health are treated like state secrets by the Zimbabwean government. On his 90th birthday, for example, a spokesperson had to deny reports\u00a0that his frequent trips to Singapore were due to treatment for undisclosed colon cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Asked how he was on Wednesday, Mugabe himself dismissed the concern. &#8220;I am okay, it was just a slip,&#8221; he said, according to the\u00a0Zimbabwe Herald.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source:\u00a0washingtonpost.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwe president\u00a0and recently elected chair of the African Union (AU), was in\u00a0Harare on Wednesday to give a speech. As he walked down from the podium, he appeared to trip and fall. It was caught on\u00a0film. For a 90-year-old man, a trip is\u00a0understandable. What&#8217;s less easy to understand is what happened next: Zimbabwe&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38,14],"class_list":["post-88904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}