Good ideas not heroes

THE culture of invincibility among political leaders is not just an egoistic endeavour from power-hungry individuals failing to control the urge of unbridled ambition, but in a huge way it is the ubiquitous character in our people that blindly hails individual heroism above the greatness of good ideas.

The dilemma of succession politics in Africa is not at all a unique experience, and many a time it is the perceived invincibility of founder politicians that makes the word succession sacred in itself – a word so unutterable for one within the echelons of power, suicidal even, as those calling for the succession of Morgan Tsvangirai will easily testify. Only Roy Bennett seems immune on this one, at least for now.

The “hero” stature of Morgan Tsvangirai among his supporters within the MDC-T and elsewhere in the West obfuscates the man’s otherwise profound ignorance, and it is telling that heroism can be allowed to grant a man immunity against any form of blame, that a man so perceived as a hero can sin unabated banking on the blind faith he enjoys from a fanatical following.

It really does not matter what our political affiliations or beliefs are, our people must be reminded that for our own good and for the good of our future we should not be looking for heroes but for good ideas.

In any revolution messiahship should not lie within dividuals but with the people, and it is fundamentally important that the good ideas behind any revolution are placed well above any individual ambition or aspiration, however glorious. This “Mandela of the party” hullabaloo does not really mean anything even for South Africans, and surely not for Zimbabweans.

President Mugabe’s ideas are common knowledge at a global level, whether they are being expounded by his detractors or by his admirers.

At independence he was considered a hardcore Marxist aligned to the socialist-communist movement, shifting in the aftermath of the Cold War to an IMF disciple who embraced neo-liberal capitalist policies that dismally failed to address the welfare needs of Zimbabweans.

Today’s Mugabe is known for his radical revolutionary stance that forcefully reclaimed white-occupied farmlands that were a sad legacy of the inequalities of the colonial era, much as he is also renowned for the popular indigenisation policy.

It is sad for Zanu-PF to allow the outer world to perceive the succession of President Mugabe as premised more around death matters than around the revolutionary ideas for which the name Robert Mugabe stands. Now everyone in Zanu-PF is worried about stopping the chaotic nonsense around the election of the party’s leadership. There is really an easy way: Stop participating in it. Those in Zanu-PF’s power corridors must stop the meaningless hunt for little heroes, and start hunting for brilliant ideas. The provincial leadership structures of the party must by definition comprise of allies of the people, and not mere allies of power-obsessed selfish political aspirants who hold no known ideas about the course of the revolution they so much purport they wish to take over. There is only one Zanu-PF and anyone that wishes to occupy any leadership position in the party must come as an individual of great ideas to the people, not as a front of some cartel run by some don harbouring inglorious ambitions.

Like any other writer worthy the name, this writer has an oath to be a moral agent “trying to bring the truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them,” as Noam Chomsky would put it. Being a newspaper columnist comes with a level of power and privilege, and like it is with politicians and all other leaders, the temptation to abuse that power and privilege cannot be underestimated. The responsibilities of a writer as a moral agent are like that of all others occupying any space of power or social privilege, be they intellectuals, politicians, religious leaders or corporate leaders.

When a writer becomes a commissar for those in politics that writer indisputably abandons his responsibility to try and bring the truth about matters so important to readers that the readers will have to use their inalienable right to do something about it. Such a writer is no different from a politician that mistakes the power vested in him by the voters for personal intelligence and character exceptionalism. He is no different to a pastor that misconstrues his counselling role as a privilege to prey on vulnerable women. Being a political writer is not exactly an honourable vocation. It entails speaking the truth to power, and power is notorious for its impervious nature when it comes to matters of truth. Power also ruthlessly fights back. The idea in writing against puppet politics in Zimbabwe and everywhere else is a just a noble effort to try and bring the truth about the dangers of allowing the expansion of imperialism and global subjugation of smaller and weaker nations, and the ultimate aim is to make the reader do something about it.

For seven long years this column has spoken relentlessly against the evils of imperialism and the unacceptability of all agents of imperialism, be it sponsored puppets or brainwashed elites. The people of Zimbabwe did something about these matters of human significance on July 31 2013. They rejected imperial subjugation in a very emphatic way.

Given the opportunity to choose between jobs and upliftment at the benevolence of foreign investors on the one hand and economic emancipation of the indigenous person through local ownership of the means of production on the other, the people overwhelmingly chose the later. But the writings from this writer have not been without repercussions. Imperialism is a complex monster with lethal fangs and this writer has lost just about everything materially and socially, and all that remains is the dignity of truth and justice purchased almost at the ultimate price. For now no elaboration will be made.

There is a world on this universe where being tagged with a Mugabe label of any kind is considered worse than the death penalty, and by way of residence this writer has what he calls a home in one such a place, albeit a temporary one. Just like this writer refuses to submit to imperial power regardless of the cost, he also refuses to be a subject of any form of state power, especially when state power is used by ill-intentioned politicians that at times can be audacious enough to hijack entire revolutions, blatantly betraying the majority cause. Of what benefit to the empowerment revolution are some of the primitive irregularities so characteristic of Zanu-PF politics today? A party with a Politburo that runs after little boys merely expressing their wish to represent the people among whom they were born cannot be trusted without question on the more important matter of custodianship to a national revolution.

