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Shingirirayi Mugabe Correspondent
A fortnight ago, France succumbed to murderous terrorist attacks that left at least 129 dead with 200 or more injured. It’s very sad that the assumed terrorist assailants responsible for these attacks had to use such cruel methods to get their message across. The one consistent problem that continues to surface as one of the main causes to these wars being fought the world over is a creature called “geopolitics”.

Geopolitics refers to the “study of the way a country’s size, position, influence its power and its relationships with other countries, political activity as influenced by the physical features of a country or area of the world” or “the influence of such factors as geography, economics, and demography on the politics and especially the foreign policy of a state, a governmental policy guided by geopolitics” or still, in simpler terms, politics, especially international relations, as influenced by geographical factors.

Amid the fight  We are facing a huge, potentially decisive, turning point, the most significant moment in global affairs since the end of the Cold War. Zimbabwe is a victim of this so-called “geopolitics” which can be directly linked to the nation’s economic strangulation through sanctions imposed by the West for their interests.

Geopolitics is an imperial tool that has been used to cripple Zimbabwe, but as we soldier on like the resilient Africans we are, we need to be aware of events that are taking place worldwide that will sooner or later impact on our nation.

As a result of Zimbabwe’s Look East Policy adopted by the Government at the turn of the millennium that has seen Zimbabwe strengthening relations with the Asian bloc, by adopting the policy, other countries in Africa, Europe and the United States have followed suit. This has even vindicated President Mugabe’s vision in recognising the importance of the eastern hemisphere in economic and geopolitical terms.

Zimbabwe’s longstanding relationship with European powerhouse Russia is considered an initial threat of African supremacy from a geopolitical point of view by hindering Western interests in the southern region of Africa.

The formation of opposition parties is meant to destabilise the sovereignty and solidarity of the African people so as to throw them off balance through Western propaganda among the masses.

The media has also been used to spread geopolitical propaganda by blindsiding imperialistic agendas across the globe.

Most people in the world are only able to understand the world through “the eyes” (of the billions of dollars) of corporate propaganda, provided by the corporations that own 90 percent of our news.

A lot of Zimbabweans repeat Western propaganda verbatim without realising it. Probably 90 percent of our country gets their worldview from Western narratives, either through actual Western media, or local media which get most of their narratives from Reuters and Associated Press.

Basically, this means that the West effectively dominates our national conversation, and confuses our citizens into supporting the application of eploitative neo-liberal economic systems in Africa.

One cannot fully understand what goes on in Zimbabwe without considering the international geopolitical climate outside of Zimbabwe. After asking many Zimbabweans about geopolitics, and seeing the poor quality of their answers, it is safe to say that a majority of Zimbabweans either don’t know, or don’t care about geo- politics.

Considering that geopolitics is necessary for making sense of the national choices Zimbabwe has, it is safe to say that most Zimbabweans do not understand what is happening in their own country. Without a geopolitical perspective, anything anyone thinks about Zimbabwe is half-truth, or a half lie.

It has been very interesting over the past 15 years watching people get passionate about a country that most of the people do not understand. Surely, one should understand something before getting passionate about it.