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The Other Side Nathaniel Manheru
I think a qualification, if not retraction, is in order. Whoop, those “tweeters” do read I tell you. I was wrong, and am determined to be right about them, now and in future. The hooves generation I had dismissed as de-educating, read my article. They grasped it too! And it was not a short article, one confined to the 140 characters required in a tweet. That put paid to my pillar punch, namely that this is a monosyllabic generation. They are not, get it from me, and I beg their pardon. They read. They think, yes, are profoundly thoughtful, as responses to my piece clearly revealed.

A young man called Mberi
And better than me, they have a massive following, a tight virtual community of vigorous, thrustful intellects, quite knowledgeable on any subject matter, skilfully interlarding deep thought and clever humour. And standing out in that throng is some young man who writes as Mberi. He shamed me. He made amazing cross-references to a myriad of my articles, including some I could hardly remember. Hey dudes, you have made your point; I back off and take your remonstrances with humility, barking off like a bitten dog.

. . . and my very blood!
My daughter — aah my own blood here? — walked me a step further down my lonely road to Damascus. She wrote back, stressing she was doing it “by her hooves:, all to make one or two points, both of them literally polite, contextually savage. She added another polite, savage request: could she come to see me at work? In good faith, I obliged. She came, brimming, went straight for my I-pad and hastily opened a tweeter account I had never missed, never wanted, and until now never used.

Of course I know many accounts have been opened in my name, which are attributed to me. They are all false, part of the iniquity of the cyber world I so roundly derided last week. She opened an account. She connected me to the “tweet” debate around my column, Manheru. Whoa, didn’t I spend a whole day going through this most enlivening debate! More wonderfully, wasn’t I immersed in the high octave thinking notes of a generation I had just condemned? Including a contribution from my second daughter whose post exuded false filial loyalty and duty, much as I know she takes me for a wonderful caveman who begot her, a Zinjanthropus she calls father. A real creature from a bygone generation, still wailing in the wilderness. Well, Miss K and Miss R, even fathers do learn too! Thanks for the hard lessons.

Today I know I mark a stale time long bygone. And to you, too, Mberi, this is a tribute to your generation which must keep doing those three most important things: reading, reading, reading.

No powder, no polish
Zanu-PF is a party “wept” by its opponents, well against the grain of ordinary human practice. You would expect its opponents to celebrate its demise, wish and pray for it, when its demise still can’t be caused, all against a thousand curses. And Zanu-PF is one hell of a Party so assiduous in accosting old enemies, so diligent in courting new ones, continually.

The late Samora Machel used to make the point: as a fighting force, Zanu is beyond a smirch; but as a communication or public relations proposition, it is a complete disaster. It cannot charm its enemies, use guile to win peace. I suppose that is the nature of good fighters: they punch and pummel, they don’t powder or polish.

The few weeks gone past, Zanu-PF looked mortally threatened, even dying. And the country reduced to a din of fretful requiems, ironically from those who should have broken into song. The last time I asked why, I got a filling answer: any serious altercation in Zanu-PF presents dire portents for the country, as always does all quarrels involving people who know gunpowder!

Good point, one well worth bearing in mind, always. For here is a party that has gone to war, that is well versed in the art of war. It is also the party in power, the party of government. Its quarrel breaks a home, no doubt. Conversely, amity within its ranks generates a sense of abiding, ever flourishing confidence, peace and tranquillity. I wonder whether Zanu-PF knows that, cares about that.

I mean wakes up to its stupendous responsibility as a party of liberation, of nation-building, of governance, guardian of founding values for our Nation. Or even an illusion of stability when all about us is buffeted. At some point I almost panicked. But not anymore. I have seen better, now know better.

The ZANU-PF line no one crosses
Get it from me, Zanu-PF is well. Very well, too well in fact. And the proof of all that is, paradoxically, in its current but already ending bicker, itself the reason for national wistfulness in the first place. And I have since discovered the real cause and meaning of what appears to be Zanu-PF’s indifference to its responsibilities as a lodestar party in the national scheme of things. In spite of the end of the war of liberation, Zanu-PF remains defined by the ethos of the two guerrilla movements that constitute it.

It still behaves like a liberation movement in the middle of a military struggle, forgetting that it is now a party in government, a party that must explain itself, its actions, satisfactorily to the governed. Secondly, it forgets it is now operating in a world defined by a civilian preponderance.

Civilians do fear conflict, would always want to be assured that all is well, all is peaceful. It is this equanimous disposition in times that are perceived as turbulent, that are clearly unsettling, which makes it appear like it does not see or care about peeping dangers. Thirdly, its leaders have been long-time peers. Or muted rivals who slide back to historically rooted open conflict, now and then. Some of what we term factions nowadays are interpersonal conflicts and clashes that date back to days of the liberation struggle.

All the contestants are men and women of history, barring of course those verminous hangers-on, those whose role is only to lengthen the queue, vanagudzadungwe! All of these men and women do personify competing tendencies in Zanu-PF, tendencies which have ebbed and flowed in Zanu-PF’s long, tortuous journey. Where these conflicts have recurred, where they are likely to recur again in the future, all the actors in all such conflicts know what transgressions bring. They know the line, the Zanu-PF line, and will not cross it. After all, at its core, Zanu-PF is a quasi-military complex.

Zanu-PF the straitjacket
Fourthly and more fundamentally, Zanu-PF was built, yes to demolish its opponents, which it did, and continues to do with persistent efficiency, but also to compel compliance and harmony within its ranks. Zanu-PF is a straitjacket, a metaphor used by the late General Zvinavashe in 2002, when he was commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

What is often forgotten is that in 1979, Zvinavashe was the commander left behind in charge of a reserve force in Mozambique, a force which would have been the nucleus of a new, resurgent Zanu/Zanla, had the Rhodesians carried out their Zero-Hour Plan. He spoke like a profound stakeholder. The guardians of Zanu-PF fate have always been in the military. Look back in history. The line of the Party is always a hardline. Maybe someday Zimbabwe will have soldiers; today it has cadres.

And cadres do belong to a cause, a movement, in short a Party. The key thing to know when in Zanu-PF is that there are no sole prospects, no sole careers beyond what the organisation allows, grants.

Zanu-PF trims everything to evenness, allowing no errant egos to soar above the rest. After all, misshapen frames don’t fit the straitjacket.

Bloody moments we sang
Fifthly and historically, Zanu-PF is an amalgam of experiences deriving from crises faced by both Zapu and Zanu, especially between 1971 and 1978. Most of these crises were very severe, in fact called for bloody antidotes. Both liberation movements used to sing those painful, bloody moments suffered both in Zambia and Tanzania. But not anymore. I remember one weeping song, a song of haunting tones and echoes.

It is about a place called “Mboroma”, one of the countless settings for ugly moments in our far-flung, dispersed history. These songs are not sung anymore, because the moments they recall, commemorate, were very ugly, yet yielding enduring lessons on the costs of putsches, on the beauty of unity. The Unity Accord of 1987 had to come when it did, this after a reckless lapse, after a very reckless amnesia on what disunity does to a people who have mastered the science of gunpowder. On a quiet day, like a Leviathan Zanu-PF coils in the sun, licking its wounds suffered during moments of insurrectional disunity.

Yesterday’s songs have become today’s party ethics, party canons.

Within sights of the West
Sixth and both historically and currently, Zanu-PF has always been an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist party. While 1980 settled the armed phase of its contradictions with world imperialism, the years that followed only prepared it for a new phase of conflict over the social question, beginning with the land issue.

To all intents and purposes, Zanu-PF remains a movement in the trenches, a movement at war, which could explain why it has not demobilised its wartime command ethos. Zimbabwe would have been the precursor to the Libyan tragedy, had it not been for joint Russian-Chinese veto action. Most probably the result would have been different here, given Zanu-PF’s war experience, but the lesson would have been the same, namely that imperialism will not hesitate to aggress against countries opposed to its interests.

I don’t think anyone in Zanu-PF is unaware that theirs is a marked organisation, an organisation within the sights of the angry West. At the slightest opportunity, imperialism will strike. And when under siege, dissent is treachery. Zanu-PF’s dissensions will never exceed the tolerable, will never exceed what is sufferable.

On the cusp of winning
Seventh and currently, Zanu-PF is on the cusp of winning the fight against the West, on the verge of successfully enforcing worldwide recognition of its dear bundle of principles. Blair, Brown, Cameron, Bush and Obama, all these know that to the southern tip of Africa is some little, stubborn country ready and prepared to give up all welfare for an unconditional recognition of its principles, values and interests.

So much has been sacrificed for that recognition, so, so much foregone to get to this breakthrough. Sanctions have been borne, nobly borne. Today they are being dismantled, slowly perhaps, but surely nevertheless. They will soon go, go in toto. Of course the Americans will linger on, infamously. The sanctions are dismantling, dismantling not because we have compromised, but because we have stood steadfast, stood on principle.

Virtually a decade and half of development has been missed.

Missed not through venality as happens elsewhere on the continent; but missed to press a hallowed principle. This is the price we have shown ready to pay. Dear reader, keep in mind all these points as we hurtle towards some conclusion.

No shallow frames
Understanding the goings-on in Zanu-PF has revealed two blurred and refracted optics. The first one is to see the Zanu-PF bicker within the same frame used in understanding the MDC bicker. It is as if the two conflict situations are comparable, both by nature, cause and scope.

Of course they are not.

It must be remembered MDC is an idea that created an incident in 1999, but an incident which never became an event, let alone an institution, and then movement with an ethos. MDC is incapable of generating a sentiment which moves an epoch, to use a Gramscian notion.

The bicker and splits within its echelons have no imprint on the national, are of no consequence beyond itself.

They don’t even disturb, let alone endanger the fabric of this nation, which is why they bring mirth to most, except to those losing or participating in the loss vicariously. Zanu-PF on the other hand, is the very opposite.

So, something so profound as Zanu-PF cannot be contained within frames that carry shallow phenomena.

Where age cannot be a governing value
The second factor is that in spite of the intensity of the bicker in Zanu-PF, the issues at stake, if any were any at all, never went beyond personalities, to reach and touch Zanu-PF’s pith. It is interesting that the whole conflict was framed as a two-horse race, framed as a personalities issue.

Equally, legitimation for the allegedly competing power bids centred on seniority and hierarchy in the organisation.

Or even around nicknames. There was nothing substantive, nothing at the level of ideas, values and visions. Not even the lazy, Biti option of simply dubbing oneself “renewal”. Even the 1977 Vashandi conflict was far better, far superior to what we saw recently. Those ambitious young commanders rallied around an alternative vision symbolised by Wampua.

They sought to transform a nationalist organisation into a workerist liberation movement. There were traceable ideas behind their actions, however pretended and infantile. Arguably, the Nhari rebellion, too, had an alternative vision to that of liberation. Thomas Nhari and his group sought a compromise, an abandonment of the struggle. This is why they met with Special Branch people in Mkumbura. You didn’t have to agree with them, but you saw where they differed with real patriots. Even Frolizi had something discernible.

They acted against what they perceived to be a fighting inertia within Zapu. Turning to what Zanu-PF has been going through, I am hard pressed to recover anything tangible, cognisable. Just what is at stake? What alternative values are being proffered?

Surely the age of the President cannot be a governing value? One has to renounce Zanu-PF’s bundle of principles. Or to espouse them with greater ferocity, seeking to renew them, in order to make a discernible difference.

Thriving in crisis
Need we wonder then that what appeared like a big rift, a big danger to national stability, took just one afternoon to fix? And fixed it was, whatever posturing might persist through the media. Three gains were made from this little incident of nuisance value. Firstly, aspiring bodies were tried in Zanu-PF’s brittle straitjacket. Many overflowed in that clumsy, ugly way that eliminated them as fitting heirs. Secondly, Zanu-PF’s shaping values were restated, emphatically restated in a way that triggered gushing apologies by offenders.

And their apologies were a self-disqualification, a renunciation of power bids. Four of these values stood out: preserving the legacy of the struggle and its gains; retaining an anti-imperialist, anti-Western stance; a leadership that unites the party and country; a leadership that is exemplary.

Thirdly, Zanu-PF’s fighting resources were inventoried and horned. Zanu-PF again showed itself to be a party with amazing organisational depth. There is never any telling where it will shoot from. Amazing that ZILWACO, the umbrella of war collaborators, triggered the latest remedial action.

Trimming vaulting ambitions
Last time it was the war veterans on Land. The carriers of the present actions were the Women’s League, again showing how difficult it is for enemies to locate Zanu-PF’s head. And that action yielded a new face and symbol in Zanu-PF’s mobilisation matrix: that of Grace Mugabe, the President’s wife and incoming Secretary of the Women’s League. She has shown herself to be a real shaker and mover, all in ways that should worry the opposition. They have more headaches in the coming years.

Above all, the latest saga teaches all ambitious leaders in Zanu-PF that succession shall be decided from the centre, led by the President. This idea of corrupting structures and their leaderships, merely gives one an illusion of power, and one belying one’s effeteness. After all, you cannot bribe the whole membership. Or stop the leadership from mobilising it against those structures you will have bribed and compromised. That way vaulting ambition is trimmed and taught a bitter lesson. That is Zanu-PF for you, thriving in throes.

Icho!

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