Editorial Comment: President’s independence speech hit the right chords

message, delivered in front of a bumper crowd at the National Sports Stadium and millions more following on radio and television, will form the basis of future political campaigns as we move towards elections.
We are aware that there are still pockets of resistance within the political parties. There are still elements that want to use violence to get political power but they are in the minority and can easily be over-shadowed by the resounding call for peace from the highest office in the land.
The President has sent a clear message that violence will not be tolerated and it is now up to those charged with the responsibility of enforcing law and order to ensure that there is peace in the country.
There was always a feeling that the politicians had allowed violence to pervade society and the President, speaking on behalf of the other principals, regretted this unfortunate development.
This is an acknowledgement also made clear in the Global Political Agreement where the three parties admitted responsibility. They then committed themselves to eradicating violence from the political scene and created structures such as the Organ on National Healing and Reconciliation to work for peace.
It is important that the leaders of the different political parties take every opportunity where people are gathered to denounce violence as the President has done.
Disagreements will always be there. In fact politics is all about a contest of ideas. Just on the eve of the celebrations, the ideological difference between Zanu-PF and MDC-T played out openly as the two parties bickered over the theme of the celebrations. 
MDC-T through its leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, felt the theme, “Indigenisation and Empowerment for Social and Economic Transformation” was a Zanu-PF theme and not a national one.
The other MDC formation led by Professor Welshman Ncube did not think this was something worth quarrelling over. Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara also did not see what the hullabaloo was all about. As far as he was concerned the two approaches — indigenisation and economic empowerment as advocated by Zanu-PF and investment and job creation as promoted by MDC-T — could exist side by side.
What this means is that as we approach the elections there is going to be vigorous debate on the two approaches.
But for the independence celebrations, it is almost impossible to commemorate our freedom without referring to the objectives of the liberation struggle.
Our freedom was a result of a protracted armed struggle, which was motivated by the need to own and control every nook and cranny of Zimbabwe. To deviate from this would be to betray the struggle and those that sacrificed for it.
The MDC-T approach is based on a myth that ownership of resources by locals will not create jobs. It seeks to perpetuate the colonial mentality of blacks remaining slaves even though they are the rightful heirs of the country.
The same argument was advanced during the land reform programme and farm workers were turned into instruments of resistance, claiming they would lose their jobs if their white employers left. This was as if the new farm owners would not need labour to produce. But now they have found employment on farms run by new black owners.
There is practically no way indigenous Zimbabweans can run mines and factories without employing their fellow Zimbabweans to provide the skills and labour needed.
The argument that investors will not come if Zimbabweans have controlling shares is also hollow. Serious investors will know that they will still make a lot of money with less than 49 percent of the shareholding.
So the real battle for the theme was about whose agenda gets the limelight at the independence celebrations. As it turns out, the majority of Zimbabweans did not find the theme to be “repugnant” as claimed by Mr Tsvangirai.
This is a problem that MDC-T will face for a long time, trying to find relevance in Zimbabwean politics without upholding the objectives of the liberation struggle that brought Zimbabwe’s independence. Yet they could easily associate themselves, like all other Zimbabweans, with the liberation struggle and uphold its values, and still come across as a viable opposition to Zanu-PF.
This would come at the expense of angering their Western handlers who still believe they can successfully oppose transfer of wealth from their hands into those of the black majority in Zimbabwe.
All this lays the ground for an exciting election should we all shun violence and choose to debate the merits and demerits of what the politicians promise to do for the electorate.
The other good thing to take from this year’s celebrations is the enthusiasm Zimbabweans have shown in celebrating their independence. The National Sports Stadium was just not big enough to accommodate those that wanted to be part of the celebrations.
This is probably because they felt they could celebrate their freedom without being made to identify with any political party and knowing that they were safe from any form of political violence.
As a country we can build on this by magnifying our points of agreement and playing down our differences.