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Perspective Stephen Mpofu
TODAY, April 18, is Independence Day. But this pen has a painful hunch that when it is all over not all Zimbabweans will have celebrated 35 years of uhuru with a fitting, pervasive abandon, and for indisputable reasons, too. Which are, in a nutshell, that the revolution that wrested the motherland from an oppressive, racist minority colonial regime in 1980 is in mourning, maligned especially by two ruinous demonic spirits.

The revolution, which remains an inspirational alias for the ruling Zanu-PF government, achieved its primary goal of freedom and peace in 1980 on the back of a strong solidarity between the gallant sons and daughters of the soil in the bush at home and over our borders on the one hand, and on the other masses tired of being treated as Cinderella citizens on their own soil and driven by a desire for self-actualisation in freedom, peace and stability.

But in the latter years of Zimbabwe’s independence, the demonic spirit of disunity has tended to degrade the revolutionary spirit pervading the country as some of those possessed by the evil spirit have seen it fit to prune themselves from Zanu-PF to set themselves up as separate mature trees, oblivious of the virtuous saying: “United we stand, divided we fall.”

That some Zimbabweans who once drummed their chests as unmitigated revolutionaries now stand accused of not only attempting to unseat President Robert Mugabe unconstitutionally, but by also killing him, appears in this pen’s humble opinion, a manifestation of the demonic spirit of division at work and driven by an insatiable hunger for power and power at any cost.

Add to that, Zanu-PF provincial leaders in whom a vote of no confidence has been passed by their local political structures, or have since been suspended and banned from holding office for two years for creating structures parallel to mainstream party structures – all of those ills are the characteristics of demonic spirits at work.

Considering the fact that the West is waging war on Zimbabwe in an attempt to bring about regime change – after illegal economic sanctions imposed to try to recolonise Zimbabwe as it were failed to exact that change – is it too much of an exaggeration, or that value at all, for this pen to suggest that those that seek to divide and weaken the ruling party in order for the country to succumb to foreign, hegemonic influences have willingly or unwittingly become cats’ paws for usurping our sovereignty for the imperialists who have unleashed on these unpatriotic Zimbabweans the demonic spirit of division?

The theme for this year’s independence celebrations features unity and peace but values that, in the prevailing circumstances of disunity wrought by small-minded, power hungry once upon-a-time gallant proponents of the revolution must have rung with a hollow feeling among devout patriots and revolutionaries who will want none of imperialism returning to this country through the back door and clothed in whatever political apparel.

Then there are also these other divisive forces possessed by a demonic spirit of pecuniary greed that parallels the spirit of disunity in its insatiability. Talk of corruption in the workplace by people who ought to be stewards of the Zimbabwean economy and you will have put your finger on the demonic spirit of greed that seeks to arrogate wealth to individuals rather than for the good of the Zimbabwean nation as a whole.

Yet it is commonsense that partnerships that the Government is promoting between foreign and local companies as it seeks to bring about vivacity to an economy beleaguered by illegal Western sanctions will remain strange bedfellows with corruption in any country where this vice rears its ugly head.

But more damaging for Zimbabwe, corruption riding on the same bandwagon as political disunity is wont to degrade, if not cripple Zim-Asset altogether, if allowed an unmitigated sway.

But have all these divisive, negative elements surreptitiously wormed their way to the fore on account of the revolution lacking the red light to stop the rot, as the Government embarked on massive measures to grow education – which in Rhodesia was the preserve of the white minority to try to empower the racists to continue to ride on the backs of blacks – while at the same time improving other social and economic sectors and culminating with the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Social and Economic Transformation?

Or would the current situation of disunity under which divisive elements try to give their breakaway little political parties plausible names to delude gullible publics have been thwarted had the ruling party set up an ideological institution soon after independence for the re-education of any of its wayward cadres to make them walk the revolution all the way?

The 35th anniversary of independence should be turned by the revolutionary ruling party into a watershed. It should be a point of departure from free-wheeling political elements to bring about cohesion and an unassailable unity. This as Zimbabwe goes for broke in industrialisation and with that the emancipation of the economy to a robust vehicle on which Zimbabwe as a nation will ride into a brave new economic future as the ultimate consequence of the armed revolution in which young men and young women sacrificed their precious lives to free all of us from a debilitating york of colonialism and oppression.

But when all has been said, the onus remains with the public at large who must act and say without any equivocation that they are fed up of fly-by-night political organisations and will withhold any carte blanche support for them to yellow and die away, like leaves in autumn.

Therefore, as Zimbabweans begin a new year of independence tomorrow, they should resolve never again to eschew any strange, isolationist ideas or voices seeking to draw parallel lines with no point of convergence and which divide Zimbabweans along tribal, ethnic or political persuasions with the result that our people will be rendered weak and vulnerable to foreign political predators who will pounce on them without any resistance offered.