Factionalism and the revolution Amai Grace Mugabe's entrance into mainstream politics shook the status quo
Amai Grace Mugabe's entrance into mainstream politics shook the   status quo

Amai Grace Mugabe’s entrance into mainstream politics shook the
status quo

Reason Wafawarova On Thursday
WE have seen dramatic, if not comical infighting between the warring Zanu-PF factions in the past few months, and one has to spare a thought for the revolution, if in this amusing spectacle we do not get as excited as to forget that the defining suffix for Zanu-PF is “the revolutionary party.”

Zanu-PF still proudly carries itself as the sole custodian of the national revolution, and it is important that we make an assessment of the impact of the current internal political dynamics within the party on the legacy of the revolution itself.

We have always known that the revolution faces indomitable limitations actuated by bourgeoisie economic interests. The bourgeoisie class produced by the rule of Zanu-PF is not that single, homogeneous, reactionary and anti-revolutionary outfit from the right. Rather it is a complex mutant that thrives on identifying itself with revolutionary values, deriving a perpetuating myth from the glories of our liberation war legacy, or from the highlights of the pre-colonial nationalist movement that parented it. Those that can prove their contiguity to the glories of our liberation past can easily create for themselves an entitlement to all manner of privileges.

As we have come to know, our elites from Zanu-PF always take up the defence of the revolution — assimilating into this assumption of the prestigious role as conscious revolutionaries, real propagandists who fearlessly and tirelessly disseminate revolutionary values to our ever-trusting masses. Now it appears there is one man that every one of our revolutionary elites would die to impress — the President of the Republic. It does not seem to occur to our politicians that misleading the man at the top does not in any way advance the revolutionary cause.

Like every other pre-election phase before any major internal Zanu-PF election, the upcoming December Congress election has not only elicited the demons out of power hungry aspirants, but also evoked unprecedented narrations of glorious historical achievements, a significant amount of them contrived, exaggerated, or blatantly manufactured.

Those with past sins cannot be allowed to partake the Zanu-PF holy communion at the upcoming Congress, and their sins will not only be laid bare, but will be used to certify their contemptibleness. We hear people like Rugare Gumbo have unatoneable past sins that will always define their character should they ever involve themselves in inter-personal conflicts with colleagues in the party.

Of course these are natural consequences of a bad track record, and they are expected, especially in the field of politics. Gumbo himself tries to scare his foes away by labelling them “regime change rebels,” whatever that means.

We cannot sustain a revolution whose definition only lies in its historical past. We need a defining future for this country, and only those people who are convinced that the next generation is more important than the next election will give meaning to the revolution.

We as a people must come to accept the reality that it is no longer enough to simply call ourselves revolutionaries because we want to throw the platitudinous meaning of the term at our political opponents in opposition politics. If we are going to be defending a revolution, as we often hear we must, then surely there must in essence be a revolution to defend.

We cannot meaningfully defend a revolution whose entire definition is a mere series of heroic past successes, however impressive these may be. When we embarked on the liberation struggle, we were not defending the heroic exploits of Mbuya Nehanda or Sekuru Kaguvi. Rather we were defending our hope for a liberated Zimbabwe, a sovereign state run by the will of its majority. What hope are we telling the youths of today to defend? Surely not the hope of power hungry factionists, unless we want to be in agreement that the revolution itself has not only been betrayed, but abandoned.

Without a properly defined revolution we can continue to expect all manner of people to keep flocking in for motives that are quite foreign to the revolutionary cause. As it is, anyone pretending to be throwing blows at imperialism and the opposition MDC can easily infiltrate Zanu-PF all the way to its most interior power corridors, as we hear happened towards the 2013 general election. Poor Rugare Gumbo is accused of leaving the security doors unguarded.

One of the distinctive traits of the Zimbabwean revolution has always been that it is a movement of the immense majority for the benefit of the immense majority. The mass education program that we experienced immediately after independence; or the popular land reform program that we embarked on at the beginning of this century best exemplifies this.

The revolution has always been synonymous with the masses of Zimbabwe, driven by their own slogans and aspirations. Our war veterans are not the custodians of our collective feelings or memories, much as they remain a significant part of our collective memory. Equally our politicians do not carry the aspirations of our people in their briefcases. They are only elected or appointed representatives of those aspirations.

