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Writers Articles And Opinions |
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25 December 2009 By Reason Wafawarova
One most outstanding feature of the achievement of
independence for Zimbabwe was the efficacious transfer
of power from a minority white community to the black
majority.
That transfer of power manifested itself in many
ways, from the renaming of the country and all its
major places and features, the abolishment of
segregation in education, sport, art and other social
aspects; to infrastructural development in remote
areas and so on — and yes, even to the concept of one
man one vote.
In five months, it will be 30 years on this
revolutionary path from a colonial minority-ruled
country to a self-determined and self-sufficient
country. The question is; what do we see when we look
back — the greatest accomplishments and the greatest
changes?
The one thing that we have to acknowledge and admit
is that the sprightly hope that we carried as a nation
in 1980 has been somewhat shattered for most of our
people. That raucous voice of hope that shouted "Masimba
evanhu!" or "People’s power" as the shibboleth that
drove all our aspiration then — has been largely
silenced by the challenges of want.
Yet we can pride ourselves on having constructed so
many schools across the country, so many clinics, so
many dams, so many roads, on having recaptured our
stolen farmlands and having been so significant in
bringing peace to our region, whenever the call for
such intervention arose.
We can also take a lot of pride in having provided
housing for our people, especially in the first twenty
years.
However, the revolution is still underway and has
suffered a lot of violence orchestrated from imperial
external forces, whose major strength has been the
complicity of some of our own people.
The revolution has reached that stage where it is
being managed by a coalition of those who are declared
enemies of imperial forces together with the allies of
the same imperial forces.
How ironic can it ever turn out to be?
In this context, the most important thing for
Zimbabwe is not what is lacking or what has not been
done. Most important is the effort we must make to
transform people’s attitudes; not by way of
brainwashing their thought processes or sense of
conscience, but by way of empowering our people.
As a nation, we want and we need a transformation
where each Zimbabwean realises that wielding power is
their personal business; that the destiny of Zimbabwe
is the business not just of politicians and a selected
few but of all Zimbabweans — young or old, born or
unborn, within or without. This calling is a debt we
all owe to the departed and to heritage.
Every Zimbabwean has something to say about
Zimbabwe, and each of us must be accountable to the
other, and we all must demand an accounting from the
other person. Never again must the country be run like
it was as a colony. No longer should the wealth of our
country belong only to a minority. The country’s
wealth belongs to the majority, and a majority that
speaks its mind.
Indeed some of the ways of doing things have not
been very pleasant. This writer will assert that this
is a natural process. When people come out of a
century of repression and domination, and then one
fine day they find themselves with the freedom to
express themselves, naturally some of the people do go
to the extremes. That is what we must understand as a
nation and there is this indulgence with this sort of
reality that is demanded from each of us.
The three co-Ministers of National Healing must
understand that the most important aspect of our
national revolution as it stands today is the
transformation of our mentality.
Hindsight justice and witch hunting may be
palatable options for purposes of pleasing external
donors and the forces behind them, and perhaps for the
goal of extinguishing our own bitterness, but there is
no healing that comes with retribution.
Those that have suffered violence and those that
have lost lives in this moment of our extremism have
indeed paid a price for our peace. Their suffering,
and even death; must not inspire us for more conflict.
These are realities from which we must draw the
strength to forgive and the humility to accept wrong
doing.
The greatest difficulty we have faced as a country
has been the neo-colonial spirit. We were colonised by
a country, Britain, and they left us with certain
habits. For us, being successful in life, being happy,
means trying and aspiring to live as they do in
Britain. We aspire to be like the richest of the
British.
One of the constraints we have faced when pursuing
these aspirations is that we have people who come to a
point where they will not accept even a minimum sense
of social justice, and will do all in their power to
preserve their privilege at the expense of all others.
This has been the root cause of corruption, not
only in Zimbabwe but across Africa, and in almost all
former colonies.
If this goes unchecked the end result is the waging
of a struggle within the revolution. The masses will
come to a point when their fundamental goal becomes a
fight against the bourgeoisie and the petty
bourgeoisie.
The petty bourgeoisie is dangerous in that it has
an inclination towards the bourgeoisie and aspires to
accumulate as much wealth, but at the same time
admires the prestige of revolutionaries. So the petty
bourgeoisie wavers.
These are the people we vote into power because
they shout the loudest against corruption and the
neglecting of the poor. However, they disappear from
the voters as soon as they win the election, and only
reappear in preparation for the next election.
The revolution suffers most from the petty
bourgeoisie. It screams, poisons minds, and it defames
to survive. Numerically the petty bourgeoisie
represents nothing.
