Zimpapers Logo

Reason Wafawarova on Monday
AFTER realising the futility of protest politics, it appears like Zimbabwe’s opposition is slowly transforming, if not grandstanding towards the nationalism rhetoric. Perhaps the importance of homegrown politics has finally dawned on opposition leadership. The opposition lately has abandoned the reactionary preaching of its monopoly of democratic values, especially after the manifestation of numerous failures in carrying out elementary democratic practices within the parties themselves.

Morgan Tsvangirai and his colleagues vociferously preached the sanctity, holiness and nobility of two term limits, and the sweetness of democracy when leaders are limited to a maximum of only 10 years to prove what they are capable of doing for either the parties they lead, or for the country. After all, this is common practice in the countries from which the opposition was importing its political ideas, of course at the purchase price of novice naivety.

We now know that lecturing Zanu-PF about the beauty of democracy as practiced elsewhere on the planet is a lot more easier than emulating the same practices on the African political terrain. The MDC, as launched in 1999 is now 17 years old, with offshoots and grandchildren born out of its many feuds. The founding president remains relentlessly at the helm in a seemingly until death do us part kind of fashion, and any talk about term limits and the phrase “10 years” is now derided as infiltration language from the CIO, not the civilised democratic language once so well cherished at the formation of this our beloved “democratic movement”.

It is no longer easy to score politically against Zanu-PF by mocking the insanity of recycling leadership, and it has become dangerously unsafe to wave the blame card of Zanu-PF corruption in the faces of cheering voters. The opposition is as tainted as is Zanu-PF in its lack of internal democratic tenets, as it is with its reputation on matters of accountability and transparency.

The acquittal shit of the MDC after its involvement in governance between 2009 and 2013 is as unimpressive as is that of its many local governments in Zimbabwe’s major cities — starting from 2000 up to the present moment.

Now the opposition wants a shift in political strategy, and we are now told about the need to safeguard our heritage and natural resources, about the importance of posterity and the future, even about the supremacy of our national flag. Our liberation legacy is no longer the monopolised sweet song flawlessly flowing from the lips of Zanu-PF cadres during moments of electioneering. It has now become a subject of serious consideration by opposition politicians desperate to capture the admiration of the country’s generality.

From the days when it was fashionable to threaten Zimbabwe with expulsion from the Commonwealth if Britain’s arbiter of democracy was not met, we have come to the day when democratic Britain is expelling itself from the European Union, isolating itself into inevitable oblivion — and clearly the political dream of manufacturing British democracy within Zimbabwe’s political terrain has been fatally shattered. There is no more hope for poodle politics.

This means we have now entered a new dispensation of fashionable nationalism. Everyone now wants to be the super patriot, the legendary nationalist so consumed in the love of the nation that nothing apart from national progress and happiness really matters. Suddenly nationalism constitutes Zimbabwean political correctness. Absolutely impressive!

We now have on one hand the traditional conservative nationalist so obsessed with the glories of the past, and on the other the fantasising contemporary nationalist so obsessed with the idea of everlasting happiness waiting for all of us in the future, however foreseeable or unforeseeable it may be.

Of course, true nationalism excludes neither the past nor the future, and it carries with it the pragmatism of dealing with the present. True nationalism does not live in the land of lies, where everyone is a hopeless loser.

Our past is a fact of history, and those converting it to a lie are only succeeding in destroying the future. The past must of necessity project to present time consciousness. This is why our liberation legacy is rendered meaningless if it fails to create in the generation of today a sense of consciousness. No freedom fighter worthy the name fights for personal freedom. Revolutions by definition are guided by the collective cause, just as freedom fighting is a national agenda.

Today Zimbabweans live in a country with a thorough going concern in regards to the present and the future, and there is the unanswered question of how we can best secure the survival and advancement of our people. If the answer is our opposition as currently constituted, then the question must be a bloody stupid one.

We live in the era of a rising Asian civilisation, and our politicians have no idea where to place our foreign policy for the best benefit to the country. There is no evidence any of the rising Asian economic powers takes us seriously, and frankly speaking there is no good reason we deserve any such special attention.

