April 18 deeper, richer…

On April 18, Zimbabwe celebrated 31 years of Independence from British colonial rule.

It is a day that reflects on not only the heroism of Zimbabweans against the brutality and savagery of the British settlers, Rhodesians, and their allies home and abroad but also the achievements that have been made in the 31 years of Independence. However, Independence is under threat from the erstwhile colonisers who use local puppets to try and defeat or pilfer it. Below is an assessment of one such attempt in the mould of Morgan Tsvangirai's "Independence message"

By Tichaona Zindoga

It is beyond equivocation that, as a country that had been under the colonial yoke for 110 years before that happy day on April 18, 1980, the day itself represents something sacred, rich and deep.
It might as well be the Easter of Zimbabwe where blood, tears and sweat were expended so that a new, liberating order prevailed.
One does not have to have participated in the liberation struggle, in its many phases, or for that matter having ran away from it, to appreciate its extent and sanctity.
The rich history of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle against imperialism speaks for itself, with supreme sacrifices that resulted in the loss of life and limb being there to show for it.
Suffice to say, speaking of the day and the related struggles in terms that offend the ideals of Zimbabwe’s Independence is something that might as well equate to blasphemy and sacrilege.
At best this is part of counter-revolutionary mischief.
For example, one cannot speak, without offending sense, of a “struggle” that seeks to undo the gains of the liberation and pretend to champion the cause and the continuum of the struggle that brought April 18 1980.
This is the reason why the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s “Independence message to the people of Zimbabwe” which he delivered through Western-sponsored media, including his own newsletter on the eve of April 18, stands out so revoltingly.
One can observe the following in Tsvangirai’s address:

·    An a-historical, dry and pedestrian mentioning of the attainment of Independence without putting the same into historical context, namely that Zimbabwe got independence from Britain whose settlers had misnamed the country Rhodesia. The same British killed thousands of people whose only crime was to demand to be free from exploitation; reject the theft and plunder of their God-given resources and labour; and demand their own humanity which the colonial system negated profusely.

·    An attempt to dismiss the reality  of Independence, which subsists to this day, by suggesting that it has been rubbished and defeated and, in Tsvangirai’s words, hijacked, by a certain group of people.

·    An attempt at appending Tsvangirai’s own Western regime change agenda to the historic and patriotic struggle for Independence. Tsvangirai does not even sense the irony that his western-regime change agenda, apart from affronting Independence, lets “this country slide back to the dark years of (Western) repression, violence and intimidation”. This has been seen in the scores of countries that have been as unfortunate as to see through the success of the struggles as such Tsvangirai champions here.

·    Tsvangirai’s attempt at selling his “struggle” as people driven and saying Zimbabweans are “ultimately responsible for our own destiny” while it is common knowledge that he daily gets his fodder from the West. Presumably, this speech, like many before it, was prepared for him by some Western forces, or if it didn’t takes much care reflect the same.

·    The typical, anti-majority disposition that seeks to challenge and trash people oriented programmes. Expectedly, the land reform programme and the indigenisation and economic empowerment drive are the objects of Tsvangirai’s discomfort. And you hear him giving puerile and base arguments that these programmes benefit a small clique, despite evidence to the contrary. He might as well go the auction floors to see very ordinary folk trying to outdo each other in selling their tobacco crop to see the fatuity of his argument. Agriculture as driven by the 300 000 families that benefited from the land reform programme is leading the economic recovery of Zimbabwe. His secretary General and Finance Minister Tendai. The ongoing exercize of indigenisation can only go in that direction.

In light of the foregoing, one can see that the man who only yesterday trashed and did not attend Independence celebrations is trying to have ownership of the day by trying to be relevant.
He even tries to be sophistic.
It is like the Devil himself has laid his filthy hand on the Gospel and tries to run away with it.
But he should not be allowed to.
Granted, Independence is for everyone, including traitors.
But they cannot be trusted to provide or show the way.
Says Tsvangirai: “The coming year will also hold many challenges, dangers and difficult choices. But we have already shown that we have the conviction, the courage and the belief in our own capacity to overcome any hurdles and to build the society that we want.
“As we enter our 32nd year of liberation, there will be many treacherous voices trying to convince you to shed away your determination for a new and democratic Zimbabwe. All I ask you is to trust in your heart and to embrace the democratic ideals of our fallen heroes and to remain steadfast in your dedication to building a truly free society. Twenty years after independence we were told that the land would set us free. The same land was later grabbed by avaricious politicians and the well-connected in our society.
“Now, thirty years after independence we are being told by multi-millionaires and multiple farm-owners that indigenisation will set us free. By this they are not referring to broad-based empowerment of the ordinary man and woman, but the looting and plunder of national resources by a small, parasitic elite.
“Let us not be diverted or distracted by empty rhetoric. Let us not grasp at seemingly easy, short-term gains while continuing to live under the yoke of repression, by individuals driven by partisan political motives and personal greed.”
This excerpt shows two aspects of Tsvangirai’s sophistry and fallacy.
He vainly tries to convince his readers that heroes of Zimbabwe sacrificed, and for others, fell to achieve certain “democratic ideals” which he needs not mention are those daily preached by the West which sponsors him.
 Tsvangirai does not have the insight or the courage to tell the world that the West denied Zimbabweans any democracy and only had to be taught by the gun to admit to people’s will.
It can only be the daft and the dishonest and delusional to think that the West is out to promote democracy in the world.
So Tsvangirai thinks that there can be greater “courage and the belief in our own capacity to overcome any hurdles and to build the society that we want” than that which was championed by liberation fighters.
He ought to explain how a party that is bent on undoing the gains of the anti-West liberation struggle by seeking to bring back Western domination amounts to well-meaning self-determination.
The second aspect relates to Tsvangirai, and by extension, the West’s fear of the majority power, in this case economically.
If one were to ask a farmer at the tobacco auction floors today if his getting the land that has seen him venture into a former preserve for the white minority would he say that amounts to treachery, or he would say that trying to reverse land reform does?
Owning industries and making employers of the previously marginalized black majority, the vision of the indigenisation drive, cannot amount to treachery.
Unless, of course, one is part of that minority or a beneficiary thereof, in the oft horse-rider relationship.
Thus Tsvangirai betrays himself for the political character he is today: one that increasingly feels the power of the continuum of the liberation story which he has so far tried deny and defeat.
And since he cannot defeat it, he tries to poach it and adopt it for his own treacherous cause.
He distorts and he distracts.
His is a strong case of someone who puts a fly into a bottle of perfume, as one Biblical passage notes, resulting in the perfume losing essence.
Then Tsvangirai says he makes a “commitment today that I will lead the collective national effort to complete the unfinished business of the liberation struggle by ensuring that true freedom returns to this great country of our birth”.
One wonders what this other “unfinished business of the liberation struggle” can be (and this reminds one of that equally dubious Tendai Biti statement when he talked of the late nationalist Joshua Nkomo).
Zimbabwe’s heroes, fallen or living, conceivably will not accept to be lectured on that which they fought for by someone who says the land and business ownership are a “distraction” and treachery.
These men and women that fought segregation cannot be told today that they sacrificed their lives to be condemned into the hands of the very same West that they fought only yesterday.