Last chimurenga: says who?

There has always been the danger, especially in the last decade or so, that the gains of the liberation struggle are under threat, and could be undone if Zanu-PF, winners of the Second and Third Chimurengas and custodians of all the Chimurengas, are defeated by the MDC
The Herald

Tichaona Zindoga
Zimbabwe's history records with pride the exploits of Murenga, a High Spirit of the Njelele Shrine, referred to as the Mlimo based in Matobo District, Matabeleland South.
It is said that this spirit was more superior than, and gave instructions to, other spirits such as Kaguvi, Nehanda, Mkwati which are well-known today.
In 1896, this heroic spirit led the national uprising against British settlers, who had come to Zimbabwe under the banner of the British South Africa Company.
Although the black people of Zimbabwe fought that losing cause, having been endowed with only the rudimentary munitions of war, their bravery and inspiration was remarkable. As remarkable was the leadership of Murenga that the uprising was quickly identifiable and synonymous with him, hence the name "Chi-Murenga", meaning "Murenga's kind (of war)".
Subsequently, the initial resistance against settler rule was referred to as the First Chimurenga. The nationalist struggle, the liberation war that eventually led to the country's Independence in 1980, is known as the
Second Chimurenga.
The land redistribution exercise that Government embarked on as it reclaimed colonially-stolen land and gave it to the majority has been dubbed the Third Chimurenga. Still, a Fourth Chimurenga - some call it the Last Chimurenga - is underway as Government embarks on the indigenisation and economic empowerment process which seeks to give the majority control of the economy.
A Chimurenga, as has been shown by history, is an instrument of revolution. A common thread runs through these chimurengas. First, these struggles are homegrown. They represent a determination by the black people of Zimbabwe to see off constraining status quos and historical epochs imposed by settlers. There is a price to pay, and a heavy one at that.
The black people of Zimbabwe died in their thousands trying to defeat colonialism. As people asserted themselves, their adversaries could only be more stubborn and brutal. In contemporary times, the West has rallied against Zimbabwe and imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe which are meant to, as they have done, cause untold suffering to the people.
It has thankfully not happened so far, though there can never be a guarantee that it will not.
For example, what guarantee do beneficiaries of the Third Chimurenga have when they largely do not have security of tenure and the 99-year leases have not shown to be such? If successful, will the current indigenisation provide an ambient air of economic ownership among Zimbabweans as much as they now walk freely on First Street, from which they were previously barred?
A good guess is that it might not, what with the avarice of a few fat cats, as many people have feared.
Does history not say something about a revolution sowing seeds of own destruction? This is where the problem with naming the current indigenisation programme the "Last Chimurenga" at least from the perspective of semantics.
If what people fear comes to pass that fat cats will control the means of production, and they revolt against it some years from now, will it not be another Chimurenga? In essence, to call the current Chimurenga "last" is not only an attempt to put a lid on history but also sounds myopic. Zimbabwe's history, as far as its Chimurengas are concerned, has evolved over a more than a century. It cannot be chained in 31 years of Independence.
That attempt to put a lid on history will not only be unsuccessful but will also be drowned in history, too.
Struggles and revolutions and histories are as varied and spontaneous and respond to conditions that characterise them. Struggles and revolutions and histories are as constant as change itself because they change, revolve and evolve.
There has always been the danger, especially in the last decade or so, that the gains of the liberation struggle are under threat, and could be undone if Zanu-PF, winners of the Second and Third Chimurengas and custodians of all the Chimurengas, are defeated by the MDC. The MDC are funded and otherwise supported by those against whom the three Chimurengas up to the land reform programme, and now the fourth, have been directed. Zanu-PF has had a close shave with defeat at the hands of the MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. There is a chance that Zanu-PF, sometimes with a tendency to self-destruct, might someday lose to their Western-sponsored rivals.
If that happens, surely people might have to revolt against the Western puppets the same way North Africans intended to do when they rose up against long-time puppets Hosni Mubarak and Ben Ali?
Granting the western-sponsored MDC will not have pilfered and bastardised the Chimurenga and call the defeat of Zanu-PF a "Fifth Chimurenga" - and possibly name their undoing of the gains of the liberation struggle the Sixth - then there will be another Chimurenga, this time the seventh?
Providing all this does not happen, there simply are many facets of struggle that are still to be undertaken and explored. For example, will there not be a need in future for cultural, information and even religious revolutions? Politics, in its inherent idiosyncrasy to produce contradictions, can be trusted to produce situations previously unimagined.
It will be a big surprise indeed if Zimbabwe's continuum of struggles is to end today with the indigenisation programme, however glorious it sounds.