EDITORIAL COMMENT: Let’s walk together for a greater Zimbabwe

heraldTODAY we celebrate 34 years of Independence, sovereignty and democracy at a time the majority of our people have rededicated themselves to the ideals of the liberation struggle by resoundingly voting President Mugabe and Zanu-PF in last year’s harmonised elections that gave the revolutionary party a victory bigger than its inaugural 1980 landslide.

The crushing victory coming as it did after more than a decade of sustained western assault on our nation’s founding pillars and achievements was a virtual referendum on western meddling and its politics of appeasement exemplified by the MDC factions.

Our 34th independence anniversary also comes at a time some in the main opposition have reached their Damascene moment, and talking the language of revolution and patriotism.

A case in point is MDC-T secretary general Tendai Biti, who early last month called on his colleagues in the opposition to build bridges with the liberation struggle.

In a candid address at a SAPES Policy Dialogue, Mr Biti urged the opposition to converge under what he called a United Democratic Front.

“This UDF I am proposing must find accommodation within the liberation struggle. We can’t put a durawall (pre-cast wall) with the liberation struggle. The liberation struggle is not our enemy. It liberated some of us. Some of us could be uneducated fools herding cattle in Murewa. So our message should be that we are completing the unfinished business of the liberation struggle. Therefore we have got an umbilical code with the liberation struggle because I know that somewhere along the line we created contradiction and chasm with the liberation struggle.’’

With such thinking, we may come to a stage where our hitherto wayward main opposition may turn swords into ploughshares for nation building.

This day thus enjoins us all to invoke the spirit that drove our heroes and heroines through the First and Second Chimurenga Wars. We must all pull together if we are to bring our revolution to its logical conclusion of delivering holistic independence to our people.

When we look at the path travelled over the past 34 years, there is every reason to celebrate the achievements scored, gains unparalleled by any nation that attained political independence in our generation, or even those that have been independent much longer.

The gains in the social services sector were phenomenal, infrastructure development, housing, you name it. Though considerable damage was wrought to these gains by the ruinous Western economic sanctions, the fact that despite this sustained 14-year assault, our country has not gone under is testimony to the strength of the foundation laid since 1980.

The prevailing economic hardships are not a sign of failure but rather pangs of socio-economic transformation, that were only worsened by the ruinous western economic sanctions, that we can easily defeat if we work together as Team Zimbabwe.

That transformation can not occur overnight, neither can it be cosy, it is a duel with forces whose existence hinges on continued exploitation of our resources, with us as the labourers.

These are the forces we should all tell today, never again! This is the last phase of our struggle, and let us all, from this day forward, speak with one language.

This is why we need, today, to dedicate ourselves to the ideals of the struggle, close ranks to defeat the machinations of any and all seeking to subvert our independence.

Thus whether we are Zanu-PF, MDC-T or MDC, we have those choices only because we are free. Let us thus differ only on the modalities of governing our nation, not who should govern it, we won the right to self-determination 34 years ago.

Let us all march together from today to a great future for our country.

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