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President Mugabe

Reason Wafawarova On Thursday
The ZANU-PF Government has over the years made our revolutionary message very clear to every nation; that we are ready to pay any cost, face any consequences, encounter any foe, suffer any pain, travel any journey, bear any burden, meet any hardship, and go whatever length of endurance to ensure that the indigenous people of Zimbabwe are economically empowered through the nation’s God-given natural resources.

The resolve normally carries a thunderous conviction from the viewpoint of our most impressive rhetoricians, especially when they get the opportunity to articulate this most patriotic willpower at political rallies.

We saw this when we were faced by the titanic criticism against our popular land reform programme, most of the criticism particularly coming from the United States, the EU, and other Western outposts like Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Our war veterans, our politicians, and President Mugabe in particular, all unyieldingly declared that no more would Zimbabwe carry the tag of a colony.

In 2013, Saviour Kasukuwere fronted yet another convincing crusade on the indigenisation policy, declaring that foreign investment without the participation of indigenes was not going to be part of our history. We had 56 Community Share Schemes proudly paraded before our own eyes, and we all thought the wheels of compliance with the indigenisation law were now irreversibly turning.

The drive took Zanu-PF into the triumphant July election; dismantling the MDC into the pieces of jokes we see today, one headed by the caustic Tendai Biti, and the other by the arbitrary Morgan Tsvangirai. The circus that the MDC has become does not make good reading in a column published by a nationally respected paper such as this one, so in this spirit the topic will be rested.

After the elections the bootless Francis Nhema took over Kasukuwere’s portfolio, and we have virtually forgotten about the 51 percent share ownership policy, because no one really talks about it anymore. As for the community share ownership schemes, it appears like most of them were, or have become quiet.

Zanu-PF is an indisputably exquisite outfit when it comes to politicking and outmaneuvering its opponents, especially when it comes to electioneering.

However, the long time ruling party barely matches its political successes with success in carrying out material transformations. The momentum for developmental transformation was quite impressive in the eighties, when the party had phenomenal achievements in projects like schools, clinics, dams, roads, and housing.

Then people felt wielding power was their business. They felt the destiny of Zimbabwe was the business of every Zimbabwean. Now the destiny of our country is viewed as the business of a certain clique of people, those that for one reason or the other peremptorily bestow upon themselves entitlement of all manner of privileges.

Independence for us defined a new course where each of us had the right to demand accountability from the other. Now we are in an era where just about each of our people in power demands loyalty from us, with no reciprocating accountability whatsoever.

As the rhetoric of ZANU-PF impressively dictates, the wealth of the country must no longer belong to a minority, even if that minority was made up of the most patriotic cadres among us, and the blackest too. Our land reform and our indigenous policies stipulate that our wealth as a country must belong to the majority, and the majority must always speak its mind.

Taking away wealth from the majority cannot be a pleasant thing, whether under colonialism, or carried out by our own people. We have seen that it has been really hard for our privileged to give up their advantage for the benefit of the rest, and this is not only part of human nature, but also a product of the colonial culture of capitalism.

We can help our privileged overcome this hardship on their part by allowing the underprivileged the right to only one privilege — revolution.

We helped our white commercial farmers overcome this hardship when we simply occupied the land they found so hard to give up, and we can in similar fashion make it easier for our elites to carry out material transformation for the benefit of all. No one can resist people power.

We cannot allow perpetual electioneering to be the primary preoccupation in our political landscape. We had the general election in July last year, followed by the dramatic internal elections for ZANU-PF provincial structures in December, we have just had the low-key MDC-T Congress elections, and now our newspaper headlines are the sweeping votes of no confidence affecting most of ZANU-PF’s provincial top officials. Keeping the nation in a permanent election mode will not help fix our economic challenges, and frankly the habit is just an appalling heedlessness to duty.

Well, our attention must not be taken away by vacuous political dramas. The most important aspect of the revolution is the transformation of the mentality of the elite. We have to fight the neo-colonial spirit that exists in the country, the treacherous addiction to self-aggrandisement and corruption. The capitalist spirit of selfish accumulation at the expense of all others must be discredited and abandoned for what it is — counter-revolutionary.

We know we were colonised by Britain, and we know colonisation left us with certain habits and tastes. Our liberation legacy must give us new habits and new tastes, habits of unity and tastes for justice and equality.

Happiness is not defined as only the attainment of political power and independence. Happiness is found in economic freedom.