However, the colonial legacy taught us that the
intellectual is a semi-god that occupies the
preponderant place, and so we allow these people to
shape our opinions.
So we can hardly control our own elected members of
Parliament.
Rather they are convinced that it is their
responsibility to come back and shape our opinions, if
at all they bother to come back for anything.
Some of our ministers in our own Government have an
illusion that we owe them admiration and awe — because
they feel they have achieved a lot on their own
behalf, and perhaps on behalf of whatever family name
and totem they carry around.
They expect our rural people to ululate and dance
in happiness merely because of their presence as they
emerge from expensive cars clad in designer suits. The
fact that they carry nothing with them by way of
making the revolution benefit the masses should not
matter until election time.
These are the internal difficulties of our
revolution. None in the GPA’s inclusive Government
should read these with a pointing finger because this
disease is not a political party scourge but a general
political problem.
Our big challenge after this internal difficulty is
imperialism, which tries to dominate us from both
inside and outside our country.
Through its internal agents, its multinationals,
its big capital, its economic power, and its ruinous
sanctions on the country, imperialism has tried to
control us by influencing our discussions and our
national life.
Imperialism has created difficulties for Zimbabwe.
It has strangled our economy through the imposition of
an economic blockade that the West still insists they
will keep as a way of forcing concessions from us.
Hand in hand with these ruinous sanctions, the West
is still plotting against Zimbabwe, against our own
internal security — yes our internal security — as
they promote divisions and animosity among our people.
They yearn for a day we will shed our own blood
among ourselves. They would call it fighting for
freedom.
Imperialism is fighting to the bitter end for a
reverse to our land reclamation program, all despite
the repeated denials that the West makes.
We have this war for our resources. Imperialism
wants us to have laws and policies that allow
multinationals a free reign over our resources and
they tell us that these are the laws and policies that
are found in a democracy.
The revolution still faces many struggles ahead,
and we need to be alive to this reality; if as a
nation we are going to combat imperialism.
Our ordinary cadres in the revolution have an
understanding of the revolution that is quite
different from those in the leadership — and by this
we are talking about real revolutionary leaders — not
the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie
infiltrators.
For a revolutionary leader like President Mugabe,
or as was Samora Machel of Mozambique, or Thomas
Sankara of Burkina Faso; there is quite a difference
between the general theoretical trend of the
revolution and practice.
In the practice of revolutionary leadership one
discovers that imperialism is a monster — it has
claws, horns, fangs that bite — it has lethal venom
and it is absolutely merciless. This is why we no
longer have Samora Machel in the African revolution,
and this is why we lost Sankara at the tender age of
36.
This is why Robert Mugabe is the West’s wanted man
from Africa. When one behaves like Mugabe, and makes a
resolute stand against imperialism, one assured thing
is that imperialism will fight back.
Eloquent and earth shattering speeches are not
enough to make imperialism tremble. No. It is
determined. It has no conscience whatsoever. It has no
heart.
Fortunately for President Mugabe, the more
imperialism has attacked, the more determined him and
his party have become, and somehow each time there has
been fresh forces ready to stand up to the imperial
onslaught.
In 1980, the revolution was joined by so many; and
all because euphoria was the in thing.
Even senior citizens from our rural population
would jog and sing each day, declaring that anyone who
dared attack the newly-independent country would draw
from their frail bodies the most ruthless and lethal
attack since the word "war" was ever invented.
As time progressed many people discovered that the
revolution demanded sacrifices on their part, and they
pulled back. Some rediscovered their apathetic selves
while others became reactionaries and outright sell
outs.
Some remained inside the revolution as cheating and
deceiving looters.
The only good thing about this otherwise natural
process is that with time consciousness has won over
euphoria and it is this consciousness that has stopped
the West’s imperial onslaught as they sought to effect
their illicit regime change plan over Zimbabwe.
The revolution is not a preserve for war veterans
and the youth. It is a national call for each and
every Zimbabwean regardless of age, background,
political affiliation or social status.
It is incumbent upon this inclusive Government and
the GPA’s three principals to ensure that the
revolution we started in 1980 is not abandoned, abated
or aborted.
There is no such thing as a new "democratic
revolution" or whatever it is the activists within MDC-T
say they are doing.
That is mere euphoric political activism and it is
a natural process when a revolution is at a stage as
we are with Zimbabwe’s national revolution. It is all
understandable as a passing phase in the long march to
true self-determination.
As a nation we should not worry so much about
shouts for a "new Zimbabwe" because it is all part of
the natural process where some in the revolution
become illusional reactionaries who think the old
colonial order is something new.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome.
It is homeland or death!!
EsinIslam.Com
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