It is stupid in its entirety to expect a party that can show very little regard for the voice of its own supporters to be taken seriously as custodians of a revolution in whose way stands such monstrous powers as Western imperialism.

The Zanu-PF Politburo expects the party’s supporters to simply ratify the wishes of powerful politicians within its ranks, and that is why anyone failing the popularity test at grassroots level seems to be seeking Politburo support and endorsement for undeserved ascendancy.

Instead of imposing its inexplicable opinion on all others, the Politburo must of necessity seek the people’s opinion while it still can be found.

This writer will not seek respect by subordinating himself to power, and will not seek privilege by reducing himself to a commissar or an apparatchik. That is neither good for this writer or for the greater cause of the readers that read this column. Most worryingly it would be a great betrayal to those on whose slain bodies and spilled blood this revolution of ours is founded, much as it would be a shameful perfidy to the collective aspiration of our people.

We cannot thwart the barbarous imperial regime-change agenda only to allow ourselves to be partakers in a cause of betrayal – to be victims of a treacherous few that in skewed opinions believe they own the revolution on the nation’s collective behalf. These are the people bent on popularising the culture that constantly pressures people so they can feel they are helpless, that the only role they can ever play is to ratify and to consume.

In a revolution we need not set up people as models or heroes. Rather we need to set up actions, thoughts and principles. There is no person on this planet with one single model person after whom they derive every single aspect of life. There is no such thing, and this writer feels we should be seeking good ideas ahead of models or heroes. After all we are not at all engaged in idol worship.

We all cannot fathom a reversal of the land reform program, and some of us shudder to comprehend the reversal or setback of the economic empowerment policy.

However many a revolution have suffered reversals and setbacks in the past, and most heartrending is the Sankara-led Burkinabe revolution that was terminated and reversed on the 15th of October 1987 – that fateful day when Thomas Sankara was brutally assassinated by imperialist reactionaries in Quagadougou. Whatever cause may one day eliminate the physical presence of the person of Robert Mugabe in this here our revolution it must not be allowed that such a fate takes from our midst the revolution in its entirety the same way things happened in Burkina Faso in 1987. We would be foolhardy to imagine for once that we lack a Blaise Compaore in our midst; that one time right hand man and collaborator of the legendary Sankara who later turned traitor backstabber. He is the man who organised the coup that propped Sankara to power in 1984, and he also masterminded the assassination of the upright revolutionary in 1987.

For 26 long years after the death of Sankara, Compaore has presided over the governance of Burkina Faso and he has not stood for a single value of the revolution for which Sankara sacrificed his own life. Rather Compaore has stood for everything that Sankara ever stood against, from imperial domination to quisling politics.

Burkina Faso has had to endure Compaore’s policies of “rectification” for more than two decades now, and by this the man who at one time masqueraded as the custodian of the Burkinabe revolution means a reversal of whatever the Burkinabe revolution stood for.

The so-called reformists or moderates within Zanu-PF may not exactly be as lethal as Blaise Compaore in terms of how they may eliminate revolutionary leadership, but rest assured they lack remorse more than Lucifer himself when it comes to reversing whatever this revolution stands for, if ever a chance were to be granted. Many of us have been fooled that the greatest threat to Zimbabwe’s land reform program is the British, or its puppets in the MDC-T. But we now all know that neither the British nor Tsvangirai’s MDC stand a realistic chance against this revolution. What must be feared most is the Compaore camp in this Zimbabwean revolution – the MDC-minded politicians within the revolutionary ruling party. We are here talking about the secret admirers of neo-liberal capitalist expansionism.

After dealing a heavy blow to the declared opposition to its policies Zanu-PF stands a significantly worrying chance of losing the greater war to the undeclared opposition within its own ranks. The greatest challenge with this undeclared opposition is that it purports to be behind the revolution, to be its engine even. It is a silent opposition that alongside other Western-backed opposition parties hoped fervently for a long-term postponement of the July 2013 election. Many will recall that many times the MDC-T told the nation of the presence of this “progressive force” within Zanu-PF, and how it was fast losing its voice against “the chaos faction.” It is a silent opposition in whose ranks are kingmakers in the mould of Blaise Compaore – deadly strategists with the power to create and assassinate kings.

Apart from smiling at all the Sankara speech deliveries Compaore was never really recorded giving a revolutionary speech against imperialism all by himself; just like not everyone by the side of President Mugabe is comfortable delivering a speech against Western imperialism the way the revolutionary leader does. That, comrades is no coincidence. We need a people with a capacity to enforce accountability and this is why this revolution must be placed right back in the hands of the masses. Otherwise there will be no difference between Tsvangirai’s supporters and the people who support this revolution. Both sets of supporters will be subjected to the same shenanigans.

Tsvangirai knows that the key was lost on the other side of the street but he is pointing everyone under a lamppost because that is where the light is.

The key to the success of this revolution is in the successful implementation of the land reform and in economic empowerment policies, and no other panacea is good enough. We cannot fool our own people all the time, much as we may succeed some of the time, only with some of the people.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!