What are our constraints and obstacles? Yes, we have externally engineered obstacles like the illegal Western imposed sanctions, but surely this is not the only constraint there is to our desired progress.

Where is our political will to push national programmes outside election times? That is untraceable, and the current preoccupation with factional wars is a very good illustration of how our political hierarchy lacks the collective will for national progress.

There are those among us who will not fight even for a minimum sense of social justice, yet such people claim to belong to a revolutionary party like ZANU-PF.

A struggle for people emancipation becomes inevitable when elites, whose only wish is to preserve their own privileges at the expense of all others surround us.

One thing we have created through ZANU-PF politics is a very dangerous bourgeoisie, inclined toward elitist accumulation while at the same time admiring the privilege of revolutionaries.

Now we all seem to be eagerly waiting for the outcome of re-engagement with Britain and its allies, and one gets the sense that we virtually have no other hope outside such re-engagement, and perhaps we do not. What commitment have we shown with using the diamond resource for the betterment of our populace? What commitment outside electioneering have we shown towards supporting the newly resettled farmer?

What do our priorities speak of our commitment to national duty and to serving the people?

The revolution cannot succeed without the commitment of those who are privileged with both economic and political power, our leaders. Instead of commitment from these our elites, we have seen the poisoning of minds, slander, and confusion. It is far less than impressive that the opportunities of an entire generation will be buried with a people whose potential was thwarted by the selfish actions of a few.

Numerically, our bourgeoisie have no power at all, but they do occupy a preponderant place to change opinion, and that is exactly what they do.

For so long we have said the greatest enemy to our revolution is imperialism. We have known the deadly effect of sanctions, we have seen the rise and fall of the MDC as a sponsored puppet project, we have heard of those that plot against the country’s internal security in collusion with the country’s enemy states, and we have heard of how imperialism seeks “moderates” among us.

Imperialism has no conscience, it is a blood sucking vampire, a monster so ruthlessly unforgiving, merciless, and uncompromisingly lethal. This revolution can be annihilated if we do not continue to defend it even in the process of re-engaging the West. We all know what happened to the Libyan revolution, and it is not far-fetched to draw parallels.

Anyone that thinks our example of self-determination can be easily forgotten or forgiven would be dangerously naïve.

Imperialism is not fought by fiery speeches or impressive liberation history. It is a complex system that can only be countered by elaborate scheming, and only an indefatigable people can successfully keep imperialism at bay, the way the Cubans have been doing for the past 54 years, a good 40 years ahead of our own predicament.

ZANU-PF easily allows people within its ranks who have no idea how much sacrifice comes with the goals of the anti-imperialist drive, and these are not few. We must come to a point where consciousness must prevail over the sensationalised propaganda we have been feeding on for the last 14 years. In propaganda even pretenders can easily find a home, and this is why infiltration of ZANU-PF has never been a case for the sophisticated.

We must redefine the role of women in our politics. The tradition of patronising women and treating them like singing and dancing objects must be discredited for what it easy — vacuous cheap politicking. Our women must be allowed to show their potential as fully independent human beings, not appendixes of male gangsters, or hapless beneficiaries of manipulated quota systems.

Our youths are the future of the country, not sloganeering tools whose energy is only good for political violence and voter mobilisation. This is the danger of the African revolution, fronted and often started by elitist intellectuals, but destined for the selfish ends of its proponents.

Politically it was easy to go after the white bourgeoisie, crushing colonial empires, and in our case repossessing our stolen lands. Now we have a rising black bourgeoisie that aspires to take the place of the displaced white elites.

These easily talk the language of the revolution with gold chains and expensive suits as their chosen revolutionary attire. They have fat bank accounts, yet they preach to our poor with unmitigated meticulousness.

If this revolution is not going to be derailed, we must once and for all fight down the system of patronage and vote-buying.

We cannot have a political system where the majority is made to coddle those stealing from its national wealth. Once we cannot stand up to those from whom we must demand accountability we become part of a pseudo revolution.

ZANU-PF must head for its December Congress with its leaders facing the demand of accounting for the 2013 election promises, and also expected to account for the progress of the popularised blueprint Zim-Asset.

This revolution cannot afford the luxury of nursing or nurturing the misplaced ailment of factional power politics, and we expect the ZANU-PF leader to reign in the warring charlatans within the party ranks, in much of the way for the good of the nation.

If our war veterans are the vanguard of this revolution, as we believe they are, they must begin to show character by pushing for the greater goal of mass empowerment, not this narrow-minded pursuits for freebies and other personal fringe benefits.

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

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