Self-centred and power hungry factionists within Zanu-PF now seem to be determined to hijack the revolution, not for the benefit of the immense majority, but for their own selfish ends. They daily continue to redefine our collective aspiration as a people, and they have audaciously introduced sensationalised factional slogans that have nothing to do with the broader goals of the revolution.

The primary goal for the Zimbabwe revolution is for the people to assume power, and judging by the magisterial attitude of the current Zanu-PF leadership, it can easily be concluded that the assumed role of the majority is to ratify the voice of whoever is the most overbearing among the warring political elites across the factional divide.

If the Zimbabwe revolution is going to continue to be a genuinely popular one, it must of necessity pass the test, not only of destroying the neo-colonial state machinery, but also of ushering in new machinery capable of guaranteeing people’s sovereignty and economic empowerment.

Economic empowerment is a far wider term than the twin policies of land reform and indigenous ownership of share titles in the business sector. It is defined not only by who holds shares in our business sector or who occupies our arable land. Rather it is empowerment defined by quantitative economic growth on the face of our wholesome economy.

A revolution driven by the vociferous noise of unemployed youths hankering for the fulfilment of endless promises is essentially a pretentious phenomenon driven by the treacherous interests of a ruthlessly hypocritical bourgeoisie. These are heartless charlatans who have no problem perpetuating velvety hope among our near-hopeless youths that are smitten by the scourge of soul-piercing poverty.

We cannot expose this long-standing revolution to the machinations of factionist gangsters with antidemocratic and anti-popular dictatorship tendencies, people whose hold on our politics, our economy, our ideology, our culture, our administration, and our justice system is only defined by their unquenchable ambitions.

When Zanu-PF allowed the majority of its supporters to participate in genuinely democratic elections in the 2013 primary elections, the popularly elected candidates went on to win convincingly in the July 31 elections.

After comprehensively defeating the MDC, Zanu-PF somehow slid back to its manipulative politics when the party held its provincial elections across the country’s 10 provinces. A cartel of unscrupulous politicians imposed its favoured candidates ahead of popular aspirants, barred strong opponents from contesting, embarked on massive vote buying escapades, rigged some elections, abused the commissariat office, abused Politburo portfolios, and generally manipulated the voting process to the detriment of the people’s will.

When the party held its elective Youth Congress in Harare, the cartel openly embarked on a massive vote-buying spree in the full glare of President Mugabe and his wife.

There are antidemocratic and anti-popular powers within Zanu-PF that make up a reactionary alliance in favour of imperialism, and for some time these people have styled themselves as “moderates,” or at least those from the imperial hemisphere call them so.

While the faces of these reactionary people have largely remained concealed over the years, their existence has openly been acknowledged by both their alleged colleagues in opposition politics and also by diplomats from the imperial world.

On several occasions, including at the recent MDC-T Congress, Morgan Tsvangirai has claimed that his party continues to work with moderates from Zanu-PF, and Western countries have also openly said they are willing to work with moderates from the ruling party.

The First Lady Cde Grace Mugabe has sensationally claimed that these moderates have foundational relations with some of the opposition parties, and she has claimed that these people essentially share the anti-Mugabe mentality with the opposition and its Western handlers.

The opposition has not hidden its solidarity with the beleaguered “moderates,” and Obert Gutu has even hinted on a possible open cross-party alliance running into the 2018 general election.

The only problem with that possibility is the ever-diminishing brand of the MDC. It is hard to believe there will be anything meaningful left of the party in the next two years, especially considering that the people who now view themselves as stalwarts in the party are topped by the likes of Douglas Mwonzora, Obert Gutu, Teressa Makone, Lovemore Moyo, and even the hilarious Chalton Hwende.

These people were nobodies when Tsvangirai started with the likes of Gibson Sibanda, Welshman Ncube, Learnmore Jongwe, Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti and people like Isaac Matongo.

It is hard to believe that the “moderates” can afford to break away from the ruling Zanu-PF party in order to form an alliance with a diminishing opposition, unless the break away is a matter of a handful of expelled members with virtually no other option left in the field of politics.

There is no doubt that politically Zanu-PF is the only game left in town. However Zanu-PF must not mistake its political dominance for excellence or even efficiency. The prima donna mentality of some of the party’s liberation-connected leaders is not only disheartening, but also an insult to the legacy of the liberation struggle itself.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome! It is homeland or death!

REASON WAFAWAROVA is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.

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