Constitution and the raison d’être

Commander of the Rhodesian Army, came into existence for the express purpose of eliminating the Zanla and Zipra insurgents by clandestine means. The incorporation of irregular armed units as part of the Rhodesian war machinery came in the wake of increased insurgents activities beginning in December 1972.
Just like the formation of the Selous Scouts to eliminate Zanla and Zipra forces, the current debate on what should be included and what should not be in the new constitution, has largely been seen as symmetrical to a war for the ouster of Zanu-PF from power.
The current constitution making process, itself coming after a historic war on land redistribution, is seen by reactionaries as an opportunity for ascertaining and making sure that Zimbabwe remains in the “sphere of influence” of its former enslavers.
The only hope for retention of “white safeguards” legally rests in the constitution, which in turn will create “a place for the minority white population” in Zimbabwe. Hence there appears to be a pseudo-constitutional debate within the rank and file of our geo-polity.
In fact we have pseudo-operators in Copac. The idea of using pseudo-operations, that is, men posing as the enemy, was heavily borrowed from the 1944 Ardennes counter offensive in which Germans practiced it successfully with Colonel Otto Skorzeny, the famed Special Forces commander who had rescued Italy’s fascist leader Bernito Mussolini from captivity in 1943.
In this battle, a special panzer brigade of German soldiers wearing United States army uniforms and equipped with captured US tanks and vehicles, was formed to exploit the expected breakthrough by rushing to seize the Meuse bridge between Liege and Namur. Other parties, similarly disguised were tasked to filter through the American lines and spread havoc and confusion in the rear echelons.
About 40 Jeep-loads of American-speaking German soldiers infiltrated the lines, rampaged, created incredible confusion and panic, shooting up soft targets and disrupting communications in the rear.
Some accounts mention one cool German soldier who took up employment as a Military Police pointsman and busied himself for many hours directing reinforcements down the wrong roads.
The major and main effectiveness, far off discharged and did not concern the things they did, but the things they did not do, the uncomfortable doubt they created as to whether the man in the identical uniform to yours, was really a friend or was he really a foe?
When word got around, every American eyed every other American they did not personally know with understandable suspicion, fingers tensely hovering close to the triggers of weapons.
Searching questions were asked about movies and movie stars, baseball and football stars and the latest league positions in efforts to probe identities.
Even General Omar Bradley, the commander of the United States 1st Army, was not immune, as he related in his autobiography, “A Soldier’s Story”, that, “Three times I was ordered to prove my identity by cautious soldiers.
“The first time by identifying Springfield as the capital of Illinois; the second time by locating the guard between the centre and tackle on the line of scrimmage; the third by naming the current spouse of a blonde named Betty Grable.”
Today, as the nation grapples with the process of making a new constitution, itself being a potent ideological and legal tool for our nationhood, our fingers, as a nation, should be hovering over the triggers of our conscience, ready, and searching questions seething in our throats and mouth.
The questions should prove beyond reasonable doubt where one is deriving his or her power. Is it from the national interest, public interest, party interest or foreign interest? 
The premises for our constitutional discourse must be anchored on national interest. A constitution, in this sphere, should capture, through the structure of language use, symbolism and word sequencing, the aspirations and goals of the nation.
As considerable disagreements exist in Zimbabwe over what is or is not in the national interest, the term, which is often referred to by the French as, “raison raison d’être” meaning, reason of the state, has come to be confused with partisan interests.
The national interest, which is the reason of the state and “a mean between what conscience permits and affairs require”, have to be a form of reason “born of the calculation and ruse of men” and this has made the state “a knowing machine”, and a work of reason.
Thus we must be guided by this reason and pay attention to the broad ideas and the way in which cultural and social differences, technological innovations, history and religion impact the behaviour of the public.