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Gibson Nyikadzino
Herald Correspondent
When Chairman Hebert Chitepo, an embodiment of revolutionary ideas and self-sacrifice, was assassinated on March 18, 1975 the idea of freedom and independence among Zimbabweans did not die because an important figure had stopped to breathe. His death served as an inspiration to many Zimbabwean young liberation fighters whose sacrifices altered the trajectory of the war of independence.
Also, when Burkina Faso’s Marxist revolutionary and Pan-Africanist Thomas Sankara was assassinated on October 15, 1987 by his friend Blaise Compaore, his supporters eagerly waited for a rightful moment when Sankara’s ideas would be reincarnated. Today the Burkinabe see Sankara’s ideas in Captain Ibrahim Traore.
That is how powerful ideas. If well fertilised and nurtured with ideological rigour, they even germinate years later after those who planted them are long dead.
In the context of ideas, the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran, in an Israeli intelligence operation confirms the central thesis that Samuel Huntington presented in his famous book, Class of Civilisations.
Clash of Ideologies
What Huntington’s argument confirmed is that conflicts in the post-ideological or post-modern era will be fueled by differences in identity, religion and civilisational histories. In short, conflicts will be ideological. The intellectual community in general dismissed it as somewhat strange if not downright wrong.
But that has become a reality. In the Global South the idea that is gaining prominence is decoloniality and the decolonial turn, while in the Middle-East the resurgence of Islamic values is gaining prominence and raging at western civilisation and all it stands for while in Asia, the Confucian philosophy still guides ideas on how most of those people interact and react. It is undebatable that ideas are now a source of problems because of the pluralistic nature of society.
Because it is a clash of ideas, among Israeli military leaders, there is a consensus that they will not be able to defeat Hamas on the battlefield and ideologically, as confirmed in June by Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli Defence Force spokesperson.
“Hamas is an idea. Anyone who thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong. The political echelon needs to find an alternative, or it will remain,” said Hagari.
By making these submissions Hagari highlighted that the IDF was casting doubt on the capability and credibility of attaining the objectives of their mission to demolish Hamas.
In Haniyeh’s assassination, he joins a list of other Hamas or Palestinian leaders who have been killed by the Israeli government as it has tried to thwart or stop the ideology of resistance to its occupation, without elimination the thought of resistance. Israel has kept itself alive by assassinating resistance leaders.
Not worried by death
The idea of freedom and resistance has been difficult to eradicate among the Palestinian people, even when their political leaders are assassinated. From Yasser Arafat’s death in November 2004 following his poisoning, to the assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004 and Haniyeh’s assassination on July 31, Palestinians have not given up on their resistance.
The idea or ideology of resistance being pursued by the Hamas like any ideology, is not an end for its followers. It is but a means to satisfying the basic human need of feeling worth, proud and significant through serving values and imperatives that ideology represents.
As of now, the idea of resistance among Palestinians will not die and is being accepted to serve an important need. That it has not been abandoned means it still serves their goals as they are yet to adopt any alternatives that appear to better serve the need in question.
Gaza’s Marshall Plan
The so-called “miracle” of Western Europe’s economic recovery particularly that of the vanquished Germany, was made possible by the Marshall Plan, an American initiative following the end of World War II.
The Western community, realising that it is not emerging victorious against Gaza, is providing a comparable strategy they believe might significantly influence Palestinians to drop their resistance ideology for economic enticements in the rebuilding of infrastructure in the Strip.
The Western thought that economic inducements can alter the resistance are incongruent with realities on the ideas of resistance. Economic inducements alone are not going to appease Hamas and Palestinians, as history has demonstrated elsewhere that an occupied people need political freedom first, which they will translate to their economic benefits.
The goal of showing the Palestinians that there is a “better”, “more attractive” alternative to the idea of resistance will not be accomplished without Palestinians winning their ultimate sovereign and independent nationhood.
You cannot kill ideas
The claim that you cannot kill an idea is undeniably true. Ideas have no physical existence, and therefore cannot be destroyed. Also, there are only two infinities in the world, time and ideas.
Without ideas, people cannot imagine anything. Ideas are scary, that is why the collective West is fighting Palestinians through Israel. The West does not understand what the idea of resistance entails.
In the Western world, where public opinion is heavily influenced by ignorance of what is going on in the world because of liberal mainstream media, people routinely use crude information shortcuts to make political judgments. This biggest error in this political judgement is to think that the Hamas idea of resistance will be defeated.
Ideas are strong symbols indicative that revolutionary self-determination is a God-given right which one should pursue without restrictions. The loss of martyrs and heroes should only scare oppressors.
In the absence of people like Chitepo or Sankara, Haniyeh among other, what Sankara said a week before he was assassinated lives eternally.
“While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”
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