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President Mugabe

PRESIDENT Robert Gabriel Mugabe is not only a national, but developing world hero; that is not debatable. He is a hero who many felt stayed longer than necessary on the dance floor which is why the music and refreshments were stopped even as his dance partners egged him on. It must be pointed out from the outset that Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s legacy, though it was being chipped at in the end, was not being tainted by his own hand but much like Adam and Samson before him, the blame falls on his partner.

We thank the Zimbabwe Defence Forces for stepping up to the plate to stop the reactionaries led by the former First Lady Grace Mugabe, principally Professor Jonathan Moyo, dead in their tracks.

True to the code name of the ZDF intervention, “Operation Restore Legacy”, our venerated armed forces have managed to do just that as President Mugabe walks into the sunset a living hero in the minds of the progressive world.

And this point we need to emphasise; this was an operation to save the revolution from a putschist cabal that had held the President hostage and was abusing his name for nefarious ends.

The legacy that we are talking about is the legacy of the liberation struggle, a legacy of indigenisation and economic empowerment.

It is a legacy of national unity, independence and sovereignty, it is not a legacy of kow-towing to Western powers pursuant to undoing the gains of the liberation struggle.

So what we expect from Zanu-PF is change in continuity with the party going back to source, closing ranks to ensure that the legacy carved by national heroes like Cde Mugabe, Father Zimbabwe Dr Joshua Nkomo, Chairman Herbert Chitepo, Cde Jason Ziyaphapha Moyo and many other heroes of the First and Second Chimurenga Wars, endures and is protected for pos- terity.

Granted this is a democratic country where every man is king of his castle, but we need to remember that without the sacrifices of thousands of patriots who laid down their lives so that we could have ours; these castles we live in today would still be in the air.

Yes, there are some Zimbabweans who have embraced the neo-liberal discourse which holds that history is not a factor in the present or the future. The “modern man” is not supposed to live in the past they parrot, but they conveniently forget that the very lands that are foisting this ideology on the developing world still revere monarchies, and events that occurred as far back as the 12th century.

To President Mugabe, we say, it may not have been the most ideal way to go but we thank you for the wonderful sacrifices you made for the nation, the solid foundations you laid all round, in indigenisation and economic empowerment, education, housing and the social services sector endures, even after close to two decades of being buffeted by a ruinous economic sanctions regime.

Fare the well Cde President, we eagerly await the memoirs.