Zimbabwe: Whose Country Is It Anyway?

Nehanda and Kaguvi who led the First Chimurenga of the Zimbabwe Revolution to oppose British imperialism. They are shown in the custody of the settler-colonialists who robbed and exploited the country and its people for over a century from the 1890s.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Whose country is it anyway?

Courtesy of the Zimbabwe Herald

MARY MAGDALENE, one of the most unheralded biblical characters is ironically at the centre of the Christianity that spawned the Bible. For it was from Mary Magdalene’s visit to Jesus’ tomb that the world got to know that the Messiah had triumphed over death.

Mary Magdalene was not only the first to witness the resurrected Christ, she was also the first to preach the resurrection to the apostles which is why much of the gospels are attributed to her testimony, which testimony became the bedrock of Christianity.

At the centre of Christianity, of course, is the remission of sins, manifest in being born again where the old life is deemed to have passed away for a new, apparently squeaky clean one to begin in Christ.

It appears that to some of our neophytes in politics here, their sojourn to State House on February 13 last year for swearing-in was the equivalent of being born again, where their history of colluding with Westerners against their own people passed away and they emerged as born-again, patriotic Zimbabweans fit to be among cadres that venerated commanders like Josiah Magama Tongogara and Alfred Nikita Mangena would proudly inspect if they were to rise up today.

These characters; among them ex-Rhodesian Front, Rhodesian African Rifles and Selous Scouts members; apparently believe they can be counted among the bones that Mbuya Nehanda foretold would rise as she was led to the gallows by the same forces bankrolling the MDC today, which bones rose amid strong opposition from some of the MDC top brass.

I will not burden you with the names dear reader, for they are too many to mention but MDC leaders and their handlers seem to be on a campaign to rewrite our history to portray a nation as old as February 13, 2010.

For the record, the MDC was launched as a knee-jerk reaction to the Zanu-PF led government’s move to acquire white-held farmers without compensation following the decision by the Labour regime of Tony Blair to renege on obligations to fund land reforms in Zimbabwe.

The three main British parties; Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats then got together as the Westminster Foundation and agreed to launch the MDC on a ZCTU platform; the party’s primary objective being to unseat Zanu-PF and kill the impending land reforms.

This is why from launch MDC leaders have opposed land reforms, only grudgingly accepting them in the text of the so-called GPA that gave birth to the inclusive Government.

The MDC was not launched to fight Zanu-PF the party, but the logical conclusion of the Second Chimurenga manifest in taking the liberation struggle from the political to the economic dimension.

The MDC’s reactionary nature explains why the party had no problems attracting and filling its ranks with ex-Rhodesian Front, Rhodesian African Rifles, Selous Scouts, Special Branch and BSAP operatives for their mission in the MDC was just a continuation of their mission in the Rhodesian Security Forces.

Out of the realisation that Zanu-PF was entrenched in the hearts of Zimbabweans, the MDC and its handlers settled on economic sanctions to bring socio-economic hardships that were designed to separate the people from Zanu-PF. As any sane person knows, sanctions are a form of economic warfare; as such the MDC was complicit in declaring war against the people.

Therefore what MDC leaders have done and willed on Zimbabweans can never be considered heroic; it’s treasonous which is why it came as a surprise that Tsvangirai would have the temerity to write to President Mugabe seeking National Hero Status for Gibson Sibanda, may his soul rest in peace.

Ofcourse, Tsvangirai is not God’s gift to logical thought but short of mischief, I do not see any other word to describe his charade. Unless of course he wanted to lay his own groundwork, for if Sibanda were to be declared a national hero on the back of his ZCTU and MDC record, surely, Tsvangirai, who was with him throughout, would also be declared a hero.

The question then becomes; since those in the MDC have been fighting Zanu-PF from inception what would that make of Zanu-PF if the MDC cause was to be considered progressive and the party leadership’s actions heroic? The anti-thesis of a hero is a villain, so if Tsvangirai and Sibanda are heroes, it follows that all in Zanu-PF are villains, and their cause was and is villainous.

That will mean the thousands of patriots who perished from the day the Pioneer Column hoisted the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury on September 12, 1890 were all villains, Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner to the Cape Colony, who ordered Mbuya Nehanda’s execution was a hero executing a villain, Morrison Nyathi who connived with the Smith regime to murder innocent men, women and children in Chimoio was a hero murdering villains. The history of our beautiful country will truly become the history of the white man in Africa.

MDC leaders have to be told in no uncertain terms that the National Heroes Acre is not for everybody. It is for those who distinguished themselves in liberating this country, and those people can only be found in the ranks of the former liberation movements Zanla and Zipra that came together under Zanu-PF.

These are the people who know what went on in the bush, and who distinguished themselves not Tsvangirai who was working in the textile mills of Mutare and the mine shafts of Bindura having lasted no more than 24 hours in a liberation training camp, or Mutambara who still had milk on his baby nose on April 18, 1980.

Now to the other issues;

MDC leaders, particularly those from Tsvangirai’s camp, should know that Zimbabwe can never sanction its own people. While they may have succeeded in inviting sanctions on this country and also having their Western handlers place all those who criticise them on sanctions lists; that can never happen here.

Tsvangirai’s party has been busy trying to silence all who see it as an ugly duckling not the beautiful swan it wants people to believe it is.

Despite all their pretensions at being democrats who uphold freedom of expression, MDC leaders have been busy trying to silence the Mbare Chimurenga Choir not only because the choir is reminding people of this country’s history of principled resistance to all forms of imperialism and neo-colonialism, but because the songs put the inclusive Government into perspective by debunking the lie that Tsvangirai is in charge, a fib the MDC hoped to use to get credit for any positives that accrue from the inclusive Government.

After failing to silence the melodious, progressive voices from Mbare, MDC leaders have turned their attention President Mugabe’s spokesman, George Charamba, whom they tried to turn into an outstanding issue and now wish to silence on the grounds that a civil servant should not dabble in politics, yet they forget that Charamba is the Presidential spokesman. How can a spokesperson for the President of the Republic be accused of dabbling in politics when the Presidency itself is a political office?

Yes they may have managed to silence Peter Mavhunga — a court probation officer and part-time newspaper columnist who has been living and working in Britain for the past 30 years — but they came unstuck on The Herald’s Australian based columnist, Reason Wafawarova, whom they tried to get deported from down under.

Wafawarova ended up laughing all the way to the bank after suing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that had defamed him after peddling MDC falsehoods that claimed he had been involved in the rape, murder and torture of innocent people during his days in the Ministry of Youth Development and Employment Creation.

The same characters also tried it with my colleagues Munyaradzi Huni, Reuben Barwe and Judith Makwanya and I, along with my former editor at The Herald, PD, as we were all placed on Anglo-Saxon sanctions lists in a blatant attempt at mind control and censorship but the undemocratic democrats again came unstuck for the simple reason that Zimbabwe is not Europe and Europe is not Zimbabwe.

Assuming a puppeteer can credit his mannequin for moves he originates, MDC leaders may be heroes in Whitehall and the White House but they are not heroes here.

Whose country is it anyway?

caesar.zvayi@zimpapers.co.zw