We are simply a mediocre country badly afflicted by the dependency syndrome, and we have earned for ourselves the attention that befits dependants — peripheral.

It is good to preach nationalism, but we must understand that a true nationalist is never paralysed by fear; he operates in spite of fear. This is the stuff that makes the person of President Robert Mugabe — an intrepid leader known to operate in spite of fear. He is the sort of person that gets energised whenever he is confronted with a fearful situation.

He had comrades of similar make during the liberation struggle, men and women who were energised whenever confronted with the blood of fallen comrades. It is hard to believe such true comrades surround the man today, not with the insanity prevailing within ZANU-PF, and the ineptness now so characteristic of our government operatives.

We have seen the rise of legendary pretenders who like to hide their shortcomings behind high-sounding revolutionary rhetoric. Even the perfectly foolish Acie Lumumba made it into the high echelons of ZANU-PF power corridors without much effort, thanks to infiltration of the party’s leadership by a coterie of fantastic clowns.

Lumumba did not need any effort. He only needed the protection and guidance of seasoned pretenders who, for death threatening fear of lack of a political past have resorted to the recruitment of like-minded novices into the party. The hope is to outnumber the history loaded cadres.

This move is not without cause. ZANU-PF had become a no-go area for people without a war past, a terrain where only those dredging up the glories of past victories could attain political relevance.

Those with a history of where we come from politically must understand that the past must be used as a means of integrating it into character, shaping the personality of today’s politician.

Those of us who have believed that liberation war credentials are a basis for entitlement to political privilege are directly responsible for creating the directionless reactionaries from whose manufacturing plant people like Acie Lumumba have been assembled.

The young man is one of the many past-less cadres recently recruited into the party to counter the culture of entitlement by those who participated in the liberation struggle.

He says he went through a two and half-year apprenticeship process within the party, and clearly the product does not even rise to the level of nonsense.

Those of us with association to the past on which our foundations are anchored have a mandatory duty to be exemplary. It is a hopeless futility to try and secure the past at the expense of our future. The chief role of history is to secure the future, and the only reason we honour so much those associated with our liberation war history is to secure our future, not to ruin it.

It is not enough to identify oneself with the liberation war history, and reminiscing over detail of the heroics of war dramas of the past will not in itself ensure a bright future for the country.

Our people expect from Zanu-PF a sound movement, they expect concrete plans, and they expect visionary leadership, exemplary leadership, honesty, integrity, and of course continuity-minded leaders.

I interact a lot with graduates from the National Youth Service programme, and I make no apologies for that. It is my pride. They love and respect revolutionary ideology, but not without it translating into practical national development.

They are die-hard adherents to nationalism, but not without nationalism translating into national prosperity. They honour our war veterans, but not without expecting them to give the buffer of integrity to the liberation legacy.

They do not understand the logic of a Zanu-PF that instilled into them this revolutionary ideology, and yet the same party allows its Cabinet ministers to go around appallingly recruiting raw reactionaries as key players in driving the cause for national development.

Not so long ago the NYS graduates sought audience with the Youth Minister, and at the centre of discussions was the issue of nationalism and national economic development.

Despite lofty promises and assurances being made, the graduates coming from the country’s nationalism machinery watched hopelessly as people like Acie Lumumba rode roughshod over all others into national prominence, with no regard to due diligence on the part of those that presided over their overnight political fortunes.

True the National Youth Service programme is not a party matter, and true the programme is a national agenda funded by the taxpayer. What is also true is that there is only one Zanu-PF that participated in the liberation struggle, just like there is only one PF-Zapu that participated in the same struggle.

It is not possible to nationalise the liberation agenda without nationalising Zanu-PF and PF-Zapu. It is impossible to talk of a national orientation program that emanates from the liberation war legacy without talking about Zanu-PF and PF-Zapu.

This is the reality of the marriage between the NYS graduate and the ruling party. It was never the wish of our fallen heroes that their blood would become the ultimate sacrifice for the perpetual winning of elections by those who survived the deadly path of the liberation struggle. No. Their wish was perpetual freedom and happiness for the people of Zimbabwe.

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

REASON WAFAWAROVA is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia