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Didymus Mutasa

Reason Wafawarova on Monday

In our flag the youth must find new inspiration for loyalty to Zimbabwe, not the incitement to rebel against our own core values. In our flag the youth must find the inspiration for patriotism based not on mean or narrow nationalism, but on the deep and equal pride that all Zimbabweans will feel for every inch of this great our country.

OUR national flag is not a weapon of war, it is not an instrument of conflict, it is not even an instrument of protest, and not an expression of disgruntlement.

Our flag is most certainly not an attention-seeking instrument, not a campaign tool of any kind, and no individual can ever be allowed to be as delusional as to pretend to be the custodian of our collective memory and conscience — particularly through the use of the national flag.

Our flag is the union of our hearts, the union of our hands, the union of our collective intention, and indeed it is our union of purpose.

There is none among us Zimbabweans who must look upon the folds of our flag without pride for our country.

Our flag means all that our founding fathers meant in the Liberation War. It means all that the declaration of independence meant. It means justice. It means happiness. Every colour means liberty. Every symbol means freedom.

The fact that we have some politicians in our leadership that evidently lack serious commitment to duty does not take away the meaning of our national flag. It does not take away our collective resolve for justice, freedom, and happiness.

My message to fellow countrymen is simple and clear. Protest if you must, rebel if you must, but spare your country’s flag.

Our flag is more than just cloth and ink. It is a universally recognised symbol that stands for liberty and freedom. It is the history of our nation; and the blood of those who perished defending our right to have our own flag anchors that history.

The Union Jack was a flag foisted on us by a foreign people for 90 years, and we fought it down because we were sick and tired of being sick and tired of foreign domination. We cannot today be seen to be allowing foreigners to meddle in our affairs, especially through what appears to be blatant abuse of the national flag. We cannot demean our own identity by using our national flag as an expression of divisiveness. That is unacceptable.

In order to survive in peace and harmony, united and strong, we must have one people, one nation, and one flag. The red anchors our flag. It is our blood, our strength, and our life. We may, as we should, have diverse political views and affiliations, but we can never have diverse blood, or diverse nationhood.

When you put on that flag around your neck, you are not just carrying a piece of cloth so you can symbolise your disgruntlement with those failing to govern this country according to its set expectations. You are carrying the Zimbabwe flag. You are carrying the symbol of freedom, our national pride; our identity. You are carrying the collectiveness of our history.

We have come to this dire predicament where our young generation is benevolently ignorant about our history, while our senior generation is malevolently well informed of where we are coming from. Yet our senior generation seems to be benevolently ignorant of the needs of future generations, starting with the generation of its own children. No one seems to know where we are going, but everyone seems so keen to remind the other of where we are coming from. This is the tragedy that is now threatening even the dignity of our own flag.

In our flag the youth must find new inspiration for loyalty to Zimbabwe, not the incitement to rebel against our own core values. In our flag the youth must find the inspiration for patriotism based not on mean or narrow nationalism, but on the deep and equal pride that all Zimbabweans will feel for every inch of this great our country.

It must once again be wonderful to feel the grandness of Zimbabwe even in this terrible era of untold hardships, not just because it is Zimbabwe, but because our country is to us something sublime that we are all born into, some great rugged power that we are all inevitably part of.

As for me, I would never let someone take my Zimbabwean citizenship from me for anything. I am proud of my passport, and I would never come to a point where I have to enter my own country branding a passport of another citizenry.

We must be tremendously proud of our culture, our heritage, and our achievements — yes we have many: and of course we must continue to break new grounds. We have the bane of corruption as the albatross around our necks, and we know we cannot wish away this scourge without tackling it with the brutality, tyranny and ruthlessness it deserves. Personally I am for the idea of slitting the throats of corrupt people, and I believe only such callousness can tame this monstrous beast.

We must realise that neither side of our political divide has a monopoly on sons of b*****s — pardon the language. Corruption is a shared mischief across the political divide, and we must realise that true accountability is not institution driven, but people driven. If our people say no to corruption no one can say yes. We are all complicit in this cancerous behaviour, and we must agree that we have a collective sense of failure on this issue.

A man’s country is not just a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods; but it is a principle. Patriotism is loyalty to that principle.

Zimbabwe to us is not its boundaries and land mass, it is not just its glamour and success, nor its hardships and failures. To us Zimbabwe is a principle that will never die, a principle based on our undying patriotism. We can no more give up Zimbabwe than we can give up our own lives.

This is what our flag stands for. It is a for better or for worse symbol of national resolve. There is no divorce certificate that can ever be issued between Zimbabwe and any one of her children. We can reside in other countries but the nation of Zimbabwe resides in us, the blood will not go away, and there will never be blood transfusion of one nation to another.

The hope of the country rests in one country, one language, and one flag. We aspire for greatness as a nation, and indeed there will never be greatness delivered by small minds, nor will there ever be greatness born out of the bowels of a small minded leadership.

We have a problem in Zimbabwe. There are just too many small-minded people sitting in huge leadership chairs. There is this problem that Caesar Zvayi once described as “small men in huge robes.” Didymus Mutasa was absolutely offended at the time.

Frankly there are many clueless Cabinet Ministers who deserve not a second longer in their positions, and some of them have been there for ages. We simply cannot achieve greatness with smallness.

This republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it. This country belongs to Zimbabweans, not to the international community. Those of us obsessed with the idea of borrowing governance ideas from Western embassies must realise that we did not come up with this establishment so we can outsource its management to the very people from whom we snatched our freedom.

Not only did we commit to die for this freedom, as indeed happened to our fallen heroes, but we also killed for this freedom. There are people we killed for Zimbabwe to be born. We know them, and we cannot possibly hope for salvation from their remnant.

Thousands laid down their lives, so that our country breathes this day. We cannot afford to forget this kind of sacrifice. We must always understand that freedom is indivisible, peace is indivisible, and that economic prosperity is indivisible.

We cannot feign freedom, we cannot fake peace, and we cannot pretend economic prosperity. Our leadership must wake up to the realities of our challenges, and only sound leadership can begin to stir this country in the right direction.

We have an undefeatable resolve that Zimbabwe will never be destroyed from outside. If we falter and lose our sovereignty, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

We are not going to follow the naivety of Benghazi Libyans in 2011, who in the name of bitterness allowed foreign powers to destroy their once great nation, all because they said even Libya was worth giving away for the death of Gaddafi.

We know that the Libyan people lost both their country and their flag in the process, and it will take many years for them to ever have a country again. The land mass is still there, but there is no country anymore. The principle died.

We are aware that democracy means nothing if people are not able to work democracy for the common good of the nation. We know that independence is nothing if the people are not able to achieve freedom and happiness through it. Democracy and independence are the foundations upon which nation building begins.

We need sound leadership for effective nation building, real nation building I mean, not this less than impressive sloganeering games at this other party of expelled Zanu-PF cadres. But I digress.

If Zimbabwe was worth dying for in the time of the Liberation War, let us ensure it is truly worth living for in the time of independence.

This is not the time to ask what the country can do for us. It is time to ask ourselves what we can do for 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