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Perspective Stephen Mpofu
SHOULD political happenings of recent weeks be re-enacted along with their trademark hysteria, they are wont to posit for peace-loving Zimbabweans a turbulent future rather than one pregnant with long gains of the armed revolution that brought uhuru to this country in 1980. The trending discourse of the opposition political parties gunning for power from Zanu-PF left a lot to be desired in many areas.

The cubs or young stock who were loosed after the ruling party were driven in their violent acts not by any form of realism with regards to their vision of the future of this country vis-à-vis the past. On the contrary, mob psychology took the better of them.

This above claim is predicated on the fact that nearly all, if not all of those who participated violently in the failed attempts to shut down the country and force the incumbent rulers out of power, are younger than the independence on which they have become constipated.

Dripping wet behind the ears as it were, they have no inkling of an idea about how cruel Rhodesia — named after imperialist Britain’s agent Cecil John Rhodes who led to this country’s colonisation — was like with black people being subjected to blatant inhuman treatment.

Ironically, the blatant ignorance of the young people in point should be blamed on this country’s historians and scholars who have tragically and lamentably fallen asleep on the urgent and important task of writing books on the history of the liberation struggle which secured this country from a foreign ruling culture.

Those who participated in the armed freedom struggle must equally stand in the line of fire for their failure to pen books about the gauntlet of mosquitoes and snakes and enemy bullets that they ran in the bush during the struggle for liberation of the motherland.

Incidentally many of the former combatants are educated men and women in government today with others having detoured from Zanu-PF to opposition politics.

As things stand some of these people are yellowing and will in time fall, like tree leaves in the autumn of their lives, perpetuating the paucity in liberation history.

[In the circumstances, this pen strongly urges the powers that be, or interested patriots, urgently to come up with programmes for the writing of the liberation history of this country as a legacy for future generations. To expect white historians – people against whom we fought to liberate ourselves — to write the history of our own liberation is certainly an act in futility.]

The historical predicament in which young Zimbabweans find themselves today leads them into comparing the government of the day and the country with the contemporary world.

Still this does not exonerate those who are ignorant of what the Rhodesia the freedom fighters transformed into Zimbabwe was like.

Contextually, those opposition party leaders who lived through and experienced Rhodesia should be blamed for their failure politically to socialise their youth by giving them the correct picture of what colonial Rhodesia was like.

But what do we hear instead from those same leaders who ought to be in the know to help their ignorant young followers by giving them a realistic comparison of free Zimbabwe and colonial Rhodesia?

It is no exaggeration for this pen to suggest that what the public hears from some of the opposition leaders can metaphorically be put down as dry hot air, not water vapour or cumulus or nimbus clouds accumulating in the sky above and scudding all over to release their rain down to a politically — and economically — arid Zimbabwe.

In other words some of the opposition leaders rend the air with calls for (President) Mugabe to step down from power allegedly for running down the country.

However, none of the President’s opponents has provided Zimbabweans with a credible forensic audit showing where government has failed and where it has performed as it should.

These same people itching with desire for power have not told Zimbabwean voters and others what better programmes they themselves possess for the social and economic emancipation of the people of Zimbabwe.

Voters are persuaded by what a political party has to offer them if put in power, and not by strong or bombastic language and empty slogans denouncing those in power.

The imperative need for political parties to demonstrate to the electorate what they have to offer if elected to power is obvious in light of imperialist forces that spend sleepless nights skimming the downfall of governments, particularly those run by former guerillas or “terrorists” as imperialists derogatively described the freedom fighters.

It is therefore imperative of Zimbabweans in every hierarchical structure of leadership to be, and remain, unsinkable in their commitment to the long gain of self-determination in our independent and sovereign state.

The value requirement for this ideal is not power-dreams that sparkle like dew on grass when touched by slanting rays of the early morning sun but melt under intense heat.

On the contrary, the leaders who love and desire to lead the country into a brave new future should possess an unusual, powerful foresight or vision which puts people first and enjoys God’s blessing.

Leaders who are visionaries will nearly always deflect, or neutralise altogether the long gain of imperialism’s policy of political and economic domination of weaker nations such as our own and others elsewhere in the developing world.

Those opposition parties that fail to articulate and support the gains of independence, whether these were brought about by their rivals, automatically become allies of foreign powers and therefore render themselves irrelevant to their own people when all things are considered.

The interference by foreign powers in the domestic affairs of Zimbabwe with, for instance the imposition of economic sanctions, is and must therefore be understood by all Zimbabweans as a contest of long gains.

The bottom line to the above discourse by leaders is self-distanciation from self interest and gain in preference to aggregate interest and long gain of the nation and gracious God will with no doubt lavish with a smile and